This is my new work out shirt.  I wanted something light weight and that would reflect my "One Word" for this year.  This reminds me that it my choice.

This year I am choosing a phrase: I choose to be ......

 Because I kept wanting to return to words from the past years and use them again. I think this will let me center on goals for this year to be healthier, financially responsible, creative, family orientated, and t...o be a motivated and inspiring coach.

My Dance Team is participating in the One Word Philosophy.   Each member of the Team decided on their word for the year, the one that they wanted to represent not only themselves but their commitment to the team. 

I created these tags using vinyl for the stencil and etched with my air compressor and a sand gun.

After a few mistakes (good thing I had purchased extra tags), here are the results.


Every year, I create a key chain for the Team.   I thought these might work nicely to remind everyone of their word.

And here are the matching team t-shirts

1. to encounter suddenly or unexpectedly
2. attack or capture suddenly or without warning
3. to cause to feel wonder astonishment or amazement at something unanticipated

Think to yourself that every day is your last; the hour to which you do not look forward will come as a welcome surprise. - Horace

We all carry around so much pain in our hearts. Love and pain and beauty. They all seem to go together like one little tidy confusing package. It''s a messy business, life. It''s hard to figure--full of surprises. Some good. Some bad. - Henry Bromel, Northern Exposure, The Big Kiss, 1991

"Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise" - Julia Cameron Author:The Artist's Way

Philosophy in Action

It is better to offer no excuse, than a bad one.
~~  Drill SGT Davis, July 1985

We all make mistakes. 

The problem isn't that we make mistakes, but the lengths to which we go to defend ourselves when we make them.  However deep the hole that making the mistake has put us in, it just gets deeper the more we try to explain ourselves.  If we would simply say, "I was wrong." and move on, we wouldn't waste so much of out time and energy, and the people around us would respect us more.

Today I choose, to try to calmly admit my mistakes I make, and move on.

It is easy to say soemthing nice, and even easier to neglect to do so.

We glow when someone tells us a compliment, showing us how much we are appreciated.
But in our busy daily rush, we don't always think to pass on such kindness onto others.

Oday, I choose to offer kind words to others as often as I can.

The balance of power between them has been perfectly even, dipping and swaying from one to the other, depending on who needed the other the most.  But always coming back into perfect alignment.  It was the kind of harmony, few friendships achieve.

I may have alot of aquaintances, but I choose my friends sparringly.

A goal without a plan, is just a wish.

Having a goal, is important.  WIthout goals, we may not know where we are headed.  But having a goal is easy.  Planning to achieve it is hard.

Whati s the first step?
How long will it take to reach the goal?
What kind of effort will we need to make?
`How likely is success?
Who can help?
What is the first step?

Today, I will choose one of my goals and lay out a plan to accomplish it, step by step.

The self is not something ready-made,
 but something in continous formation through choice of action.
~~  John Dewey

I choose to double think my choices today and what they say about me as a person.

Never be a cync, even a gentle one.
Never help out a sneer, even at the devil.
~~  Vachel Lindsay

I will choose to look on the bright side today, swallowing the snappy but cynical comments I often find so easy to make.

Courge is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount
~~ Claire Boothe Luce

I like to think that I am a good person.  A person with values, who will choose the right way, And most of the time, I probably am.

But if I remain silent, for something that I have done or seen or heard. 
If I fail to act when I see an injustice. 
How true to my belies am I.

It takes courage to live our virtues and make them real.

I choose to not put my values aside simply because it makes my life easier.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful comitted people can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that has.
~~  Margaret Mead

I do not need to feel as though I have to tackle every challenge on my own.
THere are many others that choose to care about the same things that I do.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.
~~  Ralph Waldo Emerson

The world is not especially concerned with making us happy, as much as we would like it to be.

Most of us are well aware of this fact. 
So when we complain that things are not going the way we want them to, we only annoy those around us.  While further darkening our own mood.

The more we whine and criticize, the smaller and more unpleasant we become.

Today instead of complaining about the negative.  I choose to praise positive things.

I have alot of going for me.

I am more capapble and more creative than I give myself credit for.

Smarter and Stronger.
More loveable and loving.

And better at so many more things than I think.

I have natural born talentsand strengths,
that far out number my "flaws."

I will succeed. 
Because I choose to believe.

Courage is doing what you're afraid to do.
There can be no courage unless you're scarred.

It is okay for me to be afraid. 
To acknowledge my fears, even when doing so may feel embarrassing.
I may be afraid of falling flat on my face,
but I will choose to stand up straight and do my best.

It's okay to be afraid. 
I can admit this to myself and others
and still tackle the things that frighten me.

The best way to cheer yourself up, is to cheer someone else up.

As we help others cope with their problems, ]it somehow seems to make our own less pressing.  Sometimes the advice we gives other, can't help but affect our own thinking.

If we distract others from whatever it is that's weighing on them, we'll be distracted from our own burdens as well.

is there anything we can chose to do today to help another?

The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on water.
But to walk on the Earth.

Today, I choose to remember how extraordinary, even my ordinary life is.

Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.
OF the possible battles I may face today, which really matter?
And of those that matter, which will make the biggest difference if I choose to fight them?