What’s In Your Language?

ByMatthew

Less than three minutes in to the latest episode of the Good Life Project I heard something that I had to write about.

In introducing how he went from soccer-playing college freshman from the ‘burbs to immersed in indigenous Amazonian culture, Tyler Gage talks about how stewardship was part of the language of an indigenous tribe he was “with.”

It immediately got me to thinking about our own personal language, and what it contains.

I’m a pretty keen observer of people and their language and I noticed that “lack” and “can’t” is integral to the language of many.

So many people speak about what they can’t do, or what they don’t have (or what’s gone wrong, and why that keeps them from what they want).

Language is fundamental to our lives because we experience our lives through meaning.

And meaning is transmitted through language.

Life is.

But to each of us, life is what we think it is. And we think through language.

We feel emotions (thoughts manifested in our bodies), but we think language.

So, the language we use uses us.

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