Someone asked me around New Year’s what my word for the 2017 would be. Not having had a word of the year before, I was paused to think.
How could one word encapsulate every thing you hope to do in a year or every challenge you fear you will face?

But even as I resisted the idea, a word popped into my mind. “Balance”, I heard. “Not a chance,” my inner critic screamed, “you’ve been striving for balance for years and never found it!”
It’s true as a self-employed writer my life careens between intense hours of sweating over a deadline, dealing with brutal levels of rejection, and occasional giddiness when seeing new destinations on a well-organized media trip. Predictability and free time are not common in my world.

So I’ve decided my word for 2017 is “flow”. My life has more in common with a river, running fast and hard at times, pooling in an eddy at others, but always moving and changing course.
I’m going to stop paddling upstream and surrender more control to the river of life, looking for opportunities that pop up in the white-water and pausing when I find a backwater.
What’s your word for 2017?