Hi Reader -
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
But what if you didn't know it was broke?
I've spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about the word belonging.
It's a word people use often and with good intention, especially in conversations about workplaces and communities.
We want people to feel like they belong.
We want to create a sense of belonging.
We want people to know they belong here.
I understand what people mean when they say it. I respect what they mean.
And I have bristled at the word for years.
I'm a descendant of people who were enslaved in America. People who, quite literally, belonged to other people.
So when I hear belonging, I hear two meanings.
There is the belonging that means connection. Having a place. Being part of something. Being known and wanted and able to participate.
And there is the belonging that means possession.
This belongs to me.
Those meanings occupy the same word.
For years, I have made a small adjustment in my own language. I say that I want to belong with, rather than belong to.
With feels different to me.
I can be with you and remain my own.
Still, I have generally accepted belonging as the word we have. I understood what everyone meant. Why make a thing of it?
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Except . . . maybe it was broken for me.
And each time I mentioned to someone that the word felt broken, they would ask:
“What word would you use instead?”
I never had a good answer.
Connection.
Welcome.
Community.
Inclusion.
None of those words seem sufficient.
I understood what people were trying to say when they said belonging. I wanted all of that, too. I just wanted language for it that didn't also carry the possibility of possession.
I have been fascinated by words for as long as I can remember. I was the kid who wanted to know what words meant, where they came from and why we used one word instead of another.
One of my favorite places to visit in Washington, D.C., is Planet Word, a whole museum devoted to the wonder of language and how it evolves.
Words aren't fixed things we simply inherit.
People create them.
English is full of words that someone, somewhere, needed badly enough to create. We borrow pieces from other languages. We combine roots. We add prefixes and suffixes. We give old words new meanings.
Eventually, if enough people find a word useful, it becomes part of the language.
So Sunday morning, I fell down a word creation rabbit-hole.
What if I stopped looking for another word and made one?
Enter: Weidship.
(pronounced WADE-ship)
Weid- comes from an ancient root associated with seeing and knowing and -ship describes a state or condition.
And wade, while it isn't the etymological root, gives the word another resonance I appreciate.
When we wade into water, we enter and navigate a current that was moving before we arrived.
Families have currents.
Workplaces have currents.
Communities have currents.
Cultures have currents.
We enter them. We participate in them. We affect them and are affected by them.
All while, under the best circumstances, retaining our agency.
Although this word and definition are still evolving, for now, weidship means:
Weidship is being safe, seen, welcome, and meaningfully connected while exercising agency.
I'm trying the word on.
I'm saying it out loud.
I'm putting it into sentences.
We search for weidship in our personal and professional lives.
I experience weidship here.
What would it take to cultivate weidship in this community?
And now I'm offering it to you to try.
I haven't decided that the word belonging is broken for everyone. Language carries history, culture and experience, and we don't all hear the same thing when we hear the same word.
But sometimes a word can work perfectly well for years until somebody asks a question that makes us notice what else it is carrying.
So I'm curious.
What do you hear when you hear the word belonging?
And what happens when you hear weidship instead?
