THIS TIME I WENT TO THE EXPERTS

A couple of years ago a friend of mine reconnected with me after I sent out cards at Christmas and put my email address at the bottom. We hadn't seen each other for almost 40 years, since High School.

We caught up on marriages, children and grandchildren (Hers. I don't have any yet.) And then we got around to having ordinary conversations. She gave me an idea that I've been using ever since.

I told her that I was struggling with my New Years resolutions. There were so many things I wanted to accomplish! How was I supposed to choose? Her reply was "I don't do resolutions. I choose a word and work on that." Talk about genius! That took all the stress away. No more resolutions to break and feel like I'd failed myself...again. All I had to do was choose one word. How hard could that be?

I think I agonized over one word more than I ever did over writing resolutions! If you choose just one word, it becomes a philosophy.   gulp    I made lists and erased lists. I did research, read books, talked to friends and, in general, made what should have been an intuitive choice into a headache. Oh, the agony and the ecstasy! I confess that I even lost sleep over it. Living by a one word philosophy was not going to be easy.

So you're wondering what my word was. (This is so apt...and so funny!) SIMPLIFY   That was my word for 2010, my first year for living a one word philosophy. It gave me reasons to laugh all year long.

I have a tendency to suffer from "paralysis of analysis" (Pat Parelli, talking about saddle choices). I waaaay over do things. It's the Type A Nancy, former business owner and straight A student, who makes mountains out of teeny, tiny bumps...not even mole hills. I make everything too hard and it's always me I'm hardest on.

Every time the mountains appeared on the horizon, I saw the word. I should capitalize that. The WORD. And for 2010 it was SIMPLIFY. If I'm going to agonize, do it in a Zen way by following my one word philosophy. SIMPLIFY.

It wasn't a bad year either. I had my word posted where I could see it every day, and then I tried to adhere to it. I kept breaking things down in to smaller and smaller blocks (obstacles) to work on. Don't sweat the small stuff...and it's ALL small stuff. It's become such an important word to live up to that I've decided to keep it posted.

    This year I consulted the experts when it was time to make my choice. Apache said "You ASKing me?"

               Lucky said " ASK and ye shall receive...especially if there's Winnie's Cookies involved!"

                                                        And Willow said "ASK."

And that's my word for this year.   ASK   Another toughy. Ruminate and cogitate on it for a while. How many of us never ASK because we're too polite? Or we put it off because the answer isn't one we really want to hear? Or we're too doggone proud to ASK for help, to admit we need it. (There's that ugly fellow, ego, getting in the way. He runs the 'monkey brain'.)

It's going to be an interesting year! I plan to be doing A LOT OF ASKING here.

I hope your New Year is even better than this year. And I hope that this year was amazing, incredible, spectacular, AWESOME.    (Oops. There goes my SIMPLIFY, right out the window. See why I need to keep it around?)

I am ever yours, Nancy, laughing out loud!