Language and Habits

It always intrigues me when science comes to a conclusion that confirms other teachings.  As far back as I know, positive thinking advocates have always recommended putting affirmations in the present tense … I AM trim, healthy and energetic … rather than I WILL be trim, healthy and energetic.

It seemed to make sense but I never understood the reasoning behind it until I read about a study done by M. Keith Chen, Yale University, School of Management and Cowles Foundation.  In this study, he proposes that languages with a strong separation of present and future tense create a mindset that causes people to be less likely to save money, exercise regularly, and eat healthily.  

Languages such as English, Czech, Russian, Persian, Turkish and Georgian separate the future from the present with verb tenses … I will go verses I go. Other languages such as German indicate the future with context … It rains tomorrow.  These languages seem to make the future feel more similar to the present.  Therefore, people treat the future more like the present … they save money today instead of putting it off until tomorrow.

Chen's study sparked conflict within the linguistic community and still hasn't received rigorous academic review.   However, it is interesting to contemplate how the language we speak may affect our attitude and actions.

More info:

Chen's Study

"Does This Language Make Me Look Fat?"

Circling Back

When I was young, I thought I'd be a world traveller.  I had a plan.  After I got out of high school, I was going to take a tramp steamer to Europe and then backpack to Switzerland.  I still haven't been to Switzerland.  Life had other plans.  I went to college, got married, started working and here I am, closer to the end than the beginning and those unfinished threads seem to be waving at me again. "Hey, remember me?  Is it time to play?" they seem to be asking.

A friend introduced me to International Living, a magazine and organization that helps people understand the legal, financial and cultural intricacies of moving to, and living in, a different country.  And, I now seem to be circling back, thinking about those childhood yearnings, wondering what's stopping me from doing what I might have done then if things had gone a different direction.  What's keeping me from spending several months a year living in other countries, learning other languages, immersing myself in other cultures?

The more I think about the things that fascinated me as a child, the more it seems that "circling back" might be a strategy for this stage of life.  Maybe those interests and yearnings are like dormant seeds just waiting for the right combination of time and circumstances before breaking ground once again in our consciousness.

What do you think?

The Scurrying Rat

My dad had a gift for seeing all the possible things that could go wrong in any situation.  He wanted to protect me so he gave me a rat ... a rat called Fear.  He trained it to remind me, with its scratchings and clawings, that beyond the known world there be dragons. Our known world was small ... a white-bread, Kansas farm town, as humanly and culturally uniform as the geography ... safe.

By the time I left home, I hardly noticed the rat as it kept me contained within the borders of its protective field. It was only when I tried to go outside those borders, that I heard it scurrying and the eerie scratching of its claws.  I was in my late twenties when I first caught a glimpse of the rat itself.  I had moved to the "big city" with my husband and quit my job to start my own business keeping books for small businesses.  

I had one client but needed more, which meant going out and talking to people, walking the streets of the big world. The rat went crazy.  Every scratch carried a story of crime, mayhem, and a hundred possible ways I could be hurt.  Leaving my office became a battle between my desire to find work and the rat.

I wish I could say I actually won that battle but it was merely postponed until another day when my first client offered me a full-time job.  However, I had met the rat, had begun to know what he was trying to do, and could begin to think about his role in my life.  A year and a half later, change beckoned. My husband helped me pack my car, taught me how to change a tire and use a CB radio, put a gun under the driver's seat, and sent me on my way as I headed out for a cross-country trip to find a job in California, at which time he would follow.

The rat eventually caught up with me, but was worn out by the trip and has never since had quite the same power over me.  I always know he's out there, trying to narrow my world, but now I can scratch as loudly as he does.  I'm grateful to him, he makes me think twice before rushing into a new venture, but I know what would happen if I let him have his way. 

He's old now.  He'd like to have a very small field to circle.  He'd like to be able to sleep in the sun without having to keep such a close watch over my activities.   He'd like to put me in a box so he didn't have to do anything at all.  My job is to not let him run my life.  It's a constant job.  Sometimes he recruits the help of my friends and acquaintances.  He's always dropping news flash warnings on my path, reminding me of the dangers "out there."

But, I have one life to lead and I choose to follow the path that calls me. I choose to trust the universe.  I know that doesn't mean that I will always be safe. But it does mean that if I die, I will die living my own life.  It does mean that if I should get hurt, I will figure out how to deal with it and learn the lessons that come with it.

Every day I breathe in Joy and breathe out Fear.  I'm not sure it is possible to live without fear. It is probably hard-wired into us, and rightly so.  There are lions and tigers and bears in the world.  But joy, beauty, and surprising delights also lurk around every new corner.  We just have to keeping taking one step after another on our own path.  We can listen to our friend the rat but he has to be constantly reminded that he is not in charge. 

Peace Pilgrim

This month marks the 60th anniversary of a remarkable pilgrimage.

A story by NPR reports:  In 1953, Mildred Norman set off from the Rose Bowl parade on New Year's Day with a goal of walking the entire country for peace.  She left her given name behind and took up a new identity:  Peace Pilgrim.

She vowed to be a wanderer until mankind learned the way of peace and walked over 25,000 miles and fasted until she was offered food, and traveled on foot until she was given shelter.  To prepare for her walk she hiked the entire length of the Appalachian Trail in one year -- the first woman to do so.  Determined to walk until the world declared peace, she walked for 28 years carrying no money, with only the clothes on her back and a few items in her pockets.  She died in 1981 … riding in a car.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Every year I post this poem on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 

birthday in honor of all that he gave us and in hopes that

we live up to his words.

Twenty-six he was when destiny crooked its finger,

beckoning the still-green minister-scholar into the world.

Forty-two she was when she pounded on the door

Theoretically opened ninety-four years before.

It was the first of December, 1955, when history wove

Their fates together into a multi-colored tapestry of change.

“Tired,” she said, “Bone tired. Tired of giving up.

Tired of giving in,” she said and sat in the front of the bus.

Montgomery, Alabama, shivered as the temperature rose.

The old ways could be heard keening long into the night

As 42,000 people left the buses to stand by Rosa’s side.

381 days they walked: nannies, maids, carpenters, all.

Two hundred years of anger rose up to shatter the silence

And from this deafening roar came a molasses-rich voice

Spinning a song of hope with a melody of peace and love.

“I have a dream,” boomed and echoed across the land.

The young minister-leader painted a picture of a life

without color lines, a world without violence.

His voice lifted the dream: Richmond, Little Rock,

Dallas opened their buses, took down their signs.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent

about things that matter," he said, never silent again.

He took our hands and led us step-by-step onto a new path,

Brothers and sisters connected by heart rather than skin.

“Always avoid violence,” he said.

“If you succumb to the temptation …

unborn generations will be the recipients

of a long and desolate night of bitterness,

and your chief legacy to the future will be an

endless reign of meaningless chaos."

Thirty nine he was when one man with a gun silenced the voice,

But not the words …those four words branded into our brains:

“I have a dream …,” saffron-rich messengers left behind to

Carry forward the dream of a color-blind world of hope and peace.

Dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr. born January 15, 1929;

Assassinated April 4, 1968.

And Rosa Parks, civil rights activist, born February 4, 1913

Died October 24, 2005

-- Joyce Wycoff, copyright, 2011

The WHY of Your Inner Core

3:23 a.m.  words streaming through my brain.  trying to sleep.  words keep coming.  I'll remember them tomorrow.  no you won't.  get up.

I'm launching my new project … The Joy Weigh … your guide to More JOY/Less FAT … and I'm obsessing over it … that glorious, thrumming, state-of-flow obsessing.  It's a big project, a calling everything I have project, a can I really do this project.

Yesterday a conversation with a friend reminded me of something I hadn't thought of in a long time.  The summer before my fourth grade, I wanted to be an opera singer.  Keep in mind, I was a lonely only child living in the Kansas outback.  I had never seen an opera. I'm not even sure how I knew what one was, but I went around outside singing words I didn't understand at the top of my lungs to an audience I couldn't see.  I never knew why.

One of the activities on The JOY Weigh is creating a WHY Card … a simple list of why you are committed to something … written on an index card and placed where you will see it often.  I've been working on my WHY Card for this project and for my own journey on The JOY Weigh.  I had come up with all the standard reasons and thought that activity was done.

Then I remembered that little girl walking around the yard joyously singing an unknown song with made up words. For years as I remembered that scene, I just smiled in amusement. I thought it was just me being a kid. But, not long after the conversation with my friend, it suddenly flashed on me that, even then, I was trying to find my voice ... even when I didn't know what my song was or to whom I wanted to sing it. 

Now I know why. I know why I'm on this path. I know why I have to do this. It is my JOY ... It is my opera.  I know why I can never give up ... It would mean giving up a piece of myself. 

Regardless of which path you choose, which commitment you make, find the "why" of your inner core and it will pull you forward past the rocks and setbacks.  You will know that it is your soul calling. 

Advent eCourse

Today is the first day of Advent and my blog sister Louise Gallagher has launched a 4-week free Advent eCourse.  Louise is such a wise and generous spirit that I know this will be a centering and inspiring guide for this time of the year that is so filled with beauty, community, goodwill and celebration that sometimes we can be overwhelmed by it all.

May the season be joyful and "in spirit ing."