These days, with the New Year dawning and after spending 5 days without technology before ringing in 2016, I find myself especially introspective. I’ve never been one for New Years resolutions since I find them easily broken and a bit silly. And while I do like setting goals, even those this year seemed misplaced.

2015 was a difficult year for me, both personally and professionally. I want 2016 to be different. I want it to be different, even if the situations don’t change, even if the life situations appear worse.

As I scrolled through various posts about resolutions across the social media channels, I was especially taken with several people who opted to nominate words of the year rather than make trite resolutions. The words are meant to give a focus to the year. They are meant to center the person. They are meant to offer a lens through which to view each moment and every event during the next 365 days.

My 2016’s words: Authenticity, Beauty and Mercy

Authenticity

This word is making the rounds now, but I first fell in love with it this past Spring when I took a one-day seminar for fashion consultants on Fashion Authenticity. The entire day focused on how to help clients, and yourself, discover their true, authentic fashion sense. The lessons began far from clothing choices and accessories. Rather, we talked about words that define us, the story behind our most prized possession, and characteristics others recognize in us. To consider fashion authenticity as beginning with the inner core of the person was so eye-opening for me.

What pushed the word further into my sights was the class I took on Instagram by the always glorious Hillary Rushford of Dean Street Society. I fell in love with the class, but even more I fell in love with the Authenticity that is Hillary. She’s real. She’s real in her video tutorials. She’s real on her lovely Instagram account. She’s real on her website. She’s authentic, which got me thinking. I like a lot of Instagram accounts but the ones I love the most are the ones that don’t just post beautiful pictures or stunning outfits. The ones I love talk about the good and the bad moments. They share real life, even if it is gloriously and beautifully depicted. Since that class, and this realization, I have started re-thinking the photos I post and the context of the captions.

The more I considered this word, the more I realized Authenticity’s great importance. If we are authentic, we live a life that is unified. We act the way we think. We think the way we speak. We dress the way we think. We act the way we speak. There is no guile, no duplicity; just authenticity. This too is what I realized I love and respect in my students, and am devastated when they lack authenticity. I much prefer a girl who comes and says I need another day for the paper because I’m over-stressed and just couldn’t write last night, as opposed to the it couldn’t print and I sent an email you never received.

And so with these events and considerations in mind, I’ve taken Authenticity as my word of the year.

Beauty

Beauty seems like a pretty obvious and, perhaps, stupid word choice for a fashion blogger. But I don’t mean beauty by the standards of the world, not even by the standards of bloggers. I don’t mean beauty in terms of perfectly symmetrical faces or stunning hourglass figures. I don’t mean beauty in terms of hours at the gym to look better and this new cream to reduce the natural lines around your eyes.

I’m talking the deeper, truer beauty. The beauty that is in each and every thing simply because it is, because it exists. The beauty in the wrinkled face of 90-year-old woman. The beauty in a single flower growing out of the grooves in the sidewalk. The beauty of

The beauty of suffering… This is the reality that really got me thinking about beauty in all its aspects. I was venting to someone about these horrendous migraines that plague me and she suggested that there was still beauty and growth to be found in the pain. I’ve never before considered that. The headaches have always just been a pain, something I dread and really something I hate. But to step back and consider if there can be any beauty in the headaches was eye opening. I realized in that moment that there is beauty in the migraines. There is beauty in the fact that I can commiserate and empathize with others who suffer. There is beauty in the fact these make me tougher, raise my tolerance for pain. There is beauty…

To give myself a chance to really delve into beauty in all its aspects, I’ve going to have a weekly series: 52 weeks of Beauty. Each week I, or a guest writer, will share insights into where they find beauty. (If you want to guest post or have an idea for the series, send an email.)

Mercy

I debated this word for awhile. It’s a theme I’ve been considering personally for some weeks now and while I can’t honestly say I see any correlation between Mercy and blogging, I do think there is a huge correlation in my life.

One of the things I see while teaching is a significant lack of mercy, or perhaps a better way to say it, is a lack of merciful love. High schoolers, and really all of us, are usually quick to judge, quick to make assumptions that do not hold another in a positive light. We are often quick to find fault, quick to think others have wronged us, quick to withhold our mercy. Wouldn’t it be better if we were all quick to offer forgiveness, quick to make excuses for others, and quick to give mercy to those who have wronged us in any way? Wouldn’t the world be better if we were slow to judge another, slow to find fault even when it seems more than apparent. We all need more mercy; mercy offered, mercy given, mercy received.

If you had to a pick word to focus on this year, a word to give you a lens with which to see everything and every person, what would it be?