#OneWord2017

On this final day of 2016 my attention has been snagged by the Twitter hashtag OneWord2017.  I don't normally make New Year's resolutions or spend much time rehashing a closing year...but the idea of navigating the next 12 months under the guidance of one single word intrigues me.  So I've read #OneWord2017 Tweets and pondered possibilities and researched definitions.....

As the days of winter vacation have passed by I've been thinking about what I want to get out of the upcoming year; the first word that came to mind was "goals".  To achieve the goals I have in mind I'd have to make some changes, so that ("change") became my second word.  Both words seem overused, simple, boring.  "Growth" became a possibility, but growth to me implies immaturity, and while we all always have room for growth I don't feel the need to focus on it.  "Advance" came to mind...but it brings images of climbing the career ladder or maneuvering on a battlefield, and I'm not really planning on doing either of those.  "Expand" garnered brief consideration but would probably become an excuse to get fat......fatter.  I saw a pattern to these words - 365 days from now I desire to be different somehow - and shifted to a deeper, meatier word: "metamorphosis".  Alas, that brought too many butterfly images and I really don't feel the need to become completely different.  But the idea of a metamorphosis did lead to THE word:

E  V  O  L  V  E

While "evolve" probably conjures thoughts of cavemen for many folks it feels like exactly the right word for me.  It's the word that will be achieved by using many of those other words.  It's the word that will bring me beyond where I am right now....and where I am right now is almost exactly where I was a year ago.  Maybe it's old age creeping up on me, but knowing the calendar has moved 12 times while I haven't at all is a little frightening.

So, in the coming days, weeks, and months I will seek to make life changes by setting goals for personal growth, hoping to expand my life as I advance towards who I want to become, that new person being somewhat of a metamorphosis from who I am now.  Some of my evolution will involve material possessions, some will occur in my career, perhaps relationships will evolve.....the unending possibilities can become overwhelming.  By tempering life's possibilities with the focus of my one word I will return to this blog in one year and write about 2017 as the year I evolved into....well, who knows what I'll become?  But ready or not 2017 is only hours away, so here I go......