Lara Dutta promises to bare her soul

It’s almost the end of February, two months have passed into the new year, (way quicker than I expected) and I thought it’s time to take stock of my New Year’s resolutions, writes Lara Dutta.

It’s almost the end of February, two months have passed into the new year, (way quicker than I expected) and I thought it’s time to take stock of my New Year’s resolutions!



My three resolutions in order of priority were: One, have more awareness — of my actions, words, the food I eat, my body. The second was to learn to drive, and the third was to complete at least one of the projects I’ve been writing.



How have I fared? On the awareness one, I’m genuinely trying. I didn’t think I was going to master the ‘Power of Now’ in a few months, but I keep reminding myself to be more conscious from moment-to-moment.



This has its own pitfalls because this ‘awareness’ seems to rear its head at the most inopportune moments! Like, when I have stuffed another spoonful of low fat yogurt with chocolate sprinkles into my mouth, I can hear a voice in my head say, "what are you doing?



You know this is going straight to your hips, don’t you? That’s when I sheepishly try to drown out awareness by telling myself I’ll run an extra 15 minutes on the treadmill tomorrow!

On the driving front, I’ve got all the details. I know how many hours it’ll take me to learn, the number of classes, the car I would need to learn on, the timings and the instructor. Now I just need to ‘commit’.

That’s a scary word! I hate ‘committing’ to anything if I know there is a possibility that I might abandon it before completion! I need to set a deadline. “I will learn to go around the block and back alone (and park) in a week”, and I need to see it through. No more “I’ve got rehearsals” or “I’m shooting”.

It needs to be done systematically and thoroughly! I guess that’s the military background in me. So as soon as I can find the time (22 hours of classes, by the way) I will “commit”)!

Writing. That’s the only thing that’s doing fine. But it’s opened a Pandora’s box! I’ve taken on writing more things in my enthusiasm, this column being one of them (I’m enjoying it though!). So I guess one of three is not so bad and hey; there are a 10 more months to go! (Famous last words).

So I hope dear readers that you will pause to take a look at how well you’ve been doing with your resolutions, whatever they were. To lose weight, go to the gym, read more, spend more time with your kids.

And I hope you’ll be honest with yourselves about how far you’ve come and if you have slipped along the way. I hope you’ll be kind to yourself and promise that you’ll try just a little harder! Enjoy the rest of your year.