On resolutions and stuff

It is 31st December, 2020 - here where I live (the southern India). 2021 is nearby.

One of the things that is talked about a new year is the resolutions. I had never thought about this aspect in the past years. But, lot of things happen in life. It is generally a learning thing as one passes thru it. The childhood days are the most fun to learn and explore - after that there is some “purpose” and you have to “think” and make “decision” about it (and the fun part of it leaves).

Over the last years, I have been paying attention to what is called as - taking care of oneself. And, I see it is not a simple matter. It is not about learning new things, getting stuff or achieving something. It requires some awareness about yourself and looking at it little closely. So, this is part of my resolution and an ongoing thing for rest of the years.

This includes the food you eat, do things you enjoy, and be in decent health. The physical and psychological health. I actually started my New Year resolution activities few weeks before the New Year started in a not so planned way. And, there was no “todo” list.

I turned vegetarian few years back. I had to figure some stuff in the process - about food, its nutrition, likes, etc. Few weeks back I started trying sprouts - the mung bean sprouts. I had come to know about then as healthy food. I started making them, and after a few tries, I did get good sprouts. They are delicious as a snack or as part of the meal. I tried them as part of salad, sauteed them, in a soup, etc., but the best is to eat as they are (crunchy and nutty) and in small quantity (a cup full). I grow them with bottled water and don’t store them.

I plan to grow some microgreens sometime later and I have collected some material about it already.

I also had to look at my physical exercise. I get my exercise mostly from doing my chores and walk when I get out. Lately, I found the need for some stretching exercises. The work and other tasks need that I spend lot of time in front of a computer. The posture, the continued usage, can have its effects on the body. I have not had any injuries to worry about - but, often know about them from others. Pain in the neck, back and hands are common, I see. I have experienced these once each of them. These were mitigated with some quick action - getting proper task chair, checking the posture, and doing some exercises which strengthen the associated muscles and also keep them supple and relaxed.

So, I have a new task chair. Keeping a second one allows change chairs and postures during my work or otherwise is helping. I am also doing exercises for the back and neck - and some of them have strange names like “bird dog” and “iliopsoas stretch” - but they are effective.

In the last few years I have been reading quite a bit - fiction, non-fiction, philosophy / religion (and then there are software related). 2020 was rather bleak, with not much reading. Now, I have ordered some books already, got one book and started studying it (it happens to be about a modern computer programming language). The learning of the new thing is a new programming language and I like it already.

So, my resolutions are already “in progress” and I wish you the best!

P.S.: The sprouts I made last week:

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