Profound Vivacity

I recently read a quote that I liked a lot by E.M. Forrester:

“Away she hurried, not beautiful, not supremely brilliant, but filled with something that took the place of both qualities -- something best described as a profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all that she encountered in her path through life.”

Sometimes I feel like I need to be “supremely brilliant” or something like it. But really and truly I think I’d rather be filled with a profound vivacity. Here’s the thing, you can’t fake vivacity. I’ve tried, it comes across as something between annoying peppiness and high strung paranoia.

Vivacious isn’t a word that is part of most people’s daily vocabulary, and like most big words many of us have a general sense of its meaning but not a clear definition. According to the dictionary, the definition of vivacious is “lively”; which is just about as ambiguous as vivacious. So I looked up lively.  

Lively means to be: Full of life and energy, enthusiastic, animated, refreshing, (and my very favorite) responsive to steering. I read that and literally said “Huh?” out loud.

Responsive to steering. I spent awhile thinking about that one. How often do I try to support, direct and sustain myself in my efforts and endeavors? When I try to steer myself is usually when I make the most mistakes. It’s also the times I get the most stressed out and end up trying to project a sense of energy that comes off as high strung craziness with a forced smile.  This is the exact opposite of a continual and sincere response to the things I encounter.

Today I had a rough morning, and I was steering myself straight toward a nervous breakdown. Then I went to lunch with my husband and over the course of that hour allowed myself to respond to the way he steered me into a much more calm and pleasant state of mind. It may just be that my Mr. is super cute and charming (which he is) but I think it has something to do with the fact that he can recognize when I need someone to steer me away from craziness toward a more hopeful outlook.

So I faced the rest of the day with a profound vivacity. It wasn’t a fun day but it was sincere. Tomorrow I believe I will do it all over again.