Sure we get disappointed with things in life but does that level of disappointment justify our choice of words?
When food doesn’t taste good, our reaction is, “It’s awful!”
When a student doesn’t do a good job with her homework, our reaction is “It’s terrible!”
When there’s traffic on the road, our reaction is “It’s horrendous!”
The words we use to express our disappointment on daily matters may be spoken without much thought, but they create a sense of negativity for the listeners.
As Robert Cialdini, in his book Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way To Influence And Persuade, writes about how words are a mechanism of influence.
When you ask someone, ”What is the problem?” They will inevitably focus on the problem even if there isn’t one. This happens because as humans we tend to look for evidences that confirm our preconceived thoughts rather than the converse.
Words are powerful tools that must be used with utmost care.
The late Joseph Conrad, an English novelist of Polish decent wrote, “He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.”
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