5 Ways To Transform Your Life Just By Changing Your Vocabulary
“Vocabularies are crossing circles and loops. We are defined by the lines we choose to cross or to be confined by.” — A.S. Byatt
“As names have power, words have power.” — Patrick Rothfuss
Just as the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon, your thoughts have shaped your life. According to the National Science Foundation, we have as many as 50,000 thoughts per day. Many of them are basic: “step,” “grab that,” “move.” But there are also many repeating messages. These ideas matter more than most realize because just as our beliefs and actions impact the words we use, the words we use shape our beliefs and actions.
This principle is well understood at the highest levels of politics. Politicians know that if they can get you to accept their choice of words, they can probably get you to accept their way of thinking as well. Whether you think of yourself as “pro-life” or “pro-choice” on abortion, view illegal aliens as “illegals” or “undocumented immigrants,” or regard tax cuts as “giving people back their own money” as opposed to “giving a tax break to the rich” likely determines which way you fall on an issue. When the words change, the feelings tend to change too.
1) Controlling your temper.
If you’re a human being, you’ve gotten in arguments with other people. It just goes with the territory. But how you DESCRIBE that argument can change how you view it. Was it a “knock-down, drag-out fight” or a “minor disagreement”? Did you “fly off the handle” or “get into a kerfuffle”? Show me someone who can’t control his temper and I will show you someone who habitually uses words like “enraged,” “explosive,” and “furious” to describe his feelings when someone with better self-control would use words like “perturbed, “peeved,” or “mildly annoyed.” If, for example, you label your reaction as “mildly annoyed,” it’s difficult to justify screaming or being upset for hours, isn’t it? By changing the words you habitually use, you can eventually turn yourself from a raging wolverine into a lamb.
“That really makes me mad!” (dad)
“That really makes me mad!” (mom)
“That really makes me mad!” (anyone)
“I don’t yell! You yell!” (anyone)
“Look at the speed this dip is going! 5 miles an hour in a 15 mile zone!” (dad. [mom didn't drive])
“There!! There, dear! That turn right there! Can’t you see it?? How will you ever get your license?!? Right there!!” (dad)
“Yeah, sure! Sure Walter! All those damn liberals on TV!!” (dad)
“Now dear.” (mom)
“I don’t yell!! You yell!!” (anyone)
I am so angry!” (mom)
“Those darn Democrats! They think the answer to any problem is to throw money at it!” (mom. [life long democrat])
“Those Goddamn Democrats! They think the answer to all our damn problems is to throw money at them all!!” (dad. [life long republican])
“We’re lost!!! This is no fun!! No fun at all, I tell you! NO FUN!! Where are we?!!?!” (dad)
“Okay! See if I care! One day your teeth will fall out of your head!” (mom)
“Wait until your father gets home!” (mom. [nothing happened])
“WILL YOU PLEASE STOP YELLING!!?!” (anyone)
“Look how slow he’s going! Cum’on!!” (dad)
“I am so angry!” (anyone)
“I hate those protesters! Those damn hippies! I really hate the ones that stand waaay in the back and go; ‘Charge!!’!!!” (dad)
“I don’t yell!!! You yell!!!” (anyone)
“If you get in trouble at school for fighting, I will be so embarrassed!” (mom. [no one did])
“Fight your own battles! Why come to me?!?” (mom)
“That really fries my frost!” (dad)
“That really makes me mad!” (anyone)
“STOP YELLING!!! I DON”T YELL! YOU YELL!!”
“Will everyone please stay calm.” (anyone)
Nice piece John. I can’t really relate to it, but it’s nice.
Mindset is so very important. I was given a good lesson on that in Basic Training.
In Basic Training, the drill sergeants are always harping on motivating you. I kept wondering why all the emphasis on motivation? One day, toward the end of my eighth week in Basic, I asked a drill sergeant about that, and he said, “You wouldn’t do any of it otherwise.”
And he was right.
None of us there was particularly athletic. We were all slobs of the Nintendo generation. Barely any of us could run two miles when we got there. My father told me he was running ten miles in boots when he was in Basic.
But all that really taught us is to motivate ourselves to do that which we would otherwise not. Things have got to get done. Training requires activity in order to do. If left to our own devices, we’d never get any of the training done, let alone decide to pack 80 lbs. of gear on our back and march 12 miles in a swealtering South Carolina summer. But I’ll tell you when we did accomplish that, you never saw a happier bunch of guys in your life.
If you learn how to control your mindset, you can accomplish anything.
I was just having this discussion the other night.
I am ETERNALLY grateful for that lessons learned in 12 weeks of Basic Training and in Advanced Electronics (42 weeks of physics, math, logic, and more).
The military prepared me by helping me understand how to train myself – which is not something I’d learned in public school.
You could argue that, historically, the military is one of the BEST training organizations, especially compared to the civilian institutes of higher learning… After all, it is one thing to make an accounting error, but a completely different thing to make a targeting error.
Not about vocabulary so much as mind set or attitude.
Check out VITKOR FRANKL’S MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING. If you’re in a bad place – or have “a friend” in a bad place – it may help you see the world more clearly.
Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who found himself in a Nazi concentration camp. He witnessed and endured incredible human suffering, but he survived the experience and emerged with a wisdom that only suffering can teach.
“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how.’”
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor Frankl
These are all really good points and very effective. I know because I have mastered 1,2,4 and 5. 3 is difficult for me but the distractions of parenthood come to mind.
I could’ve lived without the duct-taped baby photo. Child abuse is never even a little amusing.
“Just as the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon, your thoughts have shaped your life”
Since John has conquered vocabulary, perhaps he can start brushing up his use of metaphor.
Since percynjpn has conquered the skills of cut and past, maybe he can master the art of not saying anything at all if he has nothing nice to say.
F’CK you. #1 …. rule of stupidity.
obama: The Retard, won a national election by being the most divisive scumbag. And your pimply ass face says “change your vocab”…. what a smuck you are.
Yup. Civility is for chumps.
F-bombs, along with most profanity, lose their impact with frequent repetition. I work with a fellow who uses some variation of the F-word in nearly every sentence. Often, he uses two or more. “The Effing Eff is Effed up,” for example. Like Fantom, he’s tedious, not effective, as a communicator.
Ah yes, but he’s an effin’ master at alliteration.
I don’t censor vulgar epithets. I use them but seldom, hopefully to appropriate effect…..’>…….
Just reading those words made me feel better! I am almost 80 years old and I don’t remember ever feeling as depressed about our government. I voted early, legitimately. I am a registered legal voter and was born in the US. On one side of my family my ancestors have fought in every war since the French and Indian War. The other side legitimately came from Germany…with money in their pocket and were zble to read, write, and do math, in the 1860′s No one has ever been on welfare EVery person has been a productive citizen who has worked hard, done well in school, and volunteered much. It made me very angry to hear a kid, probably an illegal alien, ask to sing the Mexican National Anthem in his (ho ho) English class. The teacher for whom I was volunteering said yes….I am a retired teacher and I would have said ,”NO” I, in my dreams, would have failed the entire class who spent an hour doing nothing. I’m sure many support groups would have sprung into action if she tried to fail anyone. I know that drill from my teaching days. Things have become worse since Obama came on the scene. Every day it gets worse. Kids don’t think they have to learn, soldiers aren’t allowed to fight, Michelle goes on her expensive vacations, and everything said is “parsed”
i’M REALLY FED UP.
“There are few things more frustrating than talking to a beautiful, intelligent, charming woman who believes she’s worthless.”
But what if it’s a woman you regard as not beautiful at all? Different story, right? It’s quite common for men to label various women as “horse-face” or “ugly dog” or “old hag” in tones that convey deep contempt. It isn’t women’s inner voices that make them feel bad about themselves; it’s the disparaging way that other people talk about the failure to be physically perfect.
Exactly. Even if the woman is intelligent and charming, society tells her that she’s worthless anyway if she isn’t what’s generally considered “attractive”.
Stupid, feminist response. Beauty is valuable. We pay large amounts of money for beauty in our lives, whether it be houses, art, music, or a beautiful woman. Women spend huge amounts of money trying to look as beautiful as they possibly can, then they b1tch about men being shallow. Women compete fiercely in shallow fashion for such shallow men. Pot, meet kettle.
A beautiful woman has value, unless she is ugly enough inside for it to show through. A plain woman does not even have that basic value, so she better be pretty inside.
All that said, the woman described in this article is ugly inside. She elicits no compassion from me, because she is a pity-junkie, and I refuse to feed her habit. My response to her?
“The only thing worthless about you is the way you exploit your beauty to try to get pity and compassion from men. You manipulate men in this way. You appeal to their desire for a beautiful woman, and you appeal to their instinct to protect a vulnerable woman. You use men in a devious, disgusting, manipulative way. THAT is what makes you pathetic, so shut up!”
I can be kinda harsh….
Worse still. Someone unattractive on the outside, who is still after pity. Not that that makes them ugly on the inside. Just exasperating enough to want to stay away from. Of either gender. And then the worst. Ugly on the outside, and inside. But the best thing next to a beautiful woman who is beautiful on the inside, are homely women who are charming, or sweet. They can be more heartbreaking. But the thing is, women can not be convinced, if they are not models who belong in a magazine, that they are attractive, let alone beautiful. And it does not help that beauty is often a curse for women, because that attracts the worst sort of self-entitled men.
Oh, shut up, you ugly horse-faced dog hag.
Years ago Dr. Daniel R. Weinberger, a classmate, now at NIMH told me much the same thing: you wear grooves in your brain with the wheels of your thought.
As to the stupid women above, if you judge yourself by your image in other minds, you deserve what you get good and hard. If you love and value the things in your life you will be valued in your turn. If all you value is the opinion of others you are finished before you start.
“….drifting along like a jellyfish.”
Hmmm….jellyfish may not be too swift but give them a helluva wide berth….like ya do skunks….
…..some people are like that….
Best way to handle a jellyfish in your way is to beach it with a net. If that’s not enough — in the world of the Portuguese Man O’ War, it may not be — pour gasoline on it. Easy. (Lots of Republicans just beached themselves by accident.)
Skunks…you gotta point there.
I have a temper, but it is based on the seriousness of the situation. The thing is, what I deem serious is what others might deem trivial, and vice-versa. Sometimes I get angry, but I realize the triviality of the situation and the anger dissipates. That is how I control my temper. Unfortunately, there are many things which I deem worthy of anger….
ok, all right, but… jellyfishes?
Yes – language is incredibly important. I don’t understand why opponents of “gay marriage” refer to it as “gay marriage” rather than the more descriptive, more honest, and less flattering “genderless marriage.” Included under it is the couple in which the woman had cosmetic surgery to make her look like a man and a man who had cosmetic surgery to make him look like a woman.
Genderless marriage is more accurate. You’ve already lost when you adopt the language chosen by your opponent.