We are half way through the calendar year. The half way point is on July 2nd this year and a good time to reflect on if the year is going the way you want it. I’m taking a few days off and using some of that time to review. I choose a word to focus on in January, my word of the year is candid. I’m in a spiritual business group and one of the things we report on each month is how we are doing with our word of the year.

At the start of the year I was very drawn to to this definition of candid – marked by honest sincere expression. People think because my encore career is teaching in front of group I’m extroverted. I’m not. When I was four at my birthday party I did not want everyone looking at me when I opened presents. I had the kids open the presents they brought for me. Well then they thought that meant they could keep them. Not a great idea. I’ve been teaching so long I’m comfortable with it. However opening up to strangers is not natural for me but getting easier. I attribute part of the difficultly to being raised by my Scandinavian grandparents. People from Sweden tend to be shy and can take time to warm up to new people. Most people in Sweden might be characterized as introverts, and they like it that way.

Another good definition definition of candid I’m adding for the rest of the year is to be free from bias. I’ve been in a few book study groups where we explored our implicit bias. That is our unconscious attitudes, stereotypes and prejudices. Biases can be about race, age, sex, language, socioeconomic status or other things. I wrote about this in a prior newsletter. Some experts think 80% of our brains work outside of conscious awareness. We used to live with people exactly like us. In our small tribes we learned we had to protect our resources and ourselves from others. Others were in a different tribe and they looked different from us. We are programmed to categorize and we like to catagorize things. So what served us in the past is failing us now. In our global society to solve problems we will greatly benefit from releasing our implicit bias.

In the world of photography candid refers to subjects acting naturally or spontaneously without being posed. I’m such a planner I can use being a little more spontaneous. I’m leaving more open time in my schedule for this.

My favorite time to meditate is 2 pm as it is about halfway through my day. Most days I’m working at that time. When I’m home I reassess how my day has gone so far before my meditation. I also use the halfway point for getting through a difficult task or run. Many of us like to take a break half way through something that may be tiring. Long concerts and plays have an intermission. I’m not sure Tobie’s is really half way to Duluth but that was always my grandparents halfway stop.

If you make yearly goals or set intentions how often do you review how they are going?