Choosing one's words...
Sep. 9th, 2012 07:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpAs a translator and writer, I am a confirmed believer in the power of words; my life experience has also made me a believer in the power of "self-talk," or the words you use when you talk to yourself.
Conventional wisdom from another era held that talking to yourself was a sign of some kind of mental aberration. "Not so," my late mother would contend, "It's perfectly okay to talk to yourself."
Then a twinkle would appear in her eye and she would add, "It's only a problem if you find yourself constantly arguing with yourself." And here she would pause for effect and continue, "But the time to truly seek help is when you start to lose those arguments!"
I am far from that last stage, but I have—from time to time—noticed a tendency of mine to overuse "to have to" in my self-talk. That, combined with the feeling noted recently of "having to" do an awful lot of stuff in a sort of infinite eat-work-sleep loop, made me question my repeated use of "having to." My self-talk went along approximately the following lines:
Later.
Conventional wisdom from another era held that talking to yourself was a sign of some kind of mental aberration. "Not so," my late mother would contend, "It's perfectly okay to talk to yourself."
Then a twinkle would appear in her eye and she would add, "It's only a problem if you find yourself constantly arguing with yourself." And here she would pause for effect and continue, "But the time to truly seek help is when you start to lose those arguments!"
I am far from that last stage, but I have—from time to time—noticed a tendency of mine to overuse "to have to" in my self-talk. That, combined with the feeling noted recently of "having to" do an awful lot of stuff in a sort of infinite eat-work-sleep loop, made me question my repeated use of "having to." My self-talk went along approximately the following lines:
Okay, that breakfast ought to keep me going for a while... Next, I have to buckle down and finish the [redacted] document... Wait a second, why am I always using that "have to" formulation?... It's certainly not helping my mood.... Sure, I "have to" do it, but isn't there any better way of expressing it?...... I'm going to have to give this some thought later.... [mental facepalm]It's actually high time I completed that work.
Later.
