Choose Your Motto Wisely

We are sixty percent through our fifty week calligraphy challenge, and for week thirty we were asked to do a motto – city, county or state. I looked up my city motto, nothin’! I did the same for the county and was again underwhelmed, so I defaulted to the good old state motto – the Peach State. I also found out the seventy-one streets in the city of Atlanta have the word Peachtree in them. So I write the peach state and Peachtree street names in different markers to comprise a peach. I was inspired by the Georgia Film logo, the one you see at the end of all the movies filed in Georgia. Simple and fun.

Working and looking at mottos made me think about the things we say all the time that eventually become part of the identity of a place. Cites have names – the city of light (Paris), the big apple (New York), and maybe even your hometown has a motto you enjoy sharing with people when they visit. Super heroes have mottos, the Marines have a motto, and some families have a motto.

It is the words we choose to identify ourselves that say more about us than the words others use to describe us. Fearless, Kind, All are Welcome, or maybe even Never Go To Bed Angry. When we choose the phrase we say over and over again, eventually others hear it and say it too. We have a sign near our front door that reads…Welcome to the Road Less Traveled. These are words from my husband’s favorite poem and they perfectly describe where and how we live.

What is your motto? Do you have one for your home, your family, your life? If you had to say it everyday, what would it be? Being able to encapsulate what you are, want, and believe into a short phrase has the power to solidify and motivate while reminding you of what is important to you. Words have power, they lead us and direct us…so choose your motto wisely.