My Word of the Year in 2023

I’m not a savant at risk taking. I can hedge my opinions and guard my feelings. Perhaps I want to be liked a little much. My need for belonging can make me want to keep the peace at my own detriment.

For too long, I practiced the art of survival. I moved to US for undergrad, with my family back in Bangladesh. In the beginning, it was surviving the rigors of US college education while doing 20 hour work study. Post college, it was the journey of status changes: F1, OPT, H1-B, Green Card, Naturalization. I want to say more on this, but that’s a different post. In other life dimensions, there has been pandemics and injuries. Along the way, I dug in and focused on getting to the next step.

Focused always on the next step, I often failed to see the forest from the trees. I discussed this with my therapist recently and he said something that stayed.

Sometimes the greatest risk is just standing still. Not taking risks may be the greatest risk.

Taking a step forward into the unknown is risky. The outcome is not always known and may lead to disappointment. But being caught in inertia takes away time. And time is all we have.

My greatest growth has come when I’ve thrown myself into the proverbial abyss. On the way down, I’d had to figure out how to change the engine of the flight. That pressure and urgency resulted in heightened focus. The greater focus resulted in the best learning periods of my life.

This year, I’ve been thinking about what my word of the year going to be. Last year, it was to heal. It took me a while to realize what the word was going to be, but over the months it became clear. It was leap.

When I’ve faced myself with decision making this year, I’ve asked myself why not take the leap. This has resulted in two big steps in year. The first has been accepting a promotion which has put me in a far more challenging space then I have been. The second, and far bigger, has been to get engaged to my now fiancee. In each case, making the decision has been associated with that familiar trepidation of stepping into the unknown. In each case, I’ve stepped out with far greater clarity.

This hasn’t always worked according to plan. Sometimes life has handed me difficult setbacks. I’m still injured with Achilles Tendinitis, which has been just so frustratingly persistent and keeps me away from the activity that has been the sanctuary and equilibrium of my adult life: running. More on that another day.