2022 is one hell of year, teaching us harsh lessons right at the beginning. We enter a new year with a new COVID variant raging that gives a damn to vaccines. Just when we thought we were getting better of the virus enters 2022 and shows us how little we are in control!

But isn’t that what we do all along, trying to wrest control from the uncontrollable? If you were to think about it, we have very little in control – be it the virus, the weather, how other people feel about us or for that matter even our own feelings. For instance, in Agartala where it rains ever so often, my mom’s saree choices would be determined by the weather. So often she would wear a saree and change again because it would suddenly start drizzling.

When I was younger, I had wished I could control people’s feeling. Often, I had hoped I could make someone fall in love with me. I wished under the falling stars, I blew my eyelids with a whisper, I prayed expecting some kind Fairy God Mother to hear the poor little me. And when that didn’t happen, I let my emotions take control of me, I blocked logic out as I wallowed in self-pity.

Eventually I realized I could only control my emotions and by doing so I could actually get better control of the controllable – by giving a damn about things and people who don’t care about me, by adapting myself to situations that are beyond anybody’s control and more importantly by becoming less of control freak and going with the flow.

Rather than worrying about things beyond me I now try to take life as it comes, enjoy every moment, every day. I change my course when I have to, I am cautious when I need to be. After all the journey of life is as important as the destinations or the goals that we set for ourselves!