Word Search
Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash
December 22, 2023
’Tis the season for announcing a Word of the Year. I’ve been thinking about this for weeks. Several years ago I began to notice this annual ritual of writers and other creatives, choosing a word or theme to encapsulate their intentions for the coming year. This apparently began with Ali Edwards, creator of One Little Word®.
I’ve wanted to find my own word, but each year I’ve felt intimidated by the variety and freshness and creativity of the words — ascend, invest, novel, reverie, salt.
I want one of those words! but that would be, well, maybe not exactly plagiarism (can you plagiarize a single word?) but definitely not original. Yet the only words I come up with are commonplace and uninspiring.
So, for the past several weeks I’ve been searching for my word. Meanwhile, at the end of a four-week workshop, I committed to making a vision board for 2024, and completing it by the Winter Solstice. I’ve missed the deadline, but that’s okay. The work I’ve done has reverberated in my subconscious.
I awoke in the middle of the night with a word: vision. I went back to sleep, and in the morning felt calm and satisfied that I had found my word for the year. It’s a perfectly ordinary word, and that’s part of what makes it right for me. It also helps me to see that I’ve been going about the vision board project backwards: searching for images and hoping that they’ll somehow show me my vision. Instead, I need to find the vision within me, then look for images to express it.
Yesterday I listened to the latest episode of The Mel Robbins Podcast, titled “How to Make 2024 the Best Year: 6 Questions to Ask Yourself.”
Robbins’s Question #1 is about the highlights of the past year. I’m skipping over that because I wrote about my high points last week. However, I mention this because the highs are related to the struggles, which are what Question #2 is about. Robbins says:
You may find that areas of struggle can also overlap with your areas of highlights. — The Mel Robbins Podcast, Episode 131
So, I’m answering Question #2: What were the hardest things about the past year?
Looking at those will inform my vision for the future. Also, I’m taking Robbins’s suggestion to consider the question in terms of five strands of daily activities. Within each, I celebrate what’s good, examine what’s hard, and draw my vision from the synthesis.
Health and Wellness: I celebrate that I’m healthy and have strong habits in this area. The hard thing is that, while I say I want to get outdoors more, do more hiking, take long walks every day, etc., the truth is I’m a homebody. I like being comfortable and have to push myself out the door into weather that isn’t perfect.
Vision: I make a daily practice of this. I walk at least one mile every day in 2024, no matter what else is scheduled, or what has to be dropped.
Work: I celebrate that I’m writing, and I’ve posted here or on my website regularly since last April. The hard thing about this is that it takes a lot of time, and I was already feeling time-stressed before I added this.
Vision: Time stretches out like an open field, inviting me into a relaxed, leisurely walk. I let go of old habits that feel constricting, and make more space for new, life-giving habits.
Relationships, Love, and Friendship: I celebrate that this year I’ve made some wonderful new friends, both in my local community and in remote communities of friends I haven’t met in person. I get so much encouragement and inspiration from these women. What’s harder is being my best self with close family members, when my tendency under stress is to react, either by lashing out with angry words and actions (as my long-suffering spouse can attest) or by withdrawing and nursing my anxiety about situations where I have no control.
Vision: There is a large, colorful PAUSE button right in front of me at all times. I can see it when I need it, and I remember the truth of Viktor Frankl’s famous words:
Between the stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space lies our freedom and power to choose our responses. In our response lies our growth and our freedom (Frankl, 1946).
Fun and Happiness: I celebrate again my writing this year, and discovering how much fun it is, the actual doing, not only the having-done. What’s hardest — and where my word for the year is most relevant — is that I’ve made no progress so far toward adding some kind of visual art to my creative expression.
Vision: This is going to require a real commitment of time. I understand that, in order to make it happen, I must start with a tiny step (5 minutes per day), attach it to a routine (right before lunch), and stick to it until it becomes a habit, which can take anywhere from 18 days to 254 days, according to research reported by James Clear.
Purpose, Spirituality, and Meaning: I celebrate my strong commitment over many years to my small, active, progressive church, and the friendships and working partnerships I have with many of the people there. The primacy of social connection and having a place of belonging, especially for middle-aged and older people, has been highlighted by many, including U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. What’s hard for me is that, though I remain committed to my little church, my sense of purpose, spirituality, and meaning is diverging into new paths.
Vision: I’ve learned that following my curiosity is my favorite route to Play and Happiness. I see now that the same curiosity is leading me to sources of spiritual energy and light that I’ve not yet explored. As I seem to be entering a new phase of my lifelong journey away from assigned spiritual belief and toward genuine spiritual practice, I wonder at the forms and colors that my vision might reveal to me in the next year.
