A Theme for 2012

For the past few weeks, I've been working on coming up with a theme for 2012.   After a lot of stops and starts, I think I've finally settled on one I love and one that I think pretty much speaks to everything I want my new year to be (or that I want to be in this new year):

Fearless and Authentic.  Fearlessly Authentic.  Fearlessness and Authenticity.  Has a nice ring to it, huh?  I think so.  So what does this mean for me?  Let's take this apart a little bit:

Fearless: When I say I want to be fearless in 2012, I'm actually being very literal and very serious.  I've often felt like, in the past four years (yes, FOUR YEARS), I've made a lot of my decisions based on fear whether I've realized it or not.  I have a deep fear of being financially insecure, and that fear served as a pretty deep root in my desire to go to law school.  I was also afraid of what others would think if I dropped out of law school.  Would my parents be disappointed?  Would people think I just couldn't hack it?  So I kept going.  For a long time now, I've been afraid of the unknown too.  How is my life going to turn out?  Screw that, how is my choice of what to have for dinner going to turn out?!  I'd like to do xyz, but what if that's the wrong choice?  What if I'm wasting time?  What if it doesn't pan out?  What if, what if, what if, fear, fear, fear.

You get the picture, right?

So this is the year I'm dedicating to being fearless.  To taking the plunge.  To "giving it a try" and going where the road leads me (in some respects).  And this is not just a grand gesture sort of thing either.  I'm finding it very useful in the day-to-day of my job hunt too, or in just how I relate to others -- I'm putting myself out there more.  Or, trying to at least.  This is a work in progress.

Authentic: This ties pretty closely to my goal to be fearless in 2012, but it has more of a focus on also being true to what I want and who I am.  It tempers the fearlessness a little bit (because it'll stop me from packing up my shit and moving to Vegas, which is fearless but totally not me), and at the same time it pushes me forward too (because although I may be really afraid to do xyz, if it's something that hits that spark of "Yes, that's Kahea!" inside me, than it's something truly worth pursuing, you know?).  And my desire to practice more authenticity also stems from the realization I've been coming to this past year, that I make a lot of my decisions based on what others think or say, or the way I feel I'm going to be judged or perceived, or what I consider to be smart, safe, secure choices.

These aren't necessarily bad things, but I just know I wasn't always like that.  I was never careless, but I listened to myself more.  I was more authentic.  And I know that I used to be happier.  Ergo, perhaps if I find the way back to being more Me, I'll find that same well of happiness and breathlessness for life that I used to feel.

Really, when you boil it down, 2012 is the year I'm dedicating to finding my way back to Me.  And I think that's a pretty noble goal.

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