Last month I got a new tattoo – a cursive letter B, the same that my bestie was busily having branded on her arm in the seat across from me. The B itself is meaningful to both of us, and is tightly wound into the silly nicknames we have for each other, and we each embellished the stamp on our arms as we chose. Sarah (or Cabee, as I call her) added a bright little bumble bee to the stylized letter. And Me? I added a few words to create a mantra that I was close to, one I had scribbled on post-it notes and stuck in several places around my house: Do B Do Be Do.

People have questioned the meaning of the ink, suggesting it sounds like a song of yesteryear that saw our Grandparents crooning alongside Sinatra, snapping their fingers in time. And, as well, I’ve had my share of Scooby Doo theories – most often accompanied with the melodic phrase itself: Scooby doobie do! And while I dig me some Scoob and his stoner buddy, Shaggy, certinaly not enough to needle his garbled “words” on my body. No, the phrase means more to me than anything ol’ Blue Eyes or a talking cartoon dog ever articulated. And, when it comes down to it, the simple text means more than a lot of my other tattoos because, beyond mere words, they are actionable.

These words remind me that it’s important to DO – and I ain’t just talking about some day-to-day bullshit scribbled on some tattered paper we carry, eager for that dopamine kick we get when we cross out something we accomplished. No, I mean that what I DO is in congruence with what or who I wish to BE. And sometimes? I need to do things I may not want to do, in order to become what/who I want to be.

I’m done with the treadmill of everyday – running the course of a cyclic routine that serves me only to stay in place. I mean, hey, the world is big and I’m pretty small, having seen and experienced just a tiny fraction of what I want to see and experience.

So that is my job – the one I’ve appointed myself, anyway: To DO, and to BE. And then DO more in order to BE more. And then again DO new things to BE new things – ever affected by my own actions. This is a cycle I feel alright about jumping on because it seems as though I’m more a participant in my future, rather than watching it roll toward me slowly.

Because being intentional? Is a pretty good way to be in control of all the DOing and BEing I gots going on. I know I can’t always be in control, and yes I know things aren’t always as easy as I make them out to be. But they are simple. And if I can keep my eyes on things as I wade through the “easy”, it’s alllll good, Bitches.