Bloganuary Day 7: What could I do differently?

I am fairly certain that very the thought of doing things differently is something that intrigues every human being. I am yet to meet a person who has not thought about changing something from the past. I think it is a brilliant thought exercise, which probably spawned all the time travel movies that we see today as well.

Oh, I have my own list of a million things that I wish I did differently. I could probably write an entire blog post or even a book about it, there are just too many things to count, you know? I will just list two broad themes from my list for now.

To take good care of my health

I am in my mid-thirties right now, and do not have any major health problems as I write this (touch-wood). But the fact is that I had never really taken care of my health. The honest truth is that I had taken it for granted all my life, and at this point, I am beginning to see warning signs of future troubles. As I step into 2024, this is definitely something I am doing differently – prioritizing both my physical and mental health is definitely one thing I am doing differently this year, as opposed to past years.

For starters, I am trying that to bring my focus back to health, and practice acts of radical self-care, which includes, but is not limited to exercise and mindfulness, among other things. I am confident that taking good care of myself is going to help me out immensely in 2024.

To be more intentional with my actions

I have always let things “be” in life. Apart from certain pivotal moments, I have gone with the flow, I have let the “universe” direct my course. I would like to change that a bit and be more intentional as I step into this new year. Now, I certainly do not want to stop following where the universe takes me – of late, I have begun to realize that I am deeply connected to the world around me. I am beginning to see the signboards and cues more clearly, and if anything I wish to keep an eye out for them more and to follow my destiny this year. Nonetheless, I want to be more intentional about it, rather than losing my grip and letting myself go with the flow. Quoting William Ernest Henley’s Invictus, I wish to be “the master of my fate and the captain of my soul,” this year. And I believe I can do that by being more intentional with my actions.

On Doing Things Differently…

As I had shared earlier on in this post, I definitely have too many things from the past that I would like to change or do differently. The hard fact remains that I cannot change any of them. Human beings are yet to invent time travel. And even time travel is possible in the near future – even if I could change something from the past, at least one time travel theory states that it could cause catastrophic changes in the present!

I have accepted my past, including all the mistakes I have made, and I am in peace with all of them.

I am who I am today, thanks to those mistakes. And every single mistake I made has taught me invaluable lessons. I am in the process of learning from them, I am in the unique situation of having made too many mistakes early on in life, that’s a lifetime of lessons. And learning from your mistakes is indeed the best form of learning! In fact, I will gracefully and humbly admit, that I am in a good place in life today’s, and I owe a lot of my current success to my mistakes from the past.

Coming back to the today’s prompt of: “What could I do differently?” – even if I crack the code of space-time continuum and find a portal to go back into my past and change things with the drop of a hat, I wouldn’t, period. I am grateful with what I have today, and who I am.

With that said, I have full control over the present, and I can use my learnings from the past to do things differently “now”, and that will mould my future. And that is exactly what I am doing right now.

I am using my learnings from the past to do things differently, right now, in this very moment.