-ship

I've had a lot of conversations recently about friendship either honored or dishonored, or understood or misunderstood. Friendship can be defined in a myriad of ways; as any friendly type of relationship, a lifelong bond, or having kinship. The ""-ship"" kept coming up and I became curious about the etymology of ""-ship."" According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the following is the etymology of -ship:

Old English -sciepe, Anglian -scip ""state, condition of being,"" from Proto-Germanic -skapaz (cf. Old Norse -skapr, Old Frisian -skip, Dutch -schap, German -schaft), from skap- ""to create, ordain, appoint,"" from PIE root *(s)kep- (see shape (v.)).

As a coach the Old English part resonates a lot with me: ""state, condition of being."" Friendship to me is a state, and a condition of being. One that I feel is worthy of being defined. Which is why then the second part of the etymology is interesting to me in that is about: ""creating, ordaining, appointing."" To the coach in me, that screams, ""Be intentional."" Whether the word in question is friendship, kinship, relationship, or some other -ship word, the message is the same to me.

Create the state of being.

An empowering thought to say the least. So I ask you this question: for the -ships in your life, have you created their state of being?

If you have, you likely enjoy the strong sense of resonance in being in those -ships. If you haven't, I challenge you to spend time in the next 7 days being intentional about creating the state of being.