A year of growing up.

So I am 24 now. The best thing about my birthday is that, due some weird kindergarten rule about admissions, I always end up being the youngest in the class. So by the time I turn a certain age, most my friends are already there. And since they don't explode, or suddenly start complaining of graying hair and muscle pains, it gives me enough courage to accept that life, for better or for worse, would continue being the same.

I wonder who came up with the idea of birthdays in the first place. If you think of it, besides your age, nothing really changes on your birthday. Obviously, the person who invented birthdays understood the human need to celebrate and also their need to be unique. So amidst the Holis and Diwalis and the new year's eve, this guy thought, how about giving each person a special day for celebration for himself. A day that becomes a part of his identity just like his name or his face. And the idea has been a success. Regardless of what I do on my birthday, I have a certain spring in my steps, a certain warmth in my smiles; because no matter how it turns out - it remains my day.

The past year has been a good year of growing up. I have seen a lot of highs and lows. I have been proud of my actions and ashamed of them. I have surpassed my expectations and disappointed myself. All in all, it was a year like a hindi masala movie that ended up having a generally happy ending. It is funny how my inner self feels so unchanged but has somehow evolved to give better advice over the year. In an attempt to enumerate the "learn" posts ,as I like to call them in life's journey (in no particular order), are:

• Lost my passport in a foreign land.
  
• My first break-up
  
• Relapsing into another relation and hurting a person.
  
• The biggest exam I failed after preparing for it.
  
• The biggest exam I cleared w/o preparing for it.
  
• Pattaya - night life.
  
• Working with (so-called) intelligent people
  
• Atrenta - ownership and accountability
  
• The dilemma of choice - and why success doesn't equate to happiness.
  
• Defeating an old enemy (CAT) and how perseverance pays (by buying you more time to fight it out!)
  
• Filling up unfavorable times with music and work
  

There are many more, but the above have been instrumental in evolving my psychology and shall play an important role in deciding my actions. Probably, working with "intelligent" people, has been the most important lesson this year. It has made me more confident about my abilities and as a result I feel more comfortable in asking for what I deserve - a major paradigm shift for me. I hope I have a longer list for the next year. Thank you God, for this life, for being consciously aware of how I am living it, and for being able to learn from it.