Words Matter

Words Matter

My mother taught me to ignore the mean things people say: “sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you”. But it was not true. Words matter.

There was a period in my childhood when I was in the habit of frequently and offhandedly saying, “I’m gonna kill you,” just as a way of casually disagreeing with my friends. “I hate you” was a way of expressing admiration. I knew a teenager who called anything he liked “sick”.

Nowadays I often hear success being described as “killing it”.

How about, let’s not. Even when we know what we mean to say, our subconscious mind hears it differently. This is abundantly illustrated by the bias research showing we make judgements about things we perceive, long before we are even aware we are doing so. 

Who has not had a few words spoken to them that changed the course of their life, encouraged them in a crucial moment, or hurt their feelings so deeply that they rang in their mind for years after?

And our conscious mind is really the tiny tip of the iceberg sticking up above the unconscious waters of our mind. Most of our mind is bopping along on automatic, almost all of the time. This part of the mind is the overwhelming majority, despite the impression, and conceit, really, that you, the Awake One, are in charge, calling the shots. 

And while we are on the subject, could we stop “shooting” each other an email? (Maybe we could chute it.)  We have so many violent expressions, remnants of former times and things we no longer do. Who kills birds with stones these days? Who even wants to?

We disempower girls when we refer to the generic person as a he. We confuse

dark skinned children when we constantly refer to bad things as dark and good things as light.

It takes extra time to compose our thoughts into words that truly are congruent with the meaning we want to express. But it is worth the effort, for we are not only putting forth the enhanced coherent power of these memes to affect those who hear or read our words, we are also reshaping and sharpening our own minds, and clearing the clutter. 

“Whatever words we speak ought to be chosen carefully for those who hear them will be influenced by them, for better or worse.” - Buddha