My Word for the Year

At the end of every December I choose my word for the year to come. My methods for finding my word vary. I ponder, I do stupid quizzes on Face Book, I happen upon them. This is the  sort of thing that can’t be forced, and is a cross between very important, and completely insignificant. My words since I began this blog have been Excelsior in 2014, and Joy  in 2015. This year I’ve been considering many words: restore, color, order (I really should give up on this, if I had any hope of being an orderly person I would have realized it by now), enough (I saw this on a friend’s FB page and considered it for a moment) and some others that I’ve already discarded.

Having chosen words for the year before (prior to starting this blog) I can’t say that any of them have had a significant impact on my life, at least not one I am aware of. Would I have been less joyful this year if I had chosen seek as my word, or sock for that matter?  Maybe what I suffer from is a lack of commitment to my chosen words. To be honest I generally forget about them by mid-winter, distracted by all the other words. I’ve never gone so far as to write my word on some nice paper, coloring it in and decorating it with glitter and all, then hanging it somewhere I am sure to see it often, but that might be helpful.

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OK, you’re right if you’re thinking I’m just procrastinating, and putting off this decision.  Years ago I stopped making resolutions as those became an annual tradition of listing things I’d been unable or unwilling to accomplish in past years, as well as reminder of my many shortcomings. How many  years have you resolved to lose that last ten, forty or seventy pounds?  Resolutions (at least mine) come in two varieties; I’ve tried a million times, but this year will be different difficult, and fall off a log easy, along the lines of  ‘I’m going to spend more time reading’. Choosing one word is just a way to streamline my obviously flawed system, but I am determined to find my word, and to find it by the time I get to the end of this post.

To say I love words would be an understatement. They are important to me; the way they look, and sound, and feel as I roll them around in my mouth. There are the ones that are fun to say like unctuous, spangled, perchance and debatable and some are words I’m always sure I’m mispronouncing like insouciance, chimera, calumny and inchoate. And yet choosing one is as daunting as choosing a favorite color. What if I make the wrong choice, and I get stuck with a word that appears so fetching and meaningful at first glance but turns out to be vapid and shallow? This year it feels more risky than in past years, and I’m not sure why. Are there word consultants I might consult?

But I digress. December is nearly gone, this post is almost finished, and I am running out of time. I have put this off long enough. And so a word, one word, filled with intention and hope, heavy but not cumbersome, simple but not easy, a word I will gladly share, my word for 2016 is: