A year older, a year bolder. My Birthday Affirmations.

I turn a new page in my life today.

I would be lying to you if I said this day marks a "fresh" start. From the day you gained your consciousness the existence of a fresh start has been wiped off the table. All it is, is a highly reflected on start with a blindingly bright hope of doing things differently in pursue for a better outcome.

Before you think about doing anything funny with the now very public announcement of my birth date, let me just say that it will be incredibly difficult for you to socially hack anything of value I have with the date. So simply hear me out.

I still remember very vividly turning 20 and laying there on my bed staring at nothing. I was a very motivated guy with astonishingly high aspirations. A few years earlier I had given myself a 5 year time limit to accumulate a minimum of 10 million. Safe to say, I have only accumulated a smaller percentage of it.

So, I stopped counting my age. Till date, I have to mentally calculate my age whenever the question comes up. In a way, putting a stop to keeping track of my age has only helped me look at life and my goals with a clearer vision.

With no time limit and making age an arbitrary number of no value to myself, I am now able to pursue my goals more freely. I had a similar experience with cash. As I moved away from cash, I could only always look at money as a paper with a very baseless value attached to it. That helped me look further away from just money. I started looking at things for value, not the monetary one.

I am still very unsure of how to explain, eloquently, that looking at age and money in a different perspective has helped me live a more gratified life. But it surely has.

Not until 6 years back had I started celebrating birthdays. That is right. From around an age of 8, I had completely boycotted celebrating my birthday. It is a very short story of how going beyond our regular duties to make the day feel special had gotten me to stop celebrating. A story that I'll leave for later.

But 6 years back I had realized that in a year full of tasks, and duties, and responsibilities, and aspirations, and challenges, this one day becomes a very rightful fit for a day of celebrating everything. A day chosen exclusively to look back at the past year and celebrate all the highs and lows. And also to prepare a very concise yet thorough note of things to do newly or differently in the next.

My first and foremost affirmation has something to do with timetravel. I have pondered about the thing I want to do the most. I have given it a whole day of thought and there was just one thing sticking out like a sore thumb. I want to go back to the guy I was a few years back.

I will become just as much, if not more, motivated, driven, fearless, tireless guy I was who challenged my own self to do better. I will strive for excellency and scrutinize myself for not achieving it.

I will push. Harder and harder every time until I don't eventually give birth to a brainchild that doesn't swirl its head in a nightsky where the stars are made from excellency. Nothing can stop me this year.

I will follow what every tacky romantic movie says: "Learn to love yourself first." I have been hard on myself. It has pushed me to places I never thought I would be in. So I need to find the love and satisfaction I have for myself. I will learn to love myself harder. It will only set me freer.

Friendships and relations are obligatory in a social animal. But it can also create a heap of expectations that may or may not be met. I will get rid of expectations and focus on relationships purely for the natural need of it and push myself to meet and conquer the expectations I would otherwise have from the other person.

I will free myself of stigma. As a brown person from a Eiddle-Eastern background, we are shackled and limited by social stigmas that are deeply rooted in our cultures. I have crossed my limits with great results but never really freed myself from them. It is time to completely destroy those shackles. It will take courage but will eventually make me who I really am.

I want to give more. I have realized I have spent a bit too much on myself while there are so many more people that could make more use of the money. So, this year I will double my efforts to give and provide. To be precise, I want to skip a meal every day and give the money needed to put the meal together to a person who'd need the money more than me.

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