It’s common in Indian households to have your mom running a pressure cooker in the background while you’re studying for the PSAT. The pot shakes and shivers as you wait for it to explode already. Just when you think you’ve cracked a question, the thing explodes into a loud sneeze, releasing the smell of some daal (lentils).
We may have forgotten the sound of that cooker considering we now have InstaPots. Still, the pressure inside of us around resolutions for how to be better still bubbles.
The question is how pressure rises to the surface. Does it ooze out at a Spa? Or manifest in a chocolate splurge? Maybe it bursts at a family member, falling everywhere.
Every January, we hope and pray that our wishes will come true. I manifest that I will find a new job. That my family will stay together. That a love will miraculously enter my life. I was shaken when my older cousins helped me realize that our family gatherings were not the luck of the holiday season. In fact, one of them actually turned around in his car to drive to our celebration instead of home across California.
It’s a point of action that makes resolutions so fulfilling and so disappointing. I freeze at those test questions because if my answer is wrong that means I’m wrong. I have to remember that it’s these decisions we regret that have brought me to where I am. So many leaders dropped out of college and still “made it”. Yet, here we are still churning over how we could have pumped out a baby by age 35.
Our resolutions turn into a checkbox we can present to our friends and family for the holidays. Congratulations, you made it. In turn, we think of the box and not the world that surrounds it.
What’s so good about having a kid in the first place? That baby grows into a kid with a personality you can remember from your childhood. You can hold their hand, as they can hold yours. A partner to support you build to make you realize you’ve created a family.
We reappreciate the families that raised us. We think, what do we want to do better and what values do we want to maintain? It was work to argue, celebrate, and align with our family.
We can see value in others and align ourselves with them. We see what works, what isn’t worth the wait, and what we can love despite. A loved one doesn’t fall from the sky.
Answering that test question won’t make my dreams come true. Even if it’s wrong, I’m not going the wrong way. Of course, we can’t disregard the pressure cooker. Expectations will fall on us and we don’t become stars by wandering. We turn boxes into stars by seeing what makes those four walls so desirable in the first place. It’s like when I realized that aunties and uncles pushed for jobs with money because that’s how they could raise us in the first place.
When we identify what makes a goal special, we can see our personal steps to climb. Surrounded by family, I decided 2025 was the year to make my first resolution. After never believing they’d come true, I answered because why not? I’ll make some steps. Even if my fitbit doesn’t count them, I will.
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