Have you ever been to a conference or even just at a party or someplace new and someone comes up to you and asks, “So what do you do?”
Do you cringe a little inside? Do you stumble and trip over your tongue, or worse, mumble?
Or do you answer, “I am a teacher,” or “I am a parent,” or “I am a jeweler”?
Do you hesitate to call yourself a writer or dancer or actor or whatever your work? Because you aren’t making money or a living at it? Because you aren’t published or under contract or have clients?
Notice though, usually the question isn’t, “What ARE you?” It’s “What do you DO?”
At a recent conference, a speaker, as a get-to-know-you exercise, had everyone write on his or her nametag, “I (blank).” We were to choose a verb that expressed a primary action of what we do in the world.
I wrote, “I create.” That verb expresses what I do through my work and with friends and family in numerous ways. Other verb statements would have included, “I love,” and “I write.”
Can you see how moving away from “I am” statements to an “I (verb)” statements makes room for you and me to more fully and powerfully share how we express ourselves in the world? Can you see how it might also make it easier for you to answer, “What do you do?”
Because, if you get up in the morning and write a page of your novel or the stanza of a new poem or several paragraphs of an essay, then you can say, “I write.” Whether or not that day’s writing gets published or earns you money. You write.
If you dance, you dance. If you make music, you make music. If you paint, you paint.
Labels make life easy for some but are also limiting. Verbs remove boundaries and expand horizons and possibilities.
However, verbs are also a commitment. In order to say, “I write,” you have to write, often if not regularly. Words must accumulate on paper or screen, otherwise you do not write. You may wish, hope, dream, imagine, or think of writing but if you do not put words to paper or screen, you are not writing.
What verbs would you choose? Take some time this week to think about the verbs and verb statements that you’d like to claim for yourself. Drop the labels and try on some verbs.
Then you’ll be ready, able and happy to answer the question, “So, what do you DO?”