We've all heard it before:
Don't try; do.
Still, that insidious little cop-out of a verb continues to infiltrate our vocabulary, inadvertently holding us back, slowing us down and cramping our style.
Try introduces the possibility of failure into the scenario in question. It transmits doubt.
"We're trying to get this project off the ground."
"I'm trying to quit smoking."
"What I'm trying to say is..."
Notice how weak these sentences/phrases are. Do you feel the efforting laden in the first sound bite? The hurdles, the chaos and the blocks? Would you invest money in his mission? Do you associate speaker 2 as a smoker, or a non-smoker? Is person 3 presenting themselves as an effective communicator, or are they acknowledging their failure?
And so we see how this seemingly innocuous try is a tiny, yet powerful and effective means of self-sabotage.
I repeat: Don't try; do.
Wednesday
Monday
a few words on "should"
Plenty of people are running rebel consciousness in some form or another, which renders them less open to being told what to do then, say, Virgos, religious fanatics or children. Some folks, the author included, shut down when being told what to do, thus making themselves unavailable for whatever message may trail the otherwise well-intentioned heels of the casually dropped “should”. As long as we’re expending the energy to communicate, doesn’t it make sense to support ourselves in being heard? Should resonates at a despotic, tyrannical frequency that causes contraction in the receiver (i.e. the people we're talking to). It’s infinitely more difficult to throw a ball through a tiny slit than a gaping hole. Opting to employ words that expand the receiver makes it infinitely easier for them to hear and integrate our messages, and for us deliver them.
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