Kerry and I have always wished to live deliberately. It isn't always easy to accomplish as life has a way of over-reaching our cautious plans. I love all the synonyms for deliberate: intentional, purposely, knowingly, wittingly, consciously, by design. These terms express the quality of being in charge and I feel the most secure when I am in charge! While the full meaning of the term deliberate includes the aspect of being cautious and going slowly, being steady and setting a pace, it certainly does mean moving forward. While none of us likes to make mistakes, sometimes one just has to take the chance that mistakes or failure will happen in order to move forward and make progress.

Antonyms for the word deliberate include unintentional, accidental, inadvertent, by chance, unstudied and hasty. These terms make me uneasy, but I recognize that there are other antonyms of deliberate that I need to apply to my life. These include improvise, impromptu, unrehearsed, and extemporaneous. These ar...