I had no problem deciding the focus for 2012. Whereas in years past I would make a list and check it more than twice thinking through my options, looking up well-known words in the dictionary to see if I could find extra meaning to best sum up my plans for the next 12 months, this year I wrote down one word, looked it up and closed both the dictionary and my book.
Reduce.
1. a : to draw together or cause to converge
b (1) : to diminish in size, amount, extent, or number
(2) : to decrease and concentrate the core essence by removing excess
What I already have learned, I have great desire in converging (come together from different points). It’s time. I nearly trip over connections happening all over the place without my even trying.
And while I already don’t have a lot of stuff—as an avid follower of Voluntary Simplicity for seven years now, I have already fallen in love with the art and discipline of getting rid of stuff—translating that to my time and energy hasn’t been quite as easy. I have struggled repeatedly trying to get to the core essence of my values and my life. Gentle Penguin, I assure you, there is still plenty of excess cluttering up and distracting.
So it was decided. In 2012, I would learn how to boil out the water leaving the most pure juices of what mattered to me in my life.
The Universe must have been waiting for me to get to this point, because what happened next was nothing short of a deluge of messages about reducing, focusing, finding the core. The Fates began beating me about the senses with signs and symbols, tasks and trials, stories and songs all to do with reducing and focusing:
A training class for my profession, the new movie I’d been longing to see, the book I was reading, the songs on iTunes genius playlist, the complaints of my daughters, the advice from my business lawyer, my horrorscope three days in a row, the speaker on the entrepreneurs podcast, and even the Buddhist meditation for the week…
“The most important thing in life is to find out what is the most important thing.”
In 2012, I will find out.
