Traditions then and now

The traditional Sinhala and Tamil New Year which falls in April was a fun time for me as a child. We looked forward to this joyous occasion, which fell right after the school holidays began. It was a time when relatives gathered at my grandparent's house. There were plenty of games, food, fireworks and laughter. Now our grandparents are no longer around, so the relatives don't gather as much and families are getting smaller in size and living further apart.

The New Year is kind of a big deal in my culture. There is astrological significance in planetary shifts, there are auspicious times to do certain things, there are certain directions you have to look at while doing these customs, certain colours you have to wear, etc. All with the promise of bringing in good luck and prosperity.

I feel sandwiched between two generations of differing thoughts. My parents follow the traditions with a lot of devotion with no questions asked. Projecting ahead, the generations after me will see little point in following some of these traditions at all. I am stuck in a place where I want to keep the traditions going for it's cultural and nostalgic significance but I see little meaning in some of them.

This pattern is evident in other aspects of the culture too - religious events, funerals, weddings. While many of us question the significance of some customs, we feel compelled to follow through.

Of course, questioning the meaning of traditions and demanding evidence is akin to being a jerk. Some can argue that unique traditions from various cultures make the world a more interesting place, it helps people to bond and it keeps the generations connected in a special way.

An important aspect of maintaining traditions is that older generations set an example and pass down the knowledge to younger generations. With a growing number of skeptics, smaller families, geographic isolation, inter-racial marriages, etc, there is bound to be some "dilution" of traditions in the years to come. In a way, I admire families that make an effort to stay connected with extended families and keep annual traditions going just so the younger generations have something special to learn and experience.

The boiling of milk in a new earthen pot for the New Year until it overflows signifies the abundance of prosperity

Except food - no one questions the cultural significance of food! 

Just do it!

I'm home for the New Year holidays. Like Singapore's Chinese New Year, this is one of the longest holidays that people here get to enjoy with their loved ones.

While life goes on here and I have a growing number of tasks on my plate, I've been feeling somewhat paralysed and defeated by my own state of inaction lately. What I previously thought of as procrastination might actually be a case of "analysis paralysis". Maybe the two are related. Yes, I'm constantly on the hunt for fitting labels to my psychological problems!

Analysis paralysis is defined as the state of over-analyzing (or over-thinking) a situation so that a decision or action is never taken, in effect paralyzing the outcome (Wikipedia).

There might be many reasons for this condition, according to my analysis (hah!). Being too theoretical, spending too much time inside the head, trying to meet unrealistic ideals for deliverables like reports (a.k.a. perfectionism) and over-estimating the amount of work that goes into making a perfect deliverable. While it can lead to good quality outputs, it's a terrible way to live, really. And it's certainly not the way to work smart or efficiently. 

It is also possible that over-thinking to an extreme can lead one to being disconnected with reality over time. For an over-thinker, I think that being sanely present in reality is a fine balance between the interpretation of facts and external feedback on one side and going with assumptions and intuition on the other side. 

So my resolution THIS new year, is that I'll try to think less and just act on the things I have to do! Kind of like the Nike inspired memes below.

The strategy is to go from this state of mind...

(Image source: The Oatmeal)

... to this.

As Bruce Lee once said, “If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”