I have given up on New Years’ resolutions. They never work. I go to the gym for about two months and then quit. I start using curse words or gossiping again or stop reading on a daily basis only after a few weeks.

What I have done instead for the past two years is choose a word to try to live by for the new 365 days, after some inspiration from a friend who does the same. Last year, the studious, committed, type-A part of me chose the word “balance.” It worked pretty well. But here’s the deal: balance was a little boring. Not that I didn’t appreciate it, especially with the extreme amount of work I had to do in 2012.

I feel like my senior year is just beginning this semester. After the stresses of my classes and leadership roles the last two semesters,  I’m ready to have fun. That’s not to say I had absolutely no fun in 2012. I had a lot of fun, but overall, if I had to use one word to describe my year, other than balance, it would be “stressful.”

This year, no more stress. I know it is naive of me to believe that this year will be absolutely stress-free (I’m applying for jobs and graduating, that’s actually ridiculously stressful). But I don’t want that stress to take over my life. I want to look back on this year with fond memories and continue to use positive thinking to bring happiness to my life.

I took a fairly long time deciding what word was going to guide me through 2013. I know, that just added more stress to the end of my 2012. I wanted a better word than “fun,” because trying to have fun every minute of every day is just about as ridiculous as expecting to be stress-free. I decided on a word that could let me have fun and live life to the fullest at every opportunity. My 2013 word is “bold.”