When I came up with the list of words on which to hang my 2020 hat and turned it into a word cloud, I noticed that three of the words appeared larger than any of the others.

ALIVE

ENERGIZED

TRUSTING

As it turns out, it’s because those were the only three words that appeared on my list twice. Apparently they are meant to be especially useful this year as I continue to put my daily efforts into crafting a meaningful life. Which, for the record, is why I suspect we are all here in the first place.

Over the next few weeks I’ll focus on a word of the day drawn from that list, taking a deeper dive into what it means, and how it can inform, influence, and inspire me in meaningful and purposeful ways.

ALIVE

Not only did alive show up twice, it was also the first word that appeared on my list. That can’t be an accident. Finding myself in my mid-sixties it is clear that I’ve crested the hill that is my life. Death is closer than my arrival on the planet, and I find myself making friends with that truth. Not in a fearful, wringing-my-hands-sort of way, or a morbid, oh-well sort of way, but in a living, breathing, get-off-your-ass-and-show-up-sort of way.

To be alive is a daily practice, a discipline, a choice. Or as Andy and Redd succinctly remind us in The Shawshank Redemption - …get busy living or get busy dying…

Alive means knowing what and who bring me to life, and spending my time and energy doing those things and in relationship with those people.

Alive means choosing that which sustains, nourishes, and energizes me, rather than settling for what doesn’t.

Alive means finding that when all is said and done, I will drag myself over my finish line having spent every ounce of myself in the service of crafting a meaningful life, loving, helping, and healing the world that is within my reach, and reflecting as best I can, the image of the creative power that is behind it all.

Simply put, I want to be fully alive until I’m totally not.