I love words. Love. Them. Given that I’ve been an English major and a writing teacher and that I’m now a writer (it’s still very exciting to type that), my love of words should come as no shock. But because I love words, I find it really hard to pick a favorite. It’s like picking a favorite child – can’t do it, not fair to ask. And that’s how I feel about the concept of picking one word for a year.<\/p>\n

I did try it last year. I picked the word “less” to guide my path through 2014. I wanted to have less “shoulds,” less stress, less stuff, and less of me.\u00a0 Well, I’ve gotten bigger and I started this here blog and kept my other blog and I’m loathe to say no to writing a project. I also somehow started receiving a subscription to More magazine though I have no idea how that happened. Seriously. Oh, the irony. I think we call agree that my attempts at “less” were pretty much completely unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

But you know what? I’m really happy. My year of “more,” or at least not “less,” was fulfilling, exciting, and fun.\u00a0 I feel a little guilty saying that knowing that a lot people struggled over the course of the year, but it’s true. 2014 wasn’t perfect, but my qualms are few.<\/p>\n

So I contemplated picking a word this year, and maybe trying to play the opposites game. If “less” led to “more,” would “poor” would lead to “rich”? Sadly, probably not.<\/p>\n

Then realized that I had already picked a phrase that I really liked, and I did so before the New Year. See, I got lucky and won a give away by Galit of These Little Waves<\/a> for a bracelet from MantraBand<\/a>. The thin metal bracelets are subtle but strong declarations, words like “namaste,” “believe,”\u00a0 “fearless” and “warrior.” I debated for quite a while which one I wanted. I was initially drawn to “Hakuna Matata.”<\/p>\n

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But I tried to talk myself out of it. Was it a little dated? The Lion King was released in 1994. That’s been around since I was right out of high school.\u00a0 Am I already too Disneyfied? Is that even possible? Was it somehow silly or cheesy?<\/p>\n

Probably, and it wasn’t a major statement like “warrior” and I feared I was missing an opportunity to be bold. But in the end, I came back to it, as you can tell from the photo of my bracelet above.\u00a0 Hakuna Matata means no worries, right? I decided to adopt a no worries attitude about my choice.<\/p>\n

The song and the phrase both make me happy. I think about my daughter singing the song and doing a cute little dance that looks like Simba walking across the tree as in the movie. I think of the time that we were eating waffles during a leisurely Sunday breakfast and this song came on and we all started to sing. We like it, cheesy or not. It works for us, and those memories make my heart smile.<\/p>\n

So, I’m hoping that Hakuna Matata really does mean a year with no worries for us, at least not the big kind of worries. And no worries about sticking to one word, or many words. Hopefully it means more going with the flow, more dancing and singing along, more doing what works for me and my family and less worrying about what others may think of that.<\/p>\n

Seriously, how can this not make you smile?<\/p>\n