Awareness and value of language

There was a point in my life where words had lost their meaning. During this period of time I did not speak much, I stopped writing, and I didn’t even want to hear people converse. I got tired of people saying one thing, but meaning another. While valuable in some forms, the age of exaggeration is at its all time high and its starting to negatively impact the beauty of language.

We say words have value - they can destroy you, they can make you feel good, and everything in between - I agree. But, as time has progressed, our language and concern for speaking well has regressed in many ways. As a young man that I am, I often observe how my generation oftentimes thinks its cool to sound dumb. Additionally, the words that we use are very much overused, causing the actual words to regress and become, “watered down” in meaning.

Let’s take a look at the word ‘love’. Oh how beautiful of a word this is. Most would agree. Love is an incredibly sacred word, but many have begun to throw this word around like its the only word to define something they enjoy or that brings an element of joy to them. “I love this coffee shop”, “I love your necklace”, I love pasta”, “I love watching sports”, “I love this time of year”. The constant usage of the word ‘love’ when we don’t actually love something may not seem like it is any harm, but when you overuse it and it comes time to actually tell someone that you love them or to express how deeply your passion for something is, it becomes problematic. When I hear people say they love things constantly, it shows me that they have a disregard for what the value of this sacred word has. It is okay to say the you like something, or that you enjoy doing certain things, that the shoes you are wearing make you feel confident. But please, make the effort to think deeper and reach for words that you don’t find yourself using much. It will really start to broaden your vocabulary but will also have an impact on how people perceive you. Are you someone who is thoughtful and takes their time to think, or are you someone who just blindly reaches for the first word that comes to mind. Be considerate of your language, it has a deep impact on yourself. People appreciate the use of more diverse language.

Let’s also look at the word, ‘hilarious’. The word ‘hilarious’ is at the far end of intensity of something being funny. Things can amuse you, people can be humorous, silly, entertaining, witty, ect. But for everything you see that is funny to be ‘hilarious’? I mean if that was the case, you should be rolling on the floor laughing uncontrollably. The point of this is to be conscious of the words you speak because of the depth of meaning behind things. If we can start to become more aware of the usage of the language we speak, thinking and speaking with more thought about what we are trying to convey, than we can subsequently accomplish something of great meaning further down the road in our life.

The use of negative language is also something I’d like to address. I would like to share that as I have started to make a conscious effort to not use as much explicit language in my everyday life, I have noticed a significant change in how I feel. oftentimes we are unaware of how much we swear. Most of the times it is to ourselves, sometimes to other people, but very rarely is it ever used in a positive way. I don’t know anyone that likes being sworn at or spoken to negatively. That makes very rational sense. Well if this is the case, why would you say it to yourself? Everything that comes out of your mouth tells something deeper about you. Are you a person who spills swear words out of your mouth, well how is your self confidence? How is your patience? This is the point. Using negative language doesn’t just sound bad to our ears, but it has a legitimate impact on how we view ourselves and the energy we have for living. Since I made a deal with myself to make a conscious effort to not swear as much, I have noticed a significant change in how my body and mind respond to it when I hear it come out of someone’s mouth. It sounds like nails on a chalkboard. I truly can’t help but cringe when I hear this now. My ears do not like it and I truly make an effort to not be around it. I never would have thought it made such a big difference but I feel the positive energy get sucked out of me when these words are fired off around me. It’s uncomfortable, negative, rude, and quite frankly unprofessional. Many people have disregarded the awareness of using these words in public which make people feel quite uncomfortable and sometimes disrespected.

There is always a time and place to use these words if you wish, just be mindful about it.

As you can start to see, language has such extraordinary value in our lives and I hope that I’ve made you slightly more aware if you have never heard these observations of mine previously. To begin to figure out our future, we must first understand what plays a significant role in our lives currently. How you speak, dictates much more than you imagine…

Dino