Caveat Lector: This is not a post on marketing, brand, advertising or media.

Finally, it’s 2021, the beginning of a new year. It is also that time of the year that heralds the associated pressure of new resolutions. This even more so after all the lockdown learnings that humanity has had over the last nine months or so.

Resolutions are funny things. If they feel too small, they are insignificant to make any real effort. Too big and they become unattainable. Too personal and they do not pressurize you to succeed. Too public and the inevitable spectacle of humiliation looms large.

I wondered about what would I do differently, do better, do more of, do less of and (paradoxically) not do in this coming year? How would this be different from the never fulfilled resolutions of yester-years? Would it be LinkedIn worthy? What would it tell me about my own progress as a person? And then one wonders if they need to be verbs at all? Isn’t inaction the ultimate action?

Thoughts accelerate. Language struggles to keep pace. The screen feels like a prison. A flood of questions crop up, all inter-connected but with no sequence or coherence. The firing neurons overwhelm the tenderness of the ‘awaiting-its-first-cup-of-tea’ brain.

Then, just as suddenly, the long-awaited moment of epiphany. The fleeting moment of the perfect sunrise peeping between the trees, over the mountain in the horizon. The click-fit of a thousand unarticulated ambitions, in the singleness of a pure construction. The associated nervousness of excitement wondering if this was it?

This would be the year when I do the ‘Slow Dance’.

People who know about my two left legs will also know that this is metaphorical. The real meaning of the Slow Dance is in its deliberate languor. It’s the act of re-reading the page from the Asimov novella and reflecting on its philosophical underpinnings. It is about relishing the act of doing the small things exceedingly slowly. It’s the luxury of time that chisels this article till the 5th of January, instead of rushing it out on the 1st of the month.

So goes the Zen saying, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” The way a person does one thing is the way they do everything. If one can’t do the simple tasks lovingly, how can they conquer the big things?

There is some irony in that I talk about slow dance in a year when Break Dance is making a debut in the imminent Tokyo Olympics. In our busy lives, like Break Dance, we have become focused on the action itself. It is almost as if our world would stop moving if we stopped moving. And if our world stopped moving, so would our desire for the immortal legacy that it could create.

While the world did stop moving in 2020 due to The Virus, we still did not stop moving. Between calendar invites, zoom calls and virtual BYOD parties, we moved the movement online. In a nutshell, we fear the absence of movement as a beacon for absence of personal validation.

What if we disrupt this causation between action and validation? What if both were desirable in themselves, for what they are? Would it not be fantastic if we chase each of them for their own sakes?

Almost everyone I know knows this verse from the Bhagavat Gita.

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन । मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भुर्मा ते संगोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥

Popular discourse normally translates the first line but not the second, which I find more insightful. It translates into “Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.”

In other words, I submit this charter for 2021: This is the year when I will consciously divorce actions from outcomes.

I will pursue action for the pure love of the act itself, without any fear or excitement for the potential outcomes. I resolve to sip in this moment, rather than rushing into a never-ending treadmill of expectations.

Because what you’re experiencing now is more important than how you’ll be remembered when you’re checked out. When the curtains come down, all that matters is that you bring joy to others as you enjoy your own life. It’s cliched, but it’s true.

If this article brought a faint smile on your face, it has been worth every minute of effort that went into it. What is truer is that the sheer delight of writing this article after a long hiatus was a reward in itself.

See you at the other end of this rainbow. p.s. In case you are wondering, the first line of the verse from the Bhagavat Gita quoted before translates as “You are entitled to perform your prescribed duty, but not entitled to the fruits of its actions.”