To be a Verb

The standard question to ask a child after a certain age is what do you want to be when you grow up? The question evokes imagination, creativity, and a sense of purpose and responsibility.

Firefighter, astronaut, doctor, lawyer, president, wizard, etc. The answers¹ fall on a spectrum: from cute and predictable to completely out there. Yet, not many kids below ten can say, hand to their heart, what they actually want to do when they grow up. Completely understandable.

So what? The problem arises then as we grow older — the “what do you want to be” turns into “what do you want to do?” Yet, the funny part is we answer the question the same way. When asked about what we want to do, we answer with a noun, not a verb. “I want to be a lawyer, or “I want to be a firefighter.”

And we wonder why Millenials with high paying jobs are restless and unhappy at work? The hopes and dreams of a generation are focused on the nouns, not the verbs. When one responds they want to be a lawyer, they are thinking about Josh Lyman, or Law & Order, they aren’t thinking about the day to day work.

The problem is we live in verbs, not nouns.

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[1] I actually haven’t asked a child this question in quite some time, so for the rest of the post, the “answers” are based on my experience as a kid, what I hear anecdotally from friends and the growing sense of never growing up that accompanies one from child to teenager to adult.