Now

Kristen, my friend who redid this lovely blog of mine, just recently posted about this online community called One Word 365. The basic premise of this group is to, instead of making New Years Resolutions, pick one word to focus on for the year.

Apparently this is not a new idea, but it is new to me. I was intrigued since I decided a few years ago that New Years Resolutions weren't something I was interested in. I believe in setting goals, but why wait until the New Year to set them? And so many people forget that they set them or break them or give up on them. I set goals until I achieve them and then I set new ones. Simple.

But this idea, to have one word be your focus for the year? It seems perfect. There are a whole bunch of words that I could have chosen: happiness, faith, peace, etc, etc. But none of them seemed like the word for me for a whole 365.

Then, at Church on Sunday, my Pastor gave a sermon about how there always comes a time that's the right time. The right time to trade stocks, to make a major play in a game, to come back to Church. Whatever. But we spend so much time focusing on our pasts and our futures that we forget that, really, all we have in life is the here and the now. We can't go back to five years ago, last year, a month ago, or an hour ago. It's in the past, it's over. There's no need to live there. And then we always look to the future - where will you be, what will you be doing, how can you get where you want to be. But you're not there yet. You can't live there.

All we have is now.

So, that's my word for this year: NOW. I want to live in it to the best of my ability. I want to enjoy the moments that I'm in, the people that I'm with, the things that I'm doing. You only get to live once and you may as well enjoy it along the way.

What's your word?