Hello:

Season’s greetings.

What’s your New Year resolution?

🙄 I know it’s a question that we all revisit every year. Some of us are weary enough to conclude that the resolutions will be forgotten by the 15th of January, while others want to soldier on bravely in the hope that they’d reach the goals at least one of these years.

As for me, I’ve decided that I’ll keep one resolution this year: a simple, clear one at that. It’s not something I’ll have to drag myself to do (🏋️), or a habit harder to quit (🍔, 🍲, 🍕, 😋).

It was an epiphany of sorts that happened about three months ago, when I sat before the computers and wondered, as usual, what to write. It was a particularly frustrating day because I had my hands in too many pots, or so as it seemed, and no clear idea on which of those pots or those ideas I’d like to pursue for ever.

It wasn’t just about writing, but life as a whole!

At that moment, I was idealizing on a guy who I happened to strike a friendship with on Clubhouse going by the name “Linkedin Seb”. A social media platform had turned Sebastian into Linkedin Seb. It’s given him an identity, a purpose and a clear pathway to progress.

Over the last few months, I’ve done many things from writing blogs to doing podcasts to telling stories, but is there something that connects all of them. Something like “Linkedin”? Something, as storytelling guru Carmon Gallo would’ve identified, that “makes my heart sing”?

Ideas whirled inside my head. I couldn’t focus on anything. It was as if I was caught in a whirlpool. I shut down my computer, reclined on my chair and sighed heavily. Then, the story of my friend on a crutch from class 7suddenly came into focus. I sat up, realizing I was closer to grasping something. What was it?

I took some deep breaths and settled my attention on my classmate who I knew had lost his right leg to polio. I couldn’t forget that face, fair and bony as it was, as he stood leaning on the crutch in the boundary of the playing area and watched us boys fling a cricket ball and threw ourselves at every shot imitating our sporting heroes.

The boy looked crushed. Clearly, he wanted to play but he also knew that we wouldn’t include him as a player due to his condition. Some days, this image of the boy’s painful face stayed on in my mind. But I also remember the captain of the team tapping his shoulder and asking him if he wanted to bat. “Come-on, let’s start. We’ve time for one more game,” he added with some urgency.

We kept a by-runner for him. The bowlers were no less severe to him, although the boys refrained from sledging. When the game was over, we all shook hands with him and I even felt his grip stronger than usual. And his smile lit up the rapidly darkening ground that evening. I was fortunate that I could still see on that day and only became blind seven years later.

Before I was done recalling this episode of thirty-seven years, I had the epiphany: it was as if I found the thread that connected everything I’ve done so far. I smiled and teared up at the same time. The thing that I wanted was in front of me all along. 🤦‍♂️ I must be truly blind for not seeing it!

“INCLUSION” the word almost screamed itself in the background as my mind’s eye amplified the boys picture: the hollow cheeks, long nose and lips pursed in agony.

Then, quite miraculously, all my activities began falling into the theme of inclusion.

Now, all that I need to do is to ensure my blogs, my podcast, my social media posts, my emails and all my communications reflect the theme of inclusion. If one thing that keeps us going after all the devastations of the pandemic, it’s the faith in humanity and our ability to pool our strengths together to solve problems. People with disability have expertise in various fields and bring a unique mental strength, grit and problem solving ability to the table which is largely inconspicuous to people around them. We can’t let their skills go waste if we want humanity to be better.

Here’s my New Year resolution!

Come January 1, 2022, I’m starting a campaign called #Inclusive21C (or Inclusive 21st Century). I’m not going to invent new activities, but would hook my existing activities to the theme of inclusion: albeit writing a short story or an email like this one. And yes, there’ll be that occasional new activity too.

Now, I’ve a question for you: can you join me in this campaign to make the world more inclusive? Can you use Inclusion as a theme in something you do and hook it to #Inclusive21C? Can you support me in any way possible?

This’s no individual’s fight. If every human being has a stake in building a better society, a better community, then this’s for you as much as this’s for people with disability like me.

⏱️ I’m going to announce a major activity under this campaign very soon. You’ll be among the first to know about it.