INTENTIONALITY

It is only a few days into February and I have deliberated on my WORD for 2026 long enough. It was the second word that came to me about mid January and funniest thing, all of a sudden, I started reading that word in various materials about every other day.

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the meaning of intentionality is “ the characteristic of being conscious of intending an object” . Other words to describe the word might include purposeful or deliberate (from Oxford Languages).

I think that what brought the word to mind and started my thinking about it was something I heard in one of the priest’s homilies about being intentional about what we do in our lives, including our spiritual lives. To me, this moved my brain to thoughts about how to do things with more focus, acting not REacting.

I believe there are many ways to be more intentional, especially in today’s culture. One might choose to be selective in our words on social media and even more conscious of what we choose to read and engage in with social media, including the amount of time we spend aimlessly scrolling.

Listening intently to others when they are speaking with us is another great example. It’s easy to be thinking ahead in a conversation to what we want to respond with, instead of ‘hearing’ what the other is trying to say to us.

I like to be intentional about parts of my day. For example, I use early morning time as prayer time followed by stretching and low level exercise. My mid day is a few household things/laundry and running errands. Early evenings are my time to wind down and gratitude thoughts and reading are a part of my final intentional acts of the day. I follow this pretty much everyday with some variation of course if I am going out with friends or traveling.

Just some beginning thoughts about how I incorporate intentionality in my life. I certainly will be working on finding other areas of my life to be intentional.

PJP