I will be the first to admit that I spend a LOT of time freaking out about words. About making sure I put the precise label on the situation at hand, because if I don’t, then the other person will not understand me.
This anxiety has led me to be hyper-vigilant in my use of language, allowing me to pick up the nuances of languages super quickly. It has also caused me many sleepless nights, nagging me to figure out the best words to put into an email, a flyer, or a company description.
When I dig into it a little further, I question the point of communication: is it for the other person to understand me or to feel me?
I reflect on the experience that I had at a seminar this past weekend. The same speaker both captivated me and bored me throughout the day. What I noticed is that I felt captivated when he was telling his life story and I felt bored when he was describing his intellectual theory of spirituality.
Why? Because when he was telling his life story, HE looked captivated and when he was explaining his intellectual theory, HE looked bored.
No matter how hard we try to swoon somebody over with the words, people are going to grasp the emotion that we’re transmitting. I believe this is why cuss words can be both invitations to fight and terms of endearment. It is not the word that determines the meaning, but the underlying emotion. Are you saying it in anger or are you saying it in playful love?
So why write this? Because in writing this to you I am reminding myself that the words I choose to describe my work and to describe myself do not matter as much as the emotions I embody as I’m describing them.
Party on, Garth.
😀