Epiphanies
The other day after noticing myself in the mirror I had a thought that nearly everyone has had at one time or another: “Man, I am fat.” What many people probably don’t have is the thought that followed, which made me call bullshit on myself. I realized in that moment that despite being overweight I am not fat, I merely possess too much fat.
Think about the difference between those two wordings for a second. The first takes complete ownership of the current state of affairs, which is good. The flip side of owning it is that you make it part of yourself. It leaves room for all the negative goal breaking thoughts that creep in as you stare at leftover cheesecake in the fridge.
“Well you can’t help being who you are, not your fault losing weight is so hard, those slices of cheesecake won’t make that much difference…”
Insidious, isn’t it?
Wait, I’ve heard of this
It’s true, you probably have. This phenomenon is called The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. Back in the 60′s Sapir and Whorf suggested that the language you use to think with influences how you think. Taken to the extreme and unreasonable this would mean that if you didn’t have a word for sad, you could never experience sadness.
While current theory believes it is flawed, I feel it still has some truth to it. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother writing about it obviously. Common sense tells us that happy peppy people are more likely to use happier ways to describe the same situation than depressed people. By saying optimistic things, you eventually become more optimistic. The How of Happiness talks about how 40% of your happiness can be set by intentional actions. We all want to be 40% (whatever that means) happier, don’t we?
How to Use This
The simplest, but not easiest, way to use this fact is by noticing the language we use in the moment. This requires paying closer attention to what we are saying as we are saying it. My friends would be quick to point out the fact that I tend to ramble so this has been a struggle for me.
One method would be to pay attention to what you are feeling and see how that comes through in your language. If you are feeling sad do you say words like “sucks, lame, etc” more often than usual? When you are already mad you are way more likely to call someone an asshole than if you are having a great day. Same situation, the only difference is how you were feeling at the time.
Today’s Youwork
Youwork is homework that you have to do to improve yourself. Much as normal homework is supposed to give you practice before the exam, youwork lets you train up for situations in the future. But seriously what the heck man, I was just skimming some blog article and didn’t want to do anything. Yeah you and me both. My goal for this site is actually improve peoples lives and you can’t improve if you don’t put in the work. I don’t know anyone who was born a super cool person, nor do I think they exist. Seriously, babies are like the opposite of cool. Cute in a weird alien sort of way perhaps, but rarely cool.
People become cool by going through challenges and rising to the occasion over and over again, despite setbacks.
Do this today (or the soonest reasonable time)!
- When in a conversation with someone, check in with your body and assess what you are feeling. It could be happy, sad or even meh.
- Keep the conversation going and try and catch words that are commonly associated with that emotion.
- Viola! You know have a better understanding of how your emotions influence your language
- Come back to this post and write a comment about the experience.
Extra Credit
- When checking in with your body look at your body language as well. If your arms are crossed in front of your chest you are protecting yourself or emotionally closing off; slouching shoulders might mean you feel defeated or overwhelmed and so forth.
That’s it?
Yep, at least for this article. But I really do want your feedback, so post comments or send me an email with your thoughts, ideas, success stories and anything else that isn’t spam or from Nigerian royalty.
