During last year, I regularly looked at the 13 ideas on my bucket list, published in this space last January. We–the list and I–kept growing further and uncomfortably apart, all the while confirming why I avoid New Year's resolutions.The year 2013 was an experiment in listing what I thought were reachable goals, while encouraging the universe to acknowledge my wish list and to apply its intervention to meet the ones outside my realm of influence.If the convergence of those two efforts had been precise, I should be telling you that I fell in love and stayed in love. That having done an entire physical examination and finding out all was well, I embarked on an exercise programme and accomplished my ideal weight, and those would have taken care of the first four listed ideas.
While I did not run for office, there being no real opportunity, I did play a substantial role in one of T&T's four elections. And having not reached the financial abundance I wished, I was unable to exercise the options of travelling to another continent, and climbing Peru's Machu Picchu.There has been no improvement in my Hindi; the book remains unpublished; and I did not start the Moruga arts programme.Fortunately, I aced number 13, which was to live above small talk. I paid no attention to the workings of small-mindedness and that largely accounts for how happy I've remained.Yet 2013 was a gratifying year. Always full of surprises, the universe displayed its benevolence towards me, making huge deposits into my ebullience account. God reminded me time and again that I'm blessed with an abundance of gifts and talents, but to keep me cognisant of my corporeal nature, he pressed home the point about the thorns given to me which I bear in my flesh.