The Year of Investment
Since graduating high school in 2015, I have moved at least once a year. In 2020, I moved a total of three times. Suffice it to say I’ve moved around quite a bit, and this is without including our year of travel rotations. A good bit of those moves were moving back into family between apartments or moving into the same apartment because they would only do 10 month leases, but either way, the practice of getting everything into boxes and bins for a day of manual labor is not unknown to me. It’s so familiar, in fact, that this past weekend we moved again and the stress of moving felt normal because it’s become a yearly routine.
But believe it or not, I don’t want to keep moving. It’s not because I want to be inconvenienced, it’s because of the location we’ve chosen to be in. When we decided to return to Cincinnati after a year of travel, we wanted that to be a long-term choice. While I can attest to the fact that jumping around places allows opportunities for new friends and fun adventures, it can also wear out your soul. It’s a lot of restarting. Now, we have a conviction that Cincinnati is where we are supposed to be.
When I was considering what 2024 would look like for me, I had trouble writing down specific goals like I typically do. Instead, an idea caught my attention. I had heard of some people choosing a word to focus on each year and building practices around that word. As I considered trying the same thing, words started flowing in for a few weeks, but one kept finding its way back to my mind: investment. We didn’t land in Cincinnati just because we have friends and family here, we came here because we wanted to make a long-term investment. This is a place where we will build our careers, community, and life. It doesn’t mean that we can’t move, but it does mean that right now, we are called to invest in the people and places around us with our whole hearts.
If you were to choose a word or theme to focus on in 2024, what would it be? Try jotting down a few ideas and sit on them for a few weeks. It doesn’t matter that it’s a month past the New Year, you can start a new goal or vision anytime. Maybe you land on a word that sparks something new, and you find it’s a peace of mind that you are on the right path. Whatever you choose to do this year, make sure you choose it for yourself – not anyone else. Choose something important to focus on this year, and you might find that all the actions behind your focus fall perfectly in place.
