Enough Words. Enough.

Some years ago, I came across a list of words which, the author claimed, would never fail you, which would provide the answer to just about any difficulty. I copied the list and stuck it in my calendar and each year, transfer it to the new one. Today, as I was moving junk into the 2009 calendar, it fell out and I was reminded once again that often the "answer" requires no more (and not less) than an altered perspective.

The original context may have been related to weight loss (and when I tried to track down an author, the list did pop up on many weight loss sites, always anonymously). Still, I find it useful when confronted with family, work and other personal challenges, too. Yeah, it's a little bit Pollyanna. Sue me. It's my guess that we can all do with a few words of encouragement going into 09:

Prepare
Relax
Risk
Act
Accept
Believe
Forgive
Wait
Care
Choose
Smile
Trust
Listen
Change
Persist
Pray
Focus

A few of these I use frequently when I'm troubled, especially: Wait. Listen. Act.
A few I should use more often, but invariably remember too late: Forgive. Relax.

And to this list, I'll add two more words that have become important to me recently:

Enough. Quit.

Enough, as in, maybe I've already got enough --of anything, or even everything. Anyway, enough to get by. I have a feeling in the economy ahead, this is a word many of us will need.

Quit. In my opinion, quitting is underrated and mistakenly thought of as an easy out. For me, quitting is often quite difficult, especially when it involves stopping a project bound up in a lot of emotional and creative "equity." But sometimes, under certain circumstances, the right decision really is to stop what I am doing. Put it aside. For awhile, or forever. And start something else.

In fact, I'll go further and say that I hope to quit a bunch of things in 2009. Some of them I will talk about here.

What about you?