It’s the last day of January and I have no New Year’s Resolutions. In my journey to find a new boss, I’m moving away from the idea of generally impossible to-do lists because they aren’t working for me. I might have crossed off a few items at year’s end, but mostly, those lists represented a disappointment…a lack of success…and why would I want to repeat that?
Instead, I’m embracing the new trend toward one word for the year.
Two years ago, I had a tagline for the year: goodbye to boring. That simple and catchy phrase was easy to remember and playful to implement and so I added more color to my wardrobe, found new meals to prepare and tried new ideas with my assemblages.
Last year, however, I dreamed up a long and clever phrase about farming and friendship and something else that I can’t remember without re-reading my journal. Although I built some new planting beds for vegetables and continued to build my existing friendships, I didn’t live the phrase daily like I did the previous year. In fact, mid way into the year, I couldn’t recall my intentions or inklings at all.
So this year, I decided to try just one word. I found an interesting and detailed process for discerning my word, a book on the subject, and a whole community around the one word idea.
But true to my rebel self, my word came to me on its own. I was in the middle of a spending spree when I stopped myself with the word “ENOUGH”! As in enough already…and I thought it might make an interesting path for the year…in keeping with what Rilke says:
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
When I fired my boss, I didn’t know that the process of replacing her would be so…well…messy. Numerous personas of mine have applied for the job and although I have agreed to interview them all, some of them are dubious candidates: Anxiety, Apathy, Magical Child and some days I feel like a rudderless ship.
The word “Enough” may not be exciting like Inspiration or Vitality or Simplicity but it is a word that asks good questions and I like that. I also like how the word stands equally well for “I HAVE enough” and “I AM enough”. And it’s easy to remember.
I can see myself living this word for the year…and asking potential bosses what they make of the word and maybe, just maybe, I’ll live into some answers.
How about you? Do you have new year rituals that inspire you to live a life of meaning? Do share…
Stella Sunday Afternoons 