My One Word for 2012

Last December, I thought of starting the New Year with One Word. It is a word that I’d live by, remind myself of often and be happy about just pondering. My one word for 2012 is FREEDOM. Last year has been a tough yet rewarding year in so many aspects in my life. I will never ever forget 2011 and how it had made me a better person. At least that’s how I see myself now.

Why freedom? I have read in one of my favourite author Barry Neil Kaufman’s writings that “we are born with many beliefs”. That as we grow older, these beliefs, wrong or right, form part of who we are and determine how we will live our lives. For example, growing up in a province in the Philippines and having a very simple mother and a very strict father, I believed that I should dress up and present myself a certain way. A way that will never hurt my parents’ ideal image of me. Hence, I never wore nail polish. The first time I did, as far as I can remember was during my wedding. I was already two weeks short of turning 30 years old then! But last year, I broke away from this belief. I painted my toenails red. It felt good. During our Christmas vacation in the Philippines, I had my fingernails painted red, too. Oh, sweet freedom! It was like I had set myself free from my own judgments. Judgments that have put lids in all of what I wanted to do in life.

It does not stop there. I have been “unearthing” these beliefs in me and slowly but surely changing my perspective and totally turning my back from them. So long as these newly-formed beliefs do not go against my faith in God, they don’t hurt the people around me and they make me happy, I’m totally there.

How about you? What is your One Word?