Their writing often explores themes of introspection, love, loss, and resilience

“The Punishment of Becoming”

A Poem by Rayne LaDuex

Oscar Wilde once said that to know exactly what you want to be in life is a punishment. To say it aloud, to name yourself, is to bind yourself to it. If you declare “I will be a teacher,” then you are no longer a person who teaches but a teacher forever. If you say “I will be a soldier,” you become a soldier not just in war but in spirit. If you say “I will be a judge,” you will wear the robes long after the courtroom empties. The title begins to own you. It shapes the way others see you and, worse, the way you see yourself. What once was freedom becomes a sentence.

I think that is why I never answered the question the way I was supposed to. You know the one—every child gets asked it. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The expected answers are neat and easy. A doctor. A lawyer. An athlete. A firefighter. Titles you can put on a name tag. Roles you can rehearse for. I never wanted to hand over that kind of power to a single word.

So I always said, successful.

That was my answer. Not a profession, not a destination, but a direction. It was not the kind of answer adults liked to hear. They wanted something concrete, something they could picture, something they could nod and smile at. But I knew even then that I did not want to live inside one mask. I wanted to keep learning, keep shifting, keep becoming. I wanted to be a student forever.

And to be a student is not to cling to a title, but to embrace a verb. That is what I have come to understand. Success, for me, is not a crown placed on the head, not a medal hung on the chest, not a title printed on a business card. Success is movement. Success is process. Success is the verb.

Think about it. A teacher may teach, but then what? A soldier may fight, but then what? A judge may rule, but then what? The nouns stop. They plant you in the ground. They tell you who you are, and that is the end of it. But the verb keeps moving. To learn. To grow. To strive. To love. These are alive. They bend. They stretch. They carry you forward into places you could not have planned.

The world loves nouns. They are safe. They are tidy. They are something you can stamp onto a resume, something you can fold into conversation at a dinner table. But life itself is written in verbs. It is not artist, it is to create. It is not lover, it is to love. It is not leader, it is to guide. The nouns are monuments; the verbs are movements.

Maybe Wilde was right. Maybe the punishment of knowing what you want to be is that you are doomed to become exactly that and nothing more. But if that is true, then perhaps the only way out is never to answer with a noun at all. Perhaps the only freedom is to answer with motion.

So when I say I want to be successful, I do not mean what the world imagines. I do not mean the corner office or the heavy wallet or the trophies lined up on the shelf. I mean successful as a student of life. I mean successful as someone who refuses to stop learning, who refuses to stop becoming. I mean successful as someone who is always reaching, always just on the edge of the next discovery.

My success lives in the unfinished sentence. My success is in the ellipses, in the space that says there is still more to come.

Because in the end, it is not the noun that defines us. It is the verb that carries us. It is not what we are. It is what we are becoming.And when I finally burn out, I hope the stars keep their silence. Let them be indifferent. Let them spin on. For in that irrelevance, I found reason enough to love, to suffer, to create, to be.

Rayne LaDuex is a passionate writer of poetry and short stories that delve into the raw and often unspoken facets of human experience. Drawing inspiration from the quiet moments of life and the intricate emotions that weave our stories, LaDuex creates work that is both deeply personal and universally resonant. Their writing often explores themes of introspection, love, loss, and resilience.

In addition to writing, LaDuex balances creativity with a career in project management and serves their community as a high school football coach, helping to mentor and inspire the next generation. They find harmony between structure and imagination, weaving these experiences into their art. Silence is their debut collection, a heartfelt offering to those who find solace in words and the spaces between them.

Order Silence here.

Summary

Rayne LaDuex’s poem The Punishment of Becoming explores the delicate balance between identity and growth, challenging the notion that choosing a title limits personal freedom. Through introspective reflection, LaDuex advocates for embracing life as a continuous verb rather than a static noun, encouraging readers to pursue success through perpetual learning and transformation. This evocative work resonates with those seeking meaning in motion, not destination, and highlights the power found in remaining unfinished.

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TAGS: poetry, Rayne LaDuex, introspection, identity, personal growth, resilience,
creative writing, process, transformation, success, The Punishment of Becoming