The Weight of Words

Picture a baby elephant. Grey rough skin, big beautiful eyes, two tusks and a trunk. Picture four grey stumpy legs and around one of which is a heavy metal cuff with a chain attached to a spike in the ground; the spike being almost the height of baby elephant itself. It is too small to break free from the chain, too slight to pull the spike from the ground. 

Picture now another elephant, this time fully grown. All of the same features as baby elephant before, including the chain and spike. This time, however, our elephant towers over the spike and could pull it from the ground if he so wished. Only he doesn’t, this elephant doesn’t even try.
 

These are both the one elephant. In adult form there is no attempt made to act out and free itself because he has learnt from a young age that there is no point. Having spent long enough being constricted he fails to see that in adult life he now has the power to break out and overpower his shackles; just as we do as humans. 

As has been heavily documented, the education system we follow is one which fails many and praises memory. We follow an education system crafted during the 19^th Century which favours subjects and fields which cater most for the demands laid down at the time of the industrial revolution, placing maths and science highest, humanities second and arts at the bottom. We spend 12-14 years indoctrinated into the belief that memorising textbooks for tests and getting right answers will set us up best for life as adults. We are discouraged from speaking out, asking the wrong question or thinking independently and where does that leave us? In the current climate, with few places to go if we followed the school path step by step. It is a known and accepted fact that in our failing economy those who thrive the most are those able to create their own opportunities but this can only be done with creative thinking and bravery. No surprise then that some of the world’s most innovative entrepreneurs are also school leavers: Bill Gates, Josephine Fairley, Richard Branson, Jenny Craig, Steve Jobs, Alan Sugar and even Thomas Edison amongst others. 

What then is so different about the mind-set of these successful people who thrived and succeeded without mainstream education?

Their inner monologue.

 Rather than reinforcing the reprimands of schoolteachers these people reminded themselves of their strengths and ability to succeed. Even more importantly they were not afraid not failure, refusing to accept the commonly told mistruth that we shouldn’t make mistakes and we are bad if we do so. They know that the only stupid question is the one we never asked. The language with which they speak to themselves is empowering, encouraging and strength building- it focuses solely on the potential.

The importance of the words which we use, whether to speak to others or ourselves should not be underestimated; as the saying goes ‘our thoughts becomes our words, our words become our actions’. Our thoughts are already physical things within the universe before they exit our mouth; at the point in which we vocalise them we are cementing even further into our truth. If we picture something, if we speak about it then we have already engaged in a commitment to the physical realisation of that idea. In this way, we both command and demand that our life path and the universe with it become what we want it to be- either negative or positive.

Dr. Maya Angelou says the following: “Words are things I’m convinced. You must be careful about the words you use or the words you allow to be used in your house. Words are things. We must be careful. Careful about calling people put of their names; using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance. Don’t do that. Someday we’ll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things, I think they get on the walls, they get in your wallpaper, they get in your rugs and your upholstery and your clothes and finally into you”.

In fact, she has been known to put people out of her house for telling racist jokes, unafraid to disrupt a room in the process, referring to this type of language as a ‘little murder’. In an interview from December 2000, she explains how when people use language about us which is in some way demeaning what they are engaging in is a cowardly assassination attempt at our character. However, it is even more than this. Stating how all air around us is made of sounds and images, negative language fills more than just the mind, but also the spirit and the energy of the surrounding area; “I'm convinced that the negative has power. It lives. And if you allow it to perch in your house, in your mind, in your life, it can take you over. So when the rude or cruel thing is said—the lambasting, the gay bashing, the hate—I say, "Take it all out of my house!" Those negative words climb into the woodwork and into the furniture, and the next thing you know they'll be on my skin.”

Carrying negativity is our decision. It is a weight which no-one forces us to carry. There will be times when it will be more difficult to shake off the shackles of this weight but it one which we, and only we, have the power to do. While it is important to express our feelings and let go of negativity instead of bottling it, making a concerted effort to use only the most positive language we can makes a huge impact upon our mind-set; our ability to make brave decisions, to bounce back from failure and lead much more contented lives overall. Our choice of language has a knock on effect on which path we choose to walk in life and who we choose to accompany us on those paths. Ultimately, it is life-changing. The best part about it is that it is right within our control; the redemptive power of choice is ours for the taking. The chains are ours to remove.