As I mentioned earlier, I have been super excited about a new theme for 2018. I felt like Delight was just what I needed in 2017! And even though I know a single word can’t reasonably receive credit for the miracles I saw in my life in 2017, I think it was still a good springboard for them. If nothing else, it put me in a good mindset to allow the miracles to occur. And so now I have the opportunity to have a new theme. My hope was to choose a word that would help me retain what I gained from Delight, but to take it a step further.

Delight really was all about feeling. I wanted to feel peace, contentment, and joy in the life I have and also feel hope for the future. But this year, I want to use those feelings I am working to establish to do good. I want to act on the hope I have for the future to create that future one step at a time. It took me a long time to find a word that I felt really captured those things, but I believe this word does: Engage.

Let me introduce you!

Some of Merriam-Webster’s definitions for the word engage include

• to do or take part in something
• to give attention to something 

Here is how I want to embrace Engage this year:

I want to Engage more with my children. I want to spend more quality time with them on a daily basis making more good memories together. I have found that when I am really engaged in what my children are doing I feel way better about my job. It is a lot easier to just let them go play by themselves while I try to figure out my own agenda; but at the end of that kind of day I feel guilt and regret. Not delightful. But when I am working hard to be part of their play, their learning, their agenda I feel like maybe my occupation really is a mighty partnership with God.

I want to Engage more in my own interests. This might sound like it goes contrary to what I said in the last paragraph; but I think the proper engagement in my own personal development will dramatically increase my ability to do the first. Like I said, being engaged with my kids takes a lot of effort, and if that was all I did, I would definitely burn out (aka: have burnt out many times previously). So my hope is to balance that extra effort for them with extra focus on the things I really want to be doing. When I end a day that feels like it was drudgery, I don’t have motivation to pursue my actual interests. I just veg on pinterest or something similarly useless. But if I plan in advance for things that I really want to be learning and doing, I have more energy during the day for my cuties and at the end of the day for that thing I wanted to do. So, I am signed up for a class I’m really excited about and have other plans to make sure I have the opportunity to feel like a real-live adult on a regular basis.

Another way I want to Engage this year is by engaging in changes. When I see an area of my life I want to improve, I want to do something to act on that desire straight away instead of shelving it as something that just has to wait until my kids are bigger. I am a big hoper in the idea that “some change is better than no change.” So even if I only get one week’s laundry folded and put away because of my effort to engage in that change, that is still better than no weeks.

I am really excited to see how an effort to engage more in my current life can increase my delight therein and also pave the way for future delight. I feel like being able to look back and feel like I really gave each stage of life everything I had will help me to better enjoy the next stage of life and have no regret.