January. This whirlwind of a month holds a strange ominous feel for the slightly superstitious among us. It’s as if this month is the precursor to the following events in the course of the year. January is the benchmark, the standard,

Of course, it might be a bit premature to pose that semi-inspirational paragraph to you all, considering that I’m actually still writing this in December in order to meet my deadline. But amidst all the holiday cheer (or the aftermath of) and sunny hours spent outside relishing the sun’s glory before it hibernates once again for winter, may we realise that January is very much the month for the self. Like showers are best taken in the morning (well, for me anyway), January is the ideal time to set out our individual co-ordinates for the course of the year.

A year has the paradoxical effect of going by so fast –‘the year has gone by so fast!’-yet, sometimes it feels like the very hours that make up a year just won’t pass soon enough. It can be an equally enjoyable but tumultuous time and most of the time, we will very rarely get what we set out to get. But I am a strong believer of the statement “You are judged by what you finish, not by what you start. In truth, January is only a formality; it is where we end up in December shows our commitment to our resolutions, our dreams. There is nothing more disconcerting to watch a motivated person lose their initial zeal and proceed to spend the rest of the year as a walking zombie of the bygones.

 So may we never lose faith, face and ferocity. May we never lose direction and never ever compromise our ideals, or bypass a risk for the sake of our dreams and hopefully still come out in one piece in December-maybe battered, bruised and broken, but still (thankfully), alive.