I am a Verb

I had the joy of a holiday with a beautiful Australian family – friends for many years. We knew each other before children and so we have experienced the joy of watching the children grow. 

I find the next generation so rewarding – confident conversations, engaging and energetic, and looking at the world with fresh eyes and so challenging my perspective.

My friend’s youngest daughter, Kipling, and I were deep in conversation about life, the universe and everything and about the need to get out into the world and do, to live and to enjoy. We spoke about purpose too. 

I shared my life’s passion about compassion and compassionate leadership and how I was inspired by the work of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and that he defines compassion as “understanding with positive action”. “It’s a verb”, I said, “not a thought or a feeling”. “If you haven’t acted on the knowledge then it’s not compassion”.

“I am a verb” she replied.

I paused and mulled it over in my mind. Wow. What an insight in one so young.

It is brilliant.

It is the difference between being and doing.

“Kipling, I love it. Where did that come from”?

Her inspiration came from another genius of an older generation, Oscar Wilde with the original thought modernised by the erudite Stephen Fry.  “if you know exactly what you want to be in life, whether that be a teacher or a grocer or a soldier, you will become it. Actually not knowing what you want to be, not being a noun but a verb, being in moving in life not being fixed is a privilege”

A verb is movement, it’s change-making. To be a verb means that you act, you don’t walk on by, you don’t sit still. As a verb, you never settle, you transform.

It is magical. I love it and the simplicity of it, and I loved the way my young foil shared it with such confidence and finality.

I’m not a noun;  a static place, a thing, a destination.  To be a noun is merely to be. I want to be more than existence. I want to do more than merely exist. 

The question has moved. 

“To be or not to be”? is not the question. 

“To do or not to do? Now THAT is the question” – and only you know the answer.