:::word for 2009 -- the buck stops here:::

last fall when i was thinking about my word for 2009, i was inclining towards a word that signified a gracious acceptance of anything i didn't like about my life. 'alas', i thought, 'what's done is done. it's time to settle in and take up my burden.'

and then i felt...

wistful...

and sad...

and disappointed in life, and in myself, because i didn't want to be the same person at 40 that i was then, not even the same person at 30, or even at 27, which is rapidly approaching and bringing the long awaited status of my late twenties with it.

so this conflict between acceptance and disappointment rolled around in my head for a few months until a yuletide epiphany brought my word for 2009 to me...

:::work:::

upon our first meeting my word said to me --

"you will work. you will work -- hard -- for what you want. every day. i hereby declare myself your patron saint and i will guide every tired and painful footstep that you take. get ready now, i coming back in january."

and that was that.

so i decided that i wouldn't resign myself to any unfortunate happenstance or woeful future. i would put in the leg work, i would uncover what i'd swept under the rug. active living, lively enduring...seeking, doing, making, finding, acting, starting, finishing.

i'll end with two quotes from President Gordon B. Hinckley, a man who's life was shaped by and dedicated to hard work --

"Work, work, work is the key to getting things done, the key to success in life. There is no substitute for work, for getting up in the morning and getting at it and staying with it to get the job done. I don’t know of a greater asset for whatever lies ahead in life than the capacity to discipline oneself to work."

"Nothing happens...unless you work. It is like a wheelbarrow. It doesn’t move until you get ahold of the two handles and push. Hard work moves the work of the Lord forward, and if you have learned to work with real integrity it will bless your lives forever. I mean that with all my heart. It will bless your lives forever."


this is going to be such an interesting year.