It’s that time of year: time to choose a word as a beacon to guide me through 2025.
I chose the word listen as my One Little Word three years ago, and for the past two years I have chosen the word pray to guide me through the years. My former words won’t leave me – I still keep them as my own – especially pray. Once a new word has been chosen, former words don’t vanish, turning down some dark alley lurking between the minutes of the midnight hour of New Year’s Eve. They stick like blood kin that want more words to come to the table in the family of chosen words, much like siblings wanting more brothers and sisters.
I’m not abandoning listen or pray. But a strange word took hold of me a few weeks ago, and I don’t fully know why. It’s an adjective and adverb and, according to the dictionary, can also be used as a pronoun and is sometimes used interjectionally, too. This is not an actionable verb as my former words have been.
My One Little Word for 2025 shall be enough.
It seems an unusual choice to me right now, but I know it will become clear once the year gets going. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that once we pray for the right word, we must listen hard enough when it comes alongside us with the pick me! pick me! promptings.
I felt tears welling a couple of years ago when I discovered I was a one on the Enneagram – an overachieving perfectionist whose own worst enemy is…..well, …… ME. I can’t ever seem to live up to my own bar – it’s been set far too high for far too long. I often feel I fall short, even when I succeed. I need to be able to say that I am enough – – and to believe me when I do.
If I do a thing, I overdo it.
I cook for an army rather than for the two of us at the table. I own too many books and too many shoes. I need to learn to appreciate the blessings of having enough– without having too much. I need to find my library card more often than the Amazon cart. I need to learn what is enough and to be a good steward of the management of it.
My sense of adventure is insatiable. I want to explore every GPS location on the globe and don’t quite know what to do with myself when I get there, while under-appreciating that the exquisite beauty of my own town is a unique world all its own – enough to keep me fascinated right here where I am if I only see it with the wonder-filled eyes it deserves.
And my world gets out of whack. I work long hours, and I’m feeling my bones and my soul tell me that doing too much in one place leaves too little in another. More balance would bring enough to both the professional realm and the personal one. I’m often rushing my husband through the extra glass of iced tea he likes to have at the end of a meal if we are in a restaurant, even at times when we have no hurry or particular place to be. I envy his ability to amble where I can’t seem to slow down and fill my lungs with enough air to take the time to relax and breathe a little.
There are gestures where I fall short: phone calls, birthday cards, random text messages to say I love you to those who mean the world to me. I fail to do enough to let my family and friends know how frequently I think of them.
The first word that appealed to me for 2025 was less. I almost chose it – then, I realized that less may not always hit the marks I need to hit. I could eat less, I could weigh less, I could spend less. I could check a few boxes and say I did less. But the real challenge will be sorting what needs more and what needs less to find the just-right balance of enough.
If you have chosen a OLW, please share it in the comments. I love the stories of how words manifest themselves to the people they choose. This is the first word that has me scratching my head about its reasons for knocking at my door. But here we are.
Happy New Year, and happy word finding!
Common Threads 