Today is the first day of 2009, which reminds me of a beautiful and inspiring quote by my favorite poet, T.S. Eliot:
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
Thanks to Melt In Your Mouth for the reminder. It’s always nice to have an excuse to dig through my Eliot collection.
This Year’s Words, This Year’s Voice
I’m not ready to make New Year’s resolutions; I am ready to make New Year’s commitments.
- I commit to continue to strive to make at least one person smile every day.
- I commit to embrace change and learn from new experiences and encounters.
- I commit to approach any opportunity with positivity, courage, and resolve.
- I commit to push myself to create things that provide value to the world around me.
Every year, I pick one word to guide my actions and decisions throughout the next twelve months. This year, that word is create. Hopefully my commitment to creation will be reflected in things I do and say this year. Let me know if you think I’m slipping. Everyone needs a nudge back on track from time to time.
What are your commitments to yourself this year? Do you have a word that will guide you through 2009?
RT @vasta: My word to guide me in 2009? Create. What’s yours? http://bit.ly/yIF8 (2009’s word for @motionblur is “accomplish”)
A few comments from Twitter:
RT @vasta http://bit.ly/yIF8 (love the concept of “new years commitments”, i was never one for ny resolutions) thinkin bout guiding words…
win
Win? That’s a great word Karim. Referring to anything in particular?
More from Twitter:
my word for the year?
Open …
… personally.
… professionally.
… to the unknown.
It’s a good word I think. An ethic and a goal all rolled up together.
d_c
Open is a word I wish more people (organizations, etc) would adopt. Good choice Darren.
Kia ora Sameer
My word this year is praise.
Benjamin Zander explains the power of praise so well in his talk.
Happy New Year
from Middle-earth
I’ll definitely be checking out that vid Ken. Thanks!
Kia ora
Well Sameer, this certainly is a different design for a blog! I’ve been trying to figure out what it all connotes. And there is something familiar about the environment, but I’m not quite sure what it is yet :-)
I like it, and it is so different!
Is the xml all your own programming? You’ve got me interested now
BTW, I don’t know if you are familiar with Paul C’s blog - I think you would be interested in what he has there.
Catchya later
For me, it is “abundance”
spiritual, material, in love, in happiness, in success, in peace.
My word for 2009 is BHAG.
BHAG as in Big Hairy Audacious Goal. I’m setting a BHAG for 2009 and I’m going to spend the whole year working on achieving and surpassing it yet. I haven’t decided exactly what it’s going to be yet, but keep an eye on jaygoldman.com for more as I figure it out.
Ken, definitely didn’t do the coding myself. Check the about page, there’s more details on who made this design there.
Tabish, abundance is a wonderful word. What actions are you going to take to make that word drive your year?
Haha Jay! That’s great. I love that the goal is hairy too. Adds bodaciousness to its audaciousness. =)
I’m subscribed to JayGoldman.com, so I’ll keep my eyes open for the BHAG.
Perhaps I’m a bit late on the reply here, what with it being 5 days into 2009 already. Anyway, my word for 2009 is ‘explore’.
Exploring new cities and countries. Exploring new ideas. Exploring new pieces of work, journals and literature. Exploring this blogging stuff. Exploring what I want to do/ where I want to go as a 21 year old.
Exploration is an important step to learning more about yourself and the world around you. Good luck with that Jen!
(Also…21?! I feel so old!)
The ever-awesome Moira Fogarty sent me an email with her word for the year: Freedom.
Particularly poignant line for me from her email:
“Freedom from expectations about what I’m “supposed” to do and how I “should” live my life.”
That’s real freedom, if you ask me. Check out her year in review post for more nuggets of goodness.
Sameer - I love CREATE! I cannot choose just one word. Mine are: PASSION and COMMITMENT. Hoping to do both in a new secondment position with Ministry of the Environment starting Monday. We still need to meet for lunch! Hero Burgers uptown?? @haikugirlmm
Good luck on that new secondment Mary Margaret! Sadly, I’m actually leaivng town on Monday (possibly Tuesday) but I’ll be back soon enough to pick up my stuff from home and settle some things here, so how about we try and figure something out for then?
[…] this year, I made four major commitments to myself and picked my word of the year: create. We passed the quarter-year mark a few weeks ago, so I decided to evaluate my progress so […]