The Words We Live By
I love words. Their beauty delights me, and what captivates me most is the way they help us make sense of our lives. Words shape worlds. They bring clarity to our experiences, letting us fly or fall, lift or lower, expand or contract.
A recent conversation with a friend lingered in my thoughts. She casually used a few words that made me squint. They weren’t offensive or unkind. They simply weren’t words that belonged in my life.
As I reflected on our conversation, I kept returning to something I’ve believed for a very long time. Every word carries a worldview.
The words we choose reveal far more than our vocabulary. They reveal the way we experience life itself.
Three words immediately came to mind that never found a home in my way of seeing the world.
Three Small Words. Three Big Worldviews.
The first is one we hear every day.
Try.
People often say they’re trying or that they’ll try.
I don’t try. I either do it or I don’t.
Some days I do it beautifully. Other days awkwardly. Sometimes I stumble, collect myself, and begin again. Once I’ve begun, though, I’m not trying. I’m doing.
Until I decide I’m done.
That simple distinction has shaped my life.
The second word is senseless to me.
Failure.
I’ve never understood how wholehearted effort could be described that way.
If an experience leaves us wiser, deepens our character, teaches us something unexpected, or reveals another way forward, how could that be failure? It’s earned wisdom.
Life doesn’t always unfold according to our plans. Yet every sincere endeavor has given me something I didn’t have before. I call that living.
The third word is the one I find most depleting.
Wasted.
I’ve heard people say they wasted years, wasted money, wasted time.
If you loved deeply, learned generously, grew through disappointment, or became someone you couldn’t have been otherwise, those years were doing exactly what they needed to do.
Looking back, I don’t see wasted chapters. I see the beautiful, imperfect education of being human.
Words Shape Worlds
As I reflected on these three words, one realization emerged. They all end the story too soon.
“Try” keeps the door cracked open. It asks for possibility without commitment.
“Failure” declares an ending before we’ve grown our way to mastery.
“Wasted” looks backward before time has finished telling the story.
Life is still unfolding. Why declare the ending when you’re only on Chapter Three?
There were times in my fashion career when walking away would have been the easier choice. Beginning a weekly essay practice offered countless opportunities to do the same. My marriage to Gary asked two independent people to grow toward one another through conflict, compromise, and love.
Each chapter had hard moments. What matters most is our relationship to hard.
Hard doesn’t tell me to stop.
Hard means we’re beginning to roll.
And hard is often where our wings begin to open.
I’ve made plenty of unforced errors along the way. They’ve all been teachers. Every chapter has become part of this rich, full, meaningful life.
Choose Your Words Lovingly
There are words we’ve repeated for so long that we no longer hear them. Yet every word carries a worldview. Some lift us. Others lower us. Some expand our world. Others make it smaller.
They’re worth noticing. Words don’t merely describe our experiences. They become the meaning we carry from them.
Words can close a door before we’ve walked through it. They can leave it open long enough for life to unfold.
Choose your words lovingly. They become the stories you tell yourself. Those stories become your worldview. And your worldview becomes your life.
Change your words. Change your worldview. It will change your life.
~ ✦ ~
P.S. If you’ve ever wondered how my Word Art came to be, it began with this same lifelong love of words. Every piece is an exploration of my belief that words don’t simply describe our lives—they help shape them.