My Year of Balance
I didn’t give the year 2016 a word, in fact I have never given a year a word before, but looking back it was the year of change. I sold a house, I moved to a new city, I bought a house, and got married. It was a lot of change, not to mention stress. I did not do a good job managing my stress through all of that change. Instead of celebrating the new changes to my life, I simply got through them. I want to do better in 2017. A lot better. (Not ALOT. Miss you Allie!) So, my word of the year is balance.
Balance is not a simple word. I hear it all the time but until I looked up the definition I forgot it can mean so many different things. 9 different definitions from Merriam-Webster! I will be focusing on a few of them. Definition number 9 is, “mental and emotional steadiness.” While this is not the main reason I chose balance as my word for 2017, it sure is important and certainly an area I know I can improve in. It’s definition number 3 that stands out to me, “A counterbalancing weight, force, or influence.” That is what my life needs right now. All parts of my life need to be balances for each other. For example, I spend a lot of time at home, which I love, but my time at home puts my time outside the house out of balance. This includes exercise, time with friends, travel, exploring, shopping, etc. Those are important parts of life I am not experiencing. The weight of being home is holding me back.
Bringing my life into balance will not be an easy thing to do. I work from home, I don’t know a lot of people locally yet, and at heart I’m a home body and an introvert. Plus, I feel out of balance so I’m not inclined to make my private self public. I guess I should start with definition 3 and work my way to 9. Good thing I have a whole year.