Living in the Passive Voice?
Remember in school when your English teacher wanted to teach you the difference between the active voice and 
the passive.
Active = “Johnny kicked the ball”
Passive = “The ball was kicked by Johnny”.
The second sentence always brings to mind a reluctant Johnny sidling up to the detestable ball, barely touching his foot to it, despising it as it rolls feebly away from him, not deigning to watch where it goes…
Okay, maybe I get a bit carried away but the point is that the passive voice does much more to a sentence than just reorder its words. It changes its entire energy — and thus its meaning.
As in writing, so in life. Many of us are living in the passive voice, approaching our unfolding moments like Johnny approaching a ball.
Such passivity is not to be confused with acceptance, a core characteristic of the creative response. Creative acceptance, an open, allowing position, always feels good. Passivity is usually wrapped around some form of reluctance – non acceptance, judgement, closed mind – and comes trailing negative emotions.
Like Johnny with the ball, we detest, we despise, we ignore, we can’t be bothered.
What would it do to your life’s energy, your life’s meaning, if you were to move from passive voice to active? If you were to change the script from: “This is happening to me” to “I am happening to this”.
What would change?
What would you do differently?
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NEXT Time: The Third Stage of The Writing Process.
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