BANDWAGON

December 31st. As my hometown has banned all sorts of fireworks, I am forced to sit in quiet contemplation. It’s been a full year since my last visit here and something feels so different though I have been surrounded by things that have stayed the same. 

Being here again makes me think of exactly the things you think about when a year ends and a new one is about to start. Bandwagon-y as it seems, I’m writing on anyway in the hope of coming up with something honest if not so original.

Home

2014 has underscored how tricky the concept of “home” can be. 

I moved cities for college and, eventually, work. My family still lives in the city I grew up in and I go home at least once a year. But the last 9 years have been spent in the city where my alma mater and current career are. It’s where I’ve started to do things completely on my own. 

So which is home? The place where I spent my first 17 years, or the city which is teaching me many things about adult life? 

Both will always have pieces of my heart, eliminating the certainty of the proverbial aphorism “home is where the heart is.” I refer to both as “home.” But, perhaps inevitably, the kind of comfort I feel in these cities are different.

The childhood home is where your character begins to be formed. Your core was built in this place.  It is also where you will always be seen in relation to the little girl or boy that you were, where you are seen through the eyes of those who watched you from birth till adolescence. It is also where you can kick back and revel in memories of childhood -- a time when you probably were less weighed down by things like career, "the future," and existential questions.

The home of your adult years is where your character is enhanced in whole new dimensions. It is where you are given the choice to build your identity quite removed from the image of childhood. It is also the place where you learn that your life is yours to live, that you are accountable for it, and that self-determination is the greatest gift and curse given to a human being. 

So which is home? Perhaps it is a place that accepts you completely: childhood and adulthood. It is anywhere that offers a presence that will take us on wholly and would compel us to grow and thrive towards the future and the life that we are meant to live.

Joy

2014 also taught a tough lesson on knowing when you have something good and having the balls to keep choosing what gives you happiness. 

From a distance, the notion of “choosing your happiness” seems easy enough. Why would you not opt for joy? But any adult would tell you that there are many obstacles that will hold you back from choosing joy. 

It can range from the disbelief that you are experiencing such happiness at long last, to not knowing what makes you happy. Environmental pressure and conditioning that are not so easily broken away from, the fear of getting it wrong and of the possibility of joy ending. 

I remember my guy best friend texting me every few days with messages with the following gist: “What the hell! I’m so happy! How is this possible???” — exclamations of sheer disbelief.

All these easily lead to sabotaging your own bliss. Sabotage that needs to be prevented if you were to live in joy.

The fear of loss must be overcome by the possibility of greater joy once you have chosen to free yourself and experience happiness. A love that gives more grief than joy can be left behind. Resistance to unnecessary drama must be practiced till perfected. A new love that is found requires the mustering of faith and strength to be pursued. The life you envision yourself living must be chosen time and time again for it to materialise.

The theme of 2014 is summarised by what a Jesuit friend told me sometime in December: real happiness has a cost, but it is usually worth the price you pay.

Forward

So I move into 2015 with these things in mind. 

Having a home is not so much as having a living space somewhere as it is deciding to build a life in a place you’re in. It’s where you decide to embrace the good and the bad of residing somewhere. Not because you see the place simply as a transitional stop and you need to survive till you can leave. Rather, you do it because it is where you truly are at that moment. And whether or not you move somewhere else sometime later is not the undercurrent that drives your everyday life.

Happiness is something that we must believe we deserve and can achieve. To be thoroughly happy is not selfish. More importantly, happiness is a living thing. It evolves just like a human being. It can shy away from the light of day. It can build character such that it knows how to keep itself alive even at the worst times. A character obtained by ample nurturing and attention for it.

I’ll be 26 this year. One of the many gifts that aging gives is wisdom, they say. Thus, I have high hopes for 2015. Hopefully, the last 20-something years gave me something that I could count as wisdom that I could use to have a better life. 

Happy new year.