be brave

I am not good about keeping up with new year resolutions. Actually, I kind of hate the idea and I know I am far from alone in that. So I tried something completely new last year and ended up really enjoying the way things played out for me. I picked a theme word for 2012 - Explore.

During the year I was intent on exploring myself. In the early months of the year I was exploring beautiful things about my personality, my likes, my dislikes. Having just come out of a relationship it was a good experience for me - exploring myself as myself with just myself for company.

The middle months of the year became about exploring the transition from being independent and on my own to moving back into my parents' household and starting my last semester of college - student teaching. There were a lot of challenges, some that I had foreseen and some that caught me completely off guard.

Towards the end of the year, as graduation drew closer and then became just a memory, life was more about exploring what happened once school no longer ruled my life and homework was nonexistent. I also started to explore myself again in a relationship that I originally didn't realize would last as long as it has.

Now 2012 is over and I am in need of a new word. I'm partially tempted to pick the same word because "explore" worked so well for me last year. But this year is starting off with some issues I've never navigated before and I'm struggling to find a word that will help me get through all of this.

I threw around words like trust and acceptance and create. Discover, hope, or dream? This year is the first year since I was a child that I have not had to go to school. Worrying about report cards and passing tests is a thing of the past. Now I worry about having to pay back all my student loans and cover the cost of my car insurance. So the word I choose has to be challenging and different, because that's what I'm staring in the face with all these new obstacles.

At first trust seemed like the obvious choice, since, you know, things. The more I thought about it though, the more I became unsure of whether or not that was really what I wanted to challenge myself with this year. It's something I need to work on, but I don't know if I want to give it the confines of 365 days. Which just sort of left me floating with nothing really to fall back on.

Being at a loss for what to do next, I looked up the word trust on thesaurus.com just to see what would happen. I found the word confidence listed among the synonyms. Confidence was a good start, but not quite all the way there. So I clicked on it, and that took me to a list of synonyms for confidence. Which is where I found the word courage and this little light bulb went off in my head.

Courage.

I need to make this year about having the courage to do the right thing, the necessary thing, the different thing, and sometimes even the thing that I don't want to do. I need to have boldness and braveness when it comes to making decisions about my life and my future. Right now this year is full of possibilities for me to be brave and opportunities for me to show courage.

Whether it's having the guts to take a blind leap of faith or just being confident enough to go through life with a purpose, I need to have the courage to do things and stuff and the like. I know there is a purpose for me and for my life, but I just haven't found it yet. So let this year be about becoming a courageous person who lives life on purpose.