Word of the Year 2019: Action

Mural about the Mine-Mill Strike by the Local 890 and the 209. Bayard, New Mexico

2018 was my first venture into a "having a word of the year" as a guide for living. That word was courage.


For 2019 the word is action. 

A subset of words underneath action includes:

• Effectiveness
• Focus
• Discipline
• Risk 
• Responsibility
• Accountability
• Mission

... and courage.


But I can also borrow from the 12-step world and use this: 

• Awareness
• Acceptance
• Action

 ... and courage.


Why "action" this year? 

I've spent a lot of years learning shit, finding and collating pages of that Rule Book to Life that most of us are born with, but some of us - like me - are not.

I've found the learning sometimes on a positive path, sometimes on a terribly painful path, sometimes on a scary-good path, sometimes on a scary-bad path. At a certain point, it's time to integrate one's learning and apply it with intention. The year 2019 seems to be that time.

Last year, I came across a factoid - true or mythical, dunno - that proposed:

In social media, we humans fall into a false sense of having Done Something when we  like or share or follow a page or meme that allies us with or against a cause. When we relax into the belief of having Done Something, we tend not to take any follow-up, real-life action that involves time, money, or putting one's ass out there on a street, in a building, on a border, on the air, in a newspaper. All too often, the societal result is like the adage: The dogs bark, but the caravan keeps on moving.

This idea nettles me.

In recent years, I witnessed women, men, girls, and boys who stepped out from the safety of the crowd to assert plainly - in words and deeds - that our society must act on the just beliefs it espouses. I wish to emulate them.