“‘Careful with fire’ is good advice we know. ‘Careful with words’ is ten times doubly so.” ~~William Carleton
What are your values, your hopes, your dreams and desires? What are your excuses, your justifications, your judgements and regrets? What is your history? You would be hard pressed to answer these without the use of language. As social beings, we communicate all day: we listen to the radio, we have the TV on, we chat on the internet and take cell phone calls in the middle of dinner. We are constantly talking! But how often do we really listen? How often do we question what we say? How often do we wonder where our opinions come from, the “reality” we support or even words we use? And why are these questions important?
The thoughts we have and the language we use is imperative to understanding ourselves; where we are coming from, where we want to go, how we are going to get there and what’s holding us back. Language organizes our thoughts and provides us a point of reference and a point of view from which we see the world and our place in it. In essence, our use of language determines our perception of reality.
If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything, is ready, we shall never begin.
- Ivan Turgenev
“We will have kids when we have a house.”
”I’ll go for the better job when I take a course.”
”I’ll take a vacation when I get promoted.”
”I’ll buy the pretty outfit when I lose weight.”
I think we have all heard people speak of their dreams as something dependent of the circumstances surrounding them and, truth be told, we can probably list a few wishes of our own that are stuck in the myre of “I will…when”.
While it’s true that we have responsibilities that need to be filled- bills need to be paid and families need to be tended to- much of our free time is frittered away on trivial pursuits. We fill our days with senseless television shows, numb ourselves to the world with a variety of addictions and focus our time and energy on things that we may need to let go. Rarely do we sit down and reflect on our lives; make the attempt to discover what matters to us, what our dreams may be and how to get on with filling them. Our most valuable resource- our very life- is squandered, while our dreams rot away on the back burner.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
The only thing in life that you can be absolutely sure of is that things will change. The best part of it is that we have the opportunity to be aware of what our choices are and participate in these changes by making conscious choices. Do you remember the golden rule of childhood? He who owns the ball, makes the rules. This is as true today as it was then. Your life belongs to you, how do you want to play it?
