We orient ourselves with activity and “doing” in the modern world. Usually the second question upon meeting a new person is “What do you do?”. We introduce ourselves with first, our name, and second, our role or title. But, is this all that we are? Do we concern ourselves with who we are? What is it to “just be” something? I could introduce myself a few ways – which one tells you more about me?
- Hi, my name is Dev Gupta, I’m a Program Manager for software product and marketing teams.
- Hi, I’m Dev – people describe me as pragmatic, loud, friendly, systematic, and semi-geeky.
- I’m Dev and my hobbies include: reading, gardening, hiking, spa-ing, long talks, and cooking.
When we read Jane Austen or Charles Dickens we find the characters reviewing each other’s personalities and traits. Mr. Darcy is proud to a fault while Elizabeth Bennet is prejudiced. By the end of the novel, they both realize they had misjudged each other. Today, when we hire team members, we look for experiences that are all “doing” qualities. In my world of software development and software marketing, it’s about a person’s knowledge of tools, programming languages, and project methodologies. All of these are important. However, many of these topics can be easily learned by most people with good training and a bit of time. What may be more diffcult is to “be” a certain trait like to be “open”, to be “accepting”, to “let go” or to be “curious”.
I started this site and these blogs to explore what it means to learn “to be” something. I would like to start this as an exploration – first, documenting my own journey from “doing” to “being” then learning from others who are walking along this “being” path. This idea was so important that I named this site and my company “Learning To Be”. Here are a few topics I am currently exploring:
- How can we learn to be our best selves?
- Can we improve a trait that is underdeveloped?
- Does thinking of certain traits as weaknesses or strengths serve us?
- Are certain traits better suited for certain careers?
In my experience, we can learn new ways to be something. It does take awareness, patience and practice. More importantly, by focusing on how to be something we can improve other skills and accept ourselves for who we are.
