A realistic list of things I wish to do before I turn 25 in a few months' time.

People simply love making lists. What they love more is to tie that list up with a life-non-event which somehow makes it more worthy. If you ask me, it’s got very little to do with the feeling of physically writing something and it acting as a motivating factor. If doing that has ever helped you cross off important things from your life, good for you, for you’re a better human and you need to shout that off the rooftops. All that making a list achieves is relieving some mental space. You’ve finally managed to remove all that glug and now that it’s on paper, it’s time to fill up that space with more unearthly aspirations. That said, there’s also this issue of ‘What next?’

Now that I’ve adequately contextualised my cynicism, I shall proceed to bore you with a list myself. This is, however, a list I will not fling into the trash can unless I finish crossing off each item. Before I come across as extremely ambitious, I only propose to do things that I can do within a week. So you see, I am actually buying myself some time and making sure it coincides with my birthday, as if that’s some grand event, but that deserves a whole rant some other time.

A realistic list of what I can and might end up doing before I turn 25 in three months’ time:

1. Resume playing badminton – There was a time when I was half-decent at it.

2. At least start that story I’ve been thinking about since who-knows-how-long – If not for the story, at least write. A lot more.

3. Watch one movie each week – Already doing it, but there simply has to be one thing that you’re sure of doing. Satisfaction and all that jazz.

4. Talk to her. Seriously, it’s getting well past pathetic now – Well.

5. Finish the damn kimchi story – One damp Sunday, a few 30-day-cycles ago, my boss watched some documentary on the making of kimchi on TLC and happened to read something on the increasing number of South Koreans in Chennai. Cue phone call on Monday.

6. Get the camera lens looked at – Damn thing won’t autofocus any more.

7. Do some couch-to-10k type thing – I know I can run a 10k at a moment’s notice. But something tells me having to work for it would somehow make it better.