Many wise people have concluded that we are 'human beings' not 'human doings'. And most of these wise people seem to have come to this realisation later in life, and inevitably wish they had learned this at a younger age. I certainly wish I had known this at an earlier stage in my life, and more importantly I wish I didn't keep forgetting it, either.

It seems many of us are more concerned with producing output rather than receiving input, perhaps even keeping (mindlessly) busy rather than becoming (mindfully) still.

We tend to define ourselves by what we do for a living, what we do for others, what we do to add value. After all, when talking to strangers the first question is 'What is your name'? The second is "And, what do you do (for a living)? Sure, our actions - what we do - are important, of course it matters how well certain jobs are done, what we do for ourselves and for others, and yet there is more to it. To quote the columnist Parker J. Palmer "Who we 'be' is far more important than what we do or how well we do it". This becomes really important when circumstance forces us away from doing what we think we must in order to define ourselves. If, for example we are faced with health issues, redundancy, retirement, the children move out, our relationships change, when we fail at something or when we need to reinvent ourselves. If then, we've attached our sense of self to what we do or did, and the ability 'for doing' changes, or our roles change, then what happens...? I think you can imagine…

Do we measure people who we are close to, by how good they are at something, what they can or can't do? Or do we place importance on who they are, and how we feel around them? What sort of vibes they emit? If they inspire us? If we enjoy spending time with them?

We could look at ourselves the same way, and not measure our worth according to how many things we achieve, how many jobs we get done, what particular role we fulfil. We could instead remind ourselves of who we really are - at the core - and what individual quirks we have to share with the world.

So, next time someone asks "What is your story"? I might just smile, refrain from telling what I do or don’t do, and give them a glimpse of who I ‘be’ :)