Leanne the Brave

When I was younger, one of my favourite series was about Ramona Quimby - a girl with spunk. Now that we're just days away from a new year and a new set of resolutions, I'm reminded of Ramona as I prepare to make mine.

Suspecting that this year will be no different from the previous ones if I just continue to recycle the usual suspects of unaccomplished resolutions (waking up earlier and exercising regularly), I'm just going to hinge everything on one big resolution:

2010: THE YEAR OF LIVING FEARLESSLY
- the year of knocking down boundaries and taking on challenges and not procrastinating and being proactive and trying new things and not worrying about conventions or opinions or expectations.

For my birthday this year I was given the book Conversations with God and one of the things it said that made sense was that everything in this world is either motivated by fear or love. So this year I'm going to try my hardest not to do things from fear, but from love.

Practically, part of living fearlessly will mean:

• I'll dance when I want to, even though I'm so crap at it (I've been practicing the robot and it's not a pretty sight);
• I'm going to wear skirts and not feel self-conscious (yes legs, you will be seen and finally tanned);
• I'll be brave and try new experiences when the opportunity comes up, and not shy away from things.

As we get older, I think the potential to become more stuffy and controlled and rigid about our patterns and preferences increases. We're not as adventurous as we used to be in our teens when we were pushing our boundaries and discovering our likes and dislikes. But I'm not a child anymore, so instead of trying to 'discover myself', I'm going to create the world I want. (Also from the book, the idea that life is not about discovery, but about creation. We speak things into reality and create our world with vision - that's faith.)

So that's going to be my 2010. Watch out world - you've been warned.