A path without guardrails

Holding lightly onto life, and setting ourselves free

At the start of each year, I set a word to guide me. In my youthful over-confidence (I turned 45 this week; I think we can say with great swathes of surety that my youth is now over), I thought the word would define the year. That I would look back on 2019 as the year of adventure, 2020 as the year of love and 2021 as the year of light. Little did I know that setting a word was like planting a seed: it would take root and sprout in its own sweet time. 

It was only this week, as I chose the word ‘grace’ to guide my 46th year, that I realised what I had gained by sowing the word ‘light’ on January 1, 2021:

The ability to hold on lightly.

For much of my life I have grasped a little too tightly. I cared a little too much about what others thought. I held onto relationships a little too long. I took myself a little too seriously. I carried the burden of expectations that were a little too high, and I clung onto hurts a little too hard.

It occurred to me that most of us unwittingly construct lo…