Life is a Verb

A Guest Post by Andi Drajewicz

When I was young, I was a hopeless romantic. I used to swirl around my bedroom with one of my mother’s silk scarves tied around my hair and trailing behind me like a wedding veil, dreaming of my Prince Charming. He had no particularly defining features, this imaginary prince of mine. He wasn’t blue-eyed nor brown, black-haired or blond. He just was — whole and perfect in every way; a myth of a man completely molded by the whims of that day’s imaginary play.

In my first year of high school, I can recall walking down the long linoleum-lined hallways of the school, slipping quietly from group to group, fixing my starry-eyed gaze on the handsome and tall senior boys. I was positively captivated by those elite few who were not only seniors but also wore the blue and gold of our school’s rugby uniform. There was nothing I wanted more than to find my one true love and live happily ever after and I was convinced my true love was here, striding confidently down these same halls that I was.

And then one lazy summer weekend at the cottage, I heard four small words that would rock my world. The cottage was a small and cozy house perpetually under construction that perched high on a rocky island in the middle of a deep blue lake. My parents had invited friends of theirs to visit for the day. Somehow, the conversation turned to love, and I chimed in with my utter conviction that the perfect love was just waiting for me to find.

The power of action and overcoming fear

“Love is a verb,” my parents’ friend informed me then. “It’s not a noun. It’s not something you find or hold or keep. It’s an action you take every single day.”

That simple assertion has stuck with me ever since: Love is a verb.

So many of the things that we profess to want are, in fact, verbs. We cannot have the things we most desire without taking action. If I want to be a chef, I must prepare the food. If I want to be an artist, I must create the art. If I want to be a writer, I must write.

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, talks about the power of action in overcoming fear. He says, “Fear of failure is higher when you’re not working on the problem. If you are taking action, you are less worried about failure because you realize you can influence the outcome.”

Many of you reading this have a desire to be a writer. Some of you are writing now, working on a chapter for an IGNITE compilation book or writing your own solo book. Some of you have already been published and dream of being published again. To all of you, I say this: writing is a verb. To be a writer is to write.

Life itself is a verb. Whatever it is that you want the most… will only happen once you overcome your fear of failure and take action. And not just a single action. To have the life you’re dreaming of, you must take positive action in the direction of your dreams every single day.

To be a writer is to write, so get out there. Get writing. Persevere at it. Be a writer. Write.

Whatever it is that you want from life, do the verb.

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