PLANS, PLANNED AND UNPLANNED DAYS

“Anwar, you beauty! Wonderful strokes at a stretch, five sixes for the over. He does that really well. He reads the game carefully. Pakistan needs him now  ...” A midst the papare sounds, the loud whistles and the noisy applauses of the live cricket match that came out of the television, I faintly heard my phone vibrating far on the table. It was a viber call. Interestingly the number was too long. It had more than 10 digits. Quite pleased with the general education lessons, I knew +69 was the country code for Australia. The phone rang twice but I didn’t bother to answer because the call was unknown. The fourth, I picked up the phone . It said “hello” and she wanted to assure if it was me whom she was calling to. The voice wasn’t familiar. I said “yes ! yes!” twice in a crooked voice. Sooner I knew it was one of mates, whom I met in the sixth grade. There is nothing much of her I remember because that encounter, in year 2003 was the first and the last of our meetings.

My friend explained me that she got my phone number from another friend of hers, whom I know well. I was frankly happy to talk with her. I felt downright for her having remembered of me. Until then I didn’t know that she had left school to do London A/L’s.  She is now a second year student in the University of Melbourne, studying for her Bachelors in Accounts and Finance Management.

We had a few words exchanged. She was quite eager to know what I was doing too. She briefed me the life in Australia, her studies and the part time work she had been doing for some time. But there was something disturbing in the conversation as we moved. She suddenly asked me  about my plans for the New Year. I paused for a moment. It reminded me of legitimately life improving New Year’s resolutions that I came across a dog’s diary I’ve read. Those resolutions read as follows –

1. To eat more that make you feel good
2. Run outside and yell more
3. Greet everything
4. Be nice to nice people
5. Fart without shame
6. Worry less about things you can’t eat and play with
7. Take care of your genitals
8. Pick fights with shoes and pillows
9. Be less scared of telephones and strangers

I shamelessly accepted that I have no such plans even when a dog does! It’s only exams and nothing else to get prepared with brand newly for me. I felt “I am old”, not new. New years are different than it was.

Back then when I was schooling there was so much of getting ready for the New Year. New books, new uniforms, new classrooms, new teachers and sometimes new friends. Then more determined to work better than the previous year or may be to achieve better grades in subjects than before. A fresh start was something long awaited. But now the “New year” seems just a name. There is no such preparation. I’ll be still using the same old lecture notes, the torn and ragged module papers, the same lecture halls, the same lecturers followed by the first year final exams on the very first day of the coming year.

There’s one thing for sure though.

There will be days lived and loved, disappointments and achievements, praise and criticism which will be new undeterred by old notes, old modules and the old lecturers.

New year resolutions are quite common among people today, especially the West. Resolutions tend to come in two ways. Either to do something good or to kick some bad habit. Some people are obsessed with making resolutions. I’m quite amazed as to what’s so significant about resolutions. Is it a must? Do you know any person who has lived up to his resolutions made at the beginning of an year? I could hardly count on such. I have observed that many who make resolutions at the beginning end up failing to do them or else they forget their plans in the middle of their journey.

I’m not discouraging those who make resolutions. Don’t get me wrong. Resolutions are good to rate yourself and make oneself transformed in better ways. Yet the timing is irrelevant I think. It shouldn’t be necessarily in late December or early January. Plans or goals can be set at any time. Anytime of the year is good for self-improvement.

How satisfied are you in 2013?

2013 was an unplanned year for me, filled with many unexpected confrontations, good or bad they may be. This has been the kind of life I’ve been living so far. It will be the same with 2014 and the rest of the years. As for me, I will consider each day as an opportunity for something new to be tried and live happily unplanned, random and adventitious.

It’s good to meet with haphazards and learn something worldly in life rather than to slip resolutions once made as you make a step further day by day.