Going for More in 2022: Moxie
Moxie is my word for 2022.
According to Merriam-Webster, there are three definitions of moxie:
1: Energy, pep
2: Courage, determination
3: Know-how
I must admit, moxie was not my first choice. I was initially drawn to ease and then to awe. However, while the first felt too relaxed a state to describe my current headspace, the second felt too passive. To be in awe is not the same as inspiring awe.
I realized that I wanted something more, something less relaxed. I wanted a word that was less low-key, less passive. I wanted a word that meant something. I wanted a word full of life and movement, a word that would inspire me to do more, to be more, to take more risks, to be braver.
I have to confess, at first, I didn’t even know if I had the moxie to choose this word! I was going to dial it down a bit and go with verve or something less bold and memorable than moxie.
However, one of my biggest lessons from 2021 was that taking risks and saying yes to the seemingly impossible can pay off in ways that we can’t even begin to imagine. The personal growth I experienced in the past year was mind-blowing or, at the very least, mind-expanding! Working in Boston’s City Hall as a member of the Janey administration for the better part of 2021 was like working in another country with its own language, culture, rituals, and symbols.
It’s hard to put into words. In some ways, I feel like I learned a second language and I now live in a different, more expanded reality. When I read the news or look out the window of the number 19 bus, I see what I did not see before — what was always right in front of me but I didn’t have the tools to notice, describe, or really make sense of. My world view has expanded and with it, so has my conception of what is possible. I am grateful to Mayor Janey for inviting me to join her and to my generous colleagues who had the patience to explain things to me — often multiple times and even when I was unable to hear them and couldn’t make sense of what they were saying.
I think everyone should work in local government at some point in their lives. It gave me appreciation for the usually unnoticed work of our public servants and it provided me with an additional set of tools that I didn’t even realize that I was missing.
This experience has pushed me to choose a word like moxie for 2022 when a safer choice might have been something closer to reflection, ease, or kindness — a more internally focused word that would have led me to focus on resourcing myself for the third year of the pandemic.
Instead, I chose to go with a word filled with action — to go bolder, to do more, to take more risks, to grab more of life, to use my voice in a stronger and bolder and more urgent way.
To say more, to write more, to do more, and to enjoy the dance of life even more than before.
