My Word for 2013

© Mit Maras 2013

My family doesn’t participate in making any New Year’s Resolutions. Instead, we each pick one word that is going to be our theme word for the entire year. That word represents a goal we each want to work towards obtaining. My husband got the idea from listening to the KLOVE radio station several years ago.

Compassion was my word for 2012. Anyone who knows me personally can tell you that I am the type that has always had more compassion for animals than for people. Two different times in my life I had taken one of those personality tests. Both times my lowest score was in compassion. I don’t think it was possible to score a zero on any section, but I came close both times.

Reflecting back on last year as a whole, I believe a fair report card most likely would result in a C in the compassion department. I grew in leaps and bounds in the area of having compassion for the less fortunate. Weak and lazy were how I had honestly always viewed this group of people. After all, we all have problems to deal with. If I had to deal with mine with no help, then they should suck it up and deal with theirs. That was always my mentality…until this past year. Purposefully taking on several roles shined new light on my negative and unfair views. I was able to help out the less fortunate in our area weekly. The more I got involved and helped, the less judgmental I found myself.

I don’t think I did quite so well with those that are the closest to me. I still hold them to the higher standard that they should just suck it up and do what needs to be done. I pray that knowing what I need to continue to work on will aid to make improvements in this area for years to come.

Choosing a word for 2013 has been, by far, my hardest. There were no less than 5 words that I battled back and forth with for the last several months of 2012. It was several weeks into 2013 that I finally settled on the one thing I wanted to work on more than anything this year. My word for 2013 is…Positive. I tend to side with the pessimists of the world on most topics. Again, anyone who has known me long can testify.

I want to be a more positive and supportive person. I want to look for the positive in all situations life throws at me this coming year. Equally as important, I want to allow nothing but positive to surround myself and my family. There are too many negative attacks on families and relationships in our time, and we do have control over what is allowed into our lives.

Every decision people make in our country is guaranteed two things. The first, is to make one group of people happy. The second, is to have people who disagree and they don’t mind at all voicing their displeasure…to everyone. There is only so much negativity we each can stand, and I had my fill last year. I have accepted the fact that I can’t change people. Nor can I force them to change. But I can and I am changing what I allow into my life, as well as into my family’s life. Of course,  bad things will happen this year. Bad things happen weekly around here these days. It is in the middle of the bad things that I will search for the positive. People who can not bring positive thoughts and actions this year, simply will not be allowed in our lives.

January was a huge adjustment in many ways for our family this year. Our family is struggling to redefine itself in the midst of a new job opportunity for my husband. There were many challenges. There were many victories. I spent my birthday this year trying to keep our house from flooding. Yet, in the middle of knee deep water, I was able to see the significance of all the rain. We live at the bottom of a slowly sloped neighborhood. When it rains heavily, our side yards become small rivers flowing from the back towards the front. Not only do we get our water, but the entire neighborhood’s water drains through our yard. This year’s downpour on my birthday, for me, represented a cleansing. It was a good hard rain that washed all the leaves clean from the backyard. Even when the hard rains ceased, the water continued to flow from the rest of the neighborhood. My lesson in all of this? If we don’t open up the floodgates and let it all out, we will drown in it. It doesn’t matter if it is our own mess. It doesn’t matter if the mess originates from others. What matters is if we choose to do nothing or if we choose to open the gates and let it float right past. Just because landscape dictates that our property gets dumped on by the entire neighborhood, doesn’t mean we have to accept that and let our house flood. We take action. We open up the gates and let their water rush right by our house.

We get rain all the time. I have gotten soaking wet many times trying to keep my house from flooding during downpours. Yet, I have never been able to see the positive lesson…until this year. I was prepared days ahead of time for the storm. I made preemptive strikes preventing my house from flooding. I did not wait to react to the storm. I met it head on with a game plan in place and came out with a positive life lesson. That is how I will live my 2013. I’d say I was off to a great start.

© Mit Maras 2013