A few evenings ago, I found myself in a surprisingly deep conversation with my 11-year-old, trying to explain the verb “to be.” What started as a fairly innocent grammar discussion became something much harder to articulate. The more we explored it, the more I realised that “being” isn’t a simple concept at all. In fact, it may be one of the hardest things to explain, and perhaps even harder to practise.

In education we often talk about what people do. We build curricula around skills, we set outcomes and assessments, we track performance. All of that matters. Action is necessary. Doing gives us agency. It’s how we participate in the world and how we make change possible.

But I worry that we don’t give nearly enough attention to the deeper questions of being. Who are our students becoming—not just in terms of careers, but as people? Are they learning to act with intention, or are they simply reacting to the pressures around them?

This is where wanting comes in. So much of what we do is driven by what we think we want. Increasingly, those wants are shaped by forces most people never really notice. Social media, advertising, even parts of our educational culture. They all have a way of influencing desire without necessarily building awareness.

Coming back to that conversation with my son. To be, to do, to want: they’re not just verbs, they’re deeply human questions. And in a world where AI can do more and more for us, I think education must focus even more on what it means to live with intention, to act from within rather than be pulled from without.

At Euro University of Bahrain, as well as preparing students for employment, we’re also helping them to develop clarity of mind, purpose in action and the self-awareness needed to navigate a noisy world. Not every student will articulate it in philosophical terms, and they shouldn’t have to.

𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘭𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘸𝘦’𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦.