2021 theme: acceptance

Each year I choose a word or phrase that embodies the direction I aspire to take on in the new year. Like a thematic resolution. This year I’ve landed on acceptance.

2019 was spent running around telling myself to “think less & say yes.” If you’d asked me what I wanted at the end, I would’ve said a year of solitude. A year of being unbothered by others - in a very Walden-esque mentality of course. Sign me up.

So at the beginning of 2020 I told myself to “slow down & say no.” In a way this happened…in a very very strange way.

Been toying with this year’s theme for some time now. Originally chose patience.

But it didn’t really…fit.

Patience toward what? I keep this theme on my phone & come back to it like a mantra of sorts. My mind was also surprisingly eager to equate patience with laziness. I didn’t love it. Patience wasn’t enough.

It came to me this morning:

Acceptance.

“Acceptance in human psychology is a person's assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it or protest it…close in meaning to acquiescence, derived from the Latin acquiēscere (to find rest in).”

Love that. To find rest in.

To be more patient AND accepting is my goal for the year.

First up: accepting this didn’t materialize until now. That’s okay. Still 11 more months to go.