You wear a hat, you’re not a hat.

State nouns are verbs that we talk about like they are nouns. Hurry, panic, frenzy, rage, funk, stupor, daze, fog, rut, bind, pickle, fix, slump, tailspin, tizzy. Notice that they’re almost all negative…

You’re in a hurry.

Really? I get that you’re hurrying. There might be good reasons for this. But the hurry hat isn’t what you are, it’s what you’re doing.

We can own our agency and our choices, not announce (to ourselves or the world) that we’re trapped in a container, unable to escape.

Until we start saying, “I’m in a joy” perhaps we should find the grace to choose what sort of verb we’d prefer.

The essential thing about a hat is that it’s easy to take off.