What's your word?

A friend lent me a book recently and I am slowly digesting it's story. I read a section the other night that stuck out and got me thinking... let me explain...

After visiting Rome Liz sits down with her new Italian friend and the following takes place; "Giulio said, "Maybe you and Rome just have different words." What do you mean? He said "Don't you know that the secret to understanding a city and it's people is to learn - what is the word of the street?" Then he went on to explain, in a mixture of English, Italian and hand gestures, that every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there. If you could read people's thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever the majority thought might be-that is the word of the city. And if your personal word does not match the word of the city, then you don't really belong there. "what's Rome's word" I asked "SEX," he announced"...

The conversation goes on to discuss cities around the world and what their word is, for example New York City "it's a verb, of course. I think it's ACHIEVE"
Los Angeles "SUCCEED"
Stockholm "CONFORM"
Naples "FIGHT"

The conversation diverts to words of people, Giulio asks "what was the word in your family when you were growing up?" and then "what's your word"

In a book that's catch phrase is "one woman's search for everything" she throws around a few words she has been such as wife, depression, marriage etc and then gets stuck on what she is now.

It got me thinking about what my one word is, what word describes my thoughts and actions and would be an appropriate headline for my life, I went through a few words that I thought might fit but none of them seemed right or maybe they just challenged me, some words I toyed with; ACHIEVE, CONFORM, DEPRESSION, SINGLE, SEEK, PASSION, POWER, SEX, none of them adequately described me or my thoughts, finally settled on the word that I think sits well with me and I'm sure that as my life continues the word will adapt, but right now I think my word is "BE"

What's your word?
excerpt from "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert

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