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Showing posts with label Bucket list. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bucket list. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

~~ Twenty for Twenty ~~

Yep, that’s what I am planning to call it.
If you haven’t guessed, I plan to aim for twenty goals for the year 2020 (and hence the name of the post). Yes, I am brave that way, even after failing miserably in few of my goals this year, I still want to go ahead and set up some goals for the year that’s to come. I do want to address the things that I couldn’t achieve this year. 20 is a huge number, yes, but the plan is to keep the goals as simple as possible. As I mentioned in my learnings of this year, I am also not going to be rigid about it, and if there’s a goal I am not enjoying enough, I am going to strike it off my list as I move forward.
I wanted to make sure I put it in writing here in this space, so that I am accountable to provide a regular status update.  I am going to be mindful to ensure that the goals are simple enough, doable without much fussing about required and doesn’t in itself add pressure or chaos to my already-busy-life. One of these past years –  I was too optimistic and had set myself up for a goal of reading 40 books a year and though I did complete it, towards the end, it turned out to be a chore due to other pressing responsibilities in life. I realized that year that I need to enjoy a goal I set, rather than doing it for the sake of doing it. And though I set manageable goals last year – it was still a miss on the most.  
I am doing something different for the coming year – I am segregating my goals into different categories – Health goals, Career goals, Personal goals, Vacation & Travel goals, Writing and Reading goals. I am also planning to ensure that I update here once a month on where I stand on these goals. It will help me reflect, be flexible and strike off/add goals as necessary.
How about you? Have you planned anything yet? Do you want to join me and list out your own Twenty for Twenty? If yes, then good time to start thinking about it and when you have clear set of goals, go ahead and post it on your own blog ðŸ™‚ Needless to mention, I’ll be happy if you let me know about it and I’ll be the happiest if you tag this post, so I know there’s one more soul like me who never gives up on setting up goals ðŸ˜›
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Monday, December 09, 2019

~~ Few different things ~~

Having used the past few days to vent and share my learnings for the year - I thought I'd also share a few things which have been different this year!

Travel: You might already know that I have a travel bucket list. My husband is not a bucket-list person. Weekend or holidays for him = stay at home and avoid traffic (I can understand this considering current traffic conditions and pollution) and for the most part its the same for me. But sometimes, I do want to strike a few things off my travel bucket list. This year, on this front has been rewarding.  Australia (must-see's), Belur (Architecture), Chennai (pure nostalgia), Mahabalipuram (Architecture), Pondicherry (Relaxation) are now to be struck off my list. Also, it was our first road trip ever - my husband is quite new to driving long distances, so it was a bit scary, quite tiring,  yet exhilarating.  We are planning for another road trip in the last week of December. Looking forward to it already. I am a fan of family traditions. Hopefully, this will stick as a yearly family tradition. Only time will tell :)

Learning: I have always wanted to get out of my current comfort zone and learn something entirely new and different. I tried that this year - and I am glad I did. Our organization's learning studio has such great learning content and I am hooked. I loved the idea of learning goals that was introduced this year. I had added more goals than were expected of me - I got an invite to a meeting where our internal L&D department were going to advise us few who had added insane goals, to keep learning, but remove the extra goals so as to not risk the 100% completion :P :P :P  I couldn't attend it as I had a conflict, and the L&D POC made sure to reach out to me, 1-1, to ensure I know, that, I was already at 100% and these additional fancy stuff I had added out of interest were pulling me down from 100% completion. It was a funny conversation where I kept insisting, that I want to learn and he kept saying, you can still learn in January :P
 

Dance classes: Losing weight is always one of my top 3 goals. This year, after coming back from Australia, the urge to be active was prominent.  Since I was not able to commit to daily walks, I enrolled myself in a nearby dance class for a day per week. I went for a couple of classes, loved it, but then the teacher fell ill, and then her children fell ill and finally her daughter got hospitalized :( She had to stop the classes for a few months. The family has recovered now and the teacher has resumed her classes this month. My first class again after this break is this weekend. Hope to continue the classes in coming year along with walking. 

Did you do anything different this year? 

Thursday, February 22, 2018

~~ [Post 22] – A glimpse of my To-Visit ~~

So, I just realized that, every single day, for past 21 days, except probably on the days that I posted my Zentangles and 55F's, I have been writing very very loooooooooooooong posts. And you, nice people, have been reading it without any complaints! Believe me, every day, I think, I should keep my post concise, short and sweet, to the point and such. But no, it doesn’t happen. I go on and on! So today I am giving you a break from the daily dose of word-diarrhea, and well, if you are thinking I hit a writer’s block, or maybe, I am just tired talking too much about myself, no, on both counts 😛 Just want this post to be less talk from me, more talk from you. Yes, I need suggestions. From you.
As you might by now already know, I maintain a lot of lists, To-Do, To-read, To-write, To-visit, To-eat, To-watch. And as weird as it might sound to a few, I regularly update these lists. Mostly with additions and at times with an update of completed stuff. The happiness that I get every time I strike out something in the list cannot be explained in mere words.  I have a huge list of to-visit places and I have been wanting to segregate the list for quite sometime now. I finally managed to organize the list for South India today which I plan to cover first. So, even if you may not be interested 😛 here goes my to-visit bucket list from South India. The ones that I have already visited and/or keep visiting now and then has been struck off . The ones in Italics – I have visited as a kid and would love to/might visit again, but they are not a priority!
So, coming to the suggestions part, people from various regions of South India, do let me know if I have covered the places that need to be visited around your regions. If I have missed any, suggest. I will add your suggestions to the list 😉 And I dont know if I can cover all of them at all, so some places will definitely need to be skipped, and if you have any suggestions w.r.to the places in the list that can be skipped, do let me know that too 🙂
To be frank, I have no idea if this is a realistic list, but hey, nothing wrong in dreaming & wishing, right?
Pondicherry
 Chikmagalur
 Hampi
 Kabini
 Bandipur/Nagarhole
 Coorg
 Dandeli
 Sakleshpur
 Mysore
 Gokarna
 Belur/Halebeedu
 Bangalore
 Murudeshwar
 Mangalore
 Udupi
 Jog waterfalls
 Pattadakal
 Badami
 Shimoga
 Srirangapatna
 Bellary
 CHitradurga
 Bidar
 Shravanabelagola
Goa
 Bekal
 Pathanamthitta
 Thenmala
 Kasargod
 Guruvayur
 Mararikulam
Thiruvalla
Palakkad
 Mallapuram
 KOttayam
 Cochin
 Idukki
 Kollam
 Thrissur
Varkala
 Kalpetta
 Kannur
 Kovalam
 Shringeri
 Kollur
 Tiruttani
 Trivandrum
 Alleppy
 Munnar
 Kumarakom
 Thekkady
 OOty
 Kodaikanal
 Mahabalipuram
 Chennai
 Madurai
 Kanyakumari
 Coonoor
 Coimbatore
 Rameswaram
 Tanjore
 Yercaud
 Vellore
 Muttukad
 Kumbakonam
 Velankanni
 Chidambaram
 Cuddalore
 Kanchipuram
 Gingee
 Tirunelveli
 Thiruvannamalai
 Kotagiri
Tirupati
Vijayawada
Anantapura
Vishakapatnam
Kurnool
Srisailam
Bapatla
Puttaparthi
Nellore
Lepakshi
Chittoor
Rajamundry
Srikalahasthi
Draksharama
Manthralaya
Arakkuvalley
Srikakulam
Guntur
Hyderabad
Warangal
Alampur
Bhuvanagiri
Nalgonda
Secunderabad

Monday, February 12, 2018

~~[Post 12] - Who I am not, at this point in time, but might be, way in future ~~

I bet, we all have our own bucket lists. Things we want to do before we bid goodbye from here.  I have one too. A pretty long one at that. But, have you ever taken a closer look at that list and noticed that sometimes there are wishes listed there that we would sooooooo love to do, we’d have added it to our ever-swelling-list after something inspired us, a movie, a book, a friend who couldn’t stop raving about it etc etc, we liked that very idea and we’d really want to do it, yet we also have a nagging feeling that, when the time comes to decide, we might just shy away from it and never take it to action. I have such conflicted bucket list wishes and this post is about such 5 wishes, which at this point in time,  doesn’t seem likely to be fulfilled.
Getting a tattoo – I love tattoos. I have friends and cousins who have inked themselves with massive tattoos and I always go “Awwww” accompanied with a series of questions all aiming at the pain inflicted. I have to admit, that , at those times, I get momentarily inspired to get myself inked with a tiny star or a tiny cute heart or a tiny little butterfly or anything tiny but cute. But that’s where it exactly stops. A little while later, the practicality of the whole thing looms large, reminding me, that I am scared of even a tetanus injection. A simple blood test can be my nurse’s worst nightmare. The guy/girl giving me a tattoo would just quit the profession, go deaf due to my screams and might end up going out of business if they’d try something on me. This wish is the very last one on my list 😛
Bungee Jumping – As much as I fear roller-coaster rides, whenever I have been to Indian exhibitions/carnivals, I have dared myself to ride as many rides as possible. Even the biggest, longest, steepest rides in Disney land or Universal studios or Six flags did not manage to deter me from trying them. I have been on every single one of the scary rides there, with my eyes shut closed, screaming my lungs out, crying and giving splitting headaches to whoever dared to sit with me on these rides. I have also tried zip line rides here in India, on a very small scale though and have managed to enjoy it! I have surprised myself at the courage that I have shown by trying these rides. So, around the time when I tried all these, I added Bungee jumping to my bucket list. Its been there in the list from a very very long long long time. I know my heart will be in my mouth and I would die on the way up if I ever tried this plunging-to-death stunt. I know that,  this is going to be safely on my list, never to be struck-off 😛
Attend a Bengali wedding – Ever since I watched Devdas, of course, the grand SLB movie, I have always wanted to attend a Bengali wedding. Dont ask me why. Its some teenage wish that I seem to have had after watching the movie. Now, it would have been possible to attend one, probably years ago, but, now, with all my current Bengali friends already married, seems like a wish that’d never see light. Ah, wait, I seem to have forgotten this young eligible bachelor in our very own NBAP group. Dude, you better invite me for your wedding (a Bengali wedding, pretty please)!  Note to NBAP group – we are all meeting at this guy’s wedding. Mark the date, whenever that is.
Have a dog as a pet – I have heard and even seen for myself – dogs are the only faithful beings who love you the most without you having to do much, except of course, love them back. No tantrums, no tit for tat, no arguments, no inflated egos, nothing of that sort. Just pure love. It is so very true that pet dogs are the only ones who dearly miss you when you are not around and are the only ones at home who are truly happy when you return home 😛 🙂 I do want to experience that kind of pure selfless love from an animal. Only problem, I am damn scared of them. I just cannot pet animals. Try as I might. I cannot.
Go on a lone trip with just a backpack – As much as I love the idea of going on a trip all by myself, take a vacation all alone, with just a backpack, no strings attached – its something that I love only as an idea. I like to make vacation memories with people I love, not alone. It took me ages to go to a restaurant all alone to have just a cup of coffee – necessity drove me to do that, and nothing else. Its not that bad really, going alone I mean. Many do it. Many actually prefer being alone when they eat, watch a movie, travel etc. But I know, I cannot do it. It just makes me sad to go to a restaurant or a movie or a vacation alone. So going on a trip alone, as exotic as it sounds, I just might never do it.
Well, there goes my 5 bucket list items that I might never even go about trying. Now, there is another reason, I wrote this post. There are a lot of such things in life, which I never thought I’d be able to do and I never even thought I’d have a situation to do such things at all, but I did end up doing it. It need not be great big things, I mean even the simplest of things, like breaking a tender coconut open or going for a coffee and a snack all alone to a restaurant, zip-lining, watching a horror movie in a theater.. A lot of such unexpected things, which in my wildest dreams, I never thought, I’d do, I eventually did – due to unexpected circumstances, a need, a necessity, just being-brave-for-the-moment-thingy or a simple challenge thrown at me,  by someone up above.
So, I wrote this post also for my future-self, for, if I ever, get around doing one of these not-quite-possible-bucket-list-items, I can come back and reminisce at how I had thought at one point in my life, that these things were never even remotely possible. To come back and realize,  how life had proven me wrong. To realize, that its never too late to try any new thing in life.
Have you ever done something in life, you never thought you’d do? I’d love to hear about them. Let me know either as a post of your own or as a comment here. Do you have any wishes which at this current moment seem very unlikely to be fulfilled? Jot them down in a post of your own or as a comment here.
Also, lets remember to come back to this post, years later, to see if we still feel the same. If not, let’s go ahead fulfilling them and striking them off our lists 🙂