For those memorable high-octane holidays!

This post is exclusively for those of y’all who feel you have the verve and the resolve, the zeal and the motivation, the drive and the ebullience, the enthusiasm and the determination within you to make a ‘better you’!

And this post is also, partly a response to those lovely mails I’ve been receiving from y’all over the past two weeks, on how to make your holidays a high-octane one, with added zeal and gusto to your days, your hours, your minutes and your seconds!

So here we go! Rightaway!

Well, holidays are those special, extended periods of leisure and recreation, meant to give you that extra space of your own, that precious extra time for yourself, that extra room of your own, all for yourself, by yourself, and exclusively for yourself!

Yesss! your holidays are meant to be your precious private time all for yourself, your personal time that’s been given to you on a platter, not to fritter it away on silly and absurd trifles, not to while them away on unending gossip, not to sit on your hands and stay put in your bed, not to idle away your time on endless chats and meaningless rants! not to entertain people on your list with some cheap, frivolous memes and forwards that any tom could easily do!

Borrowing some real life-sustaining phrases from the famed naturalist Thoreau, it would be so apt to say, with Thoreau, that, holidays are meant for personal reflections! Holidays are time for personal, independent reflections, voyages of spiritual discovery, and self-reliance!

And I quote Thoreau himself! He says -

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

Awww! How much he’s tried drinking life to the lees, in all its myriad grandeur!

Indeed, as Thoreau rightly points out, the more time you spend on yourself, the more you tend to work on increasing your self-worth and your self-esteem!

Just seven golden rules for y’all my dear student-learners, from your teacher, which I surely hope would immensely benefit you during these holidays and at other times as well!

Firstly, do a massive de-clutter on your personal space. Let go with boldness, on the unwanted clutters that bug you much and bog you much-o-much!

Thoreau advocates it! Cal Newport supports it! J Krishnamurti vouches to it! Carl Jung reinforces it! Socrates, Pythagoras and Plato emphasise it!

Indeed, if it’s gotta be your personal space, make sure you guard it with much care and caution!

Never allow intruders of any sort, into this sacred space!

Every Tom, Dick and Harry would try making a beeline to intrude into your precious little space, your little sacred space, that you’ve set apart exclusively for yourself! Beware of them all!

We humans are social beings! We humans are gregarious beings! There’s not an iota of doubt to that! But what’s a social being without celebrating the sacred, personal being in you? It’s as good as being totally lost in the madding crowd's ignoble strife! Ain’t it?

There’s no use whatsoever, in boasting of a thousand friends on facebook, or a hundred friends on whatsapp, or being part of a dozen groups, receiving a thousand likes on instagram, and eat the bread of sorrow, without taking time off to ‘knowing’ yourself, without taking time off to understanding your real worth, without taking time off to celebrating your own merit, without taking time off to respecting your sacred, personal space!

It’s something to the likes of, (to requote that powerful Arnoldian line,) being “a beautiful but ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain!”

‘Wings in vain!’ Shocking, ain’t it?

Yesss! Wings are meant to fly! To soar high! To reach the unreachable! To attain the unattainable! Not to render them vain, idle, valueless or useless!

So yesss! Do a declutter on your personal space, as often as you possibly can!

If you’re on social networking sites that, you possibly feel, drain you of your precious time, make you beat your 'wings in vain,' you'd do well to shut them off from your precious life, for at least a significantly brief period of time!

Minimise on the number of groups you’re in! That’s a perfect first step from your part, for a digital detox!

As much as possible, take a bold stance to come out of any ‘vain’ ‘trivial’ groups that revel and take pleasure in beating their ‘wings in vain’ all of the time, beating their very precious 'wings in vain' all the time, forwarding trivial gossips, worthless videos, time-consuming absurd messages, vulgar memes and crude jokes on to your personal, private, treasured walls!

Digital minimalism that Cal Newport advocates would necessarily mean a total digital detox!

But if that kinda digital detox ain’t a real possibility, well, you could possibly make yourself available only for those precious few friends who encourage and empower you all of the time! Not friends who exploit you and utilize you to their own, petty, cheap ends!

Well, as the saying goes, friends come into your lives for a reason, for a season, and for a lifetime! Avoid spending time, as much as possible, on these seasonal types, and the ones who stick to you for a reason!

They ain’t your well-wishers! Spending time on them is again akin to beating your ‘wings in vain’!

Have just a minimum of three to five good friends on your list. The rest are for ‘block’ mode for sure! No use out of them whatsoever for your personal and academic enhancement!

Yesss! Abruptly minimise on the groups in which you’re part of!

Don’t make yourself available to all toms on your friend list!

That makes you a kinda cheap and an ‘easy-grab-type’ in their eyes! If you are royally guarding your sacred space, it’s not meet for you to reply to every tom who knocks at your walls and disturbs you from off your personal, sacred space!

Just imagine you’ve got ten such friends who message you every day on a regular basis! One friend spends one hour on you! that means, ten friends take up ten hours of your daily grind! That amounts to almost one entire half of a precious 24 hours of a day, gone crap with the wind! 

If you’re royal enough, sane enough and vigilant enough, you’d really do well to devote downtime on yourself, and have the ability to say a bold ‘No’ to those disturbing distractions that play a subtle peekaboo at you! Never would you budge an inch to fall a prey to those cheap distractions, or bend to their tunes and notes, that quietly sway you off guard, and steal away your precious time, to their time-frittering, vain charms and lures!

Per chance, when you tend to do a declutter, your friends might take umbrage to this act of yours! Per chance your relatives might take offence when you come out of such groups!

But remember, in the long run, the same friends would give you ample respect for being yourself, and for celebrating yourself!

As Rajinikant in one of his movies says, “The Lion always advances bold, all alone! But it’s only the pigs that go in a litter or a swine!” And well, this Rajini-ism is meant to be an innocuous take, with no frills attached, whatsoever! ;-)

If a group is worth being in, just be in it!

Else, press the ‘Exit’ button rightaway!

Thereby you preserve your sanity, guard your individuality and protect your precious little personal space!

Try being in as few as two or three groups to the maximum! One for family, one for office and one for friends!

Personally, on an aside, let me also confess that, I’m part of just one group all these days and months – and that’s a Reading group! Everything else is, for me, a drain on our time! A blot on our concentration! An inducement for distractions! Which is again akin to beating your 'wings in vain!'

Secondly, take time off to do the things you’ve long wanted to do!

That’s because, holidays are amazing days for self-improvement!

It could be an empowering one like, paying a visit to a library!

The Anna Centenary Library or the Connemara Library have ample resources galore stacked up on their shelves, books that could provide you your daily intellectual nourishment, sustenance and succour for the entire duration of your holidays!

By any chance, if you’re paying a visit to a library, please make sure you don’t take all the books that you find alluring and attractive from off the stacks! Take just one book at a time! Promise yourself that you’re gonna read through it for thirty minutes non-stop without an interruption of any sort! Then, after the thirty minutes is up, appreciate yourself on your achievement! Take a break now! Walk up and down the aisles looking up the stacks once again! Don’t add any book whatsoever to your kitty now. Now come back and start from where you’d left off! This is a good exercise in committed, engaged and focused reading.

This apart, catching up on some long-lost elderly people amongst your kith and kin is another healthy holiday routine that you could possibly spend time on! Or catching up on some reading that you’ve always wanted to do, if not in a library, in the confines of your personal space! Or catching up on some writing that you’ve always so desired to do, are some of the other productive things you could possibly do in your personal space during your holidays!

Added, take some time off to watch a good movie! Regional or English! Treasured classics are for exclusive holiday viewings! Classic, good ol’ English movies in particular, just for the sheer joy of it!

You may want to practice on your dancing skills, hone on your piano skills, catch up on your painting skills etc!

You may want to learn a new language too! Like French, or German!

And please, for heaven’s sake, stop falling prey to those time-frittering video games that drain you of your precious time and energy!

Stop falling prey to those incessant chats with any Tom, Dick and Harry on ‘time-pass’ mode, that while away all your precious time!

Thirdly, try engaging yourself with your community in which you dwell, in a meaningful way! You could plant a sapling! You could visit an orphanage, you could visit an old-age home, and help with the destitute and the needy! There’s no greater joy in the world than giving your time to those in need! The blessings that accrue to you when you indulge yourself in these activities, are beyond measure!

The blessing of an elderly person who’s all alone in an old-age home, such blessings are the best blessings that one could ever receive in this life!

There are umpteen care services for the destitute and the orphans all around the city!

Banyan is one such care-giving organization in the city. You could enroll yourself as a volunteer with just one of them! At the same time, it would also do well to remember! Don’t put too many eggs in one basket!

Look up Google to watch out for any community-based activities that happen in your locality, or in your part of the city, and request them to avail your services to maximum use.

And please don’t expect anyone to come looking for you seeking for your help. Help should be volunteered. It’s not something that somebody forces upon you and pleads with you to take up!

Fourthly, indulge yourself in a vacaystay or a getaway to some wonderful, sylvan landscapes, where you can pamper yourself on those aesthetic sensibilities latent within you!

Take out your monoculars and do some bird watching! Take to the jungles, talk to those birds, talk to those trees, do some boating on a lone, pristine lake, and in the process do some inhaling of the fresh, pure, pristine greenery around you!

Walk to your heart’s content down the vale, up the mount, with quite minimal friends around you, to make sure you enjoy the bliss of it all!

Fifthly, holidays are those lovely days that are entirely at your disposal, to catch up quick on those wonderful sporting activities that you’ve so passionately loved to do! It could be playing badminton, or tennis, or football, or athletics, or your gym work-outs, or swimming! Make double sure you’ve ample downtime cut out for these recreational sports that refresh and invigorate you to the core!

Sixthly, take time off your holidays to visit historical places of interest! It could be a rare, one-of-its kind temple, a church or a mosque, or a shrine, or a gurudwara! Just admire and appreciate the beautiful architecture, the amazing art works, the sculptures, the pillars, the domes, the precincts, in all their glory and their aura.

In like manner, you could also pay a visit to those good ol’ forts and museums that have some rare-o-rare monuments of unending charm to them!

Seventhly, and yesss finally, make a list of your goals that you intend to achieve in the upcoming semester!

For example, you might take a resolve to yourself saying,

I would take time off to watch educational videos on youtube.

I would take time off to learn a new language.

I would take time off to learn a new skill, like positive thinking, cooking, public speaking, etc.

I would take time off to focus much on my NET/JRF or competitive exams.

I would take time off to do an online course that would enhance my academic life.

I would take time off to pick up a new hobby that I really love doing.

I would take time off to downsize and to declutter on my daily routine!

I would take time off to develop good habits that would influence others, like keeping my room clean, appreciating others, have my own personal space, etc.

I would take time off to read books I’ve always loved, books that’ve not been a part of my syllabus work in college.

I would take time off to write a blog or develop an educational website of my own, to jot down my thoughts!

And here’s wishing you a high-octane holiday time on the go!

Keep up the spirit!

Awake! Arise! Stop not till the goal is reached!

Wishes & Blessings!

images sourced from: tripadvisordotcom, pxheredotcom