I don’t hate a lot, but I do hate two things:
One is the NY Yankees, and the other is when people say, “It’s just semantics.”
Sometimes, it just comes up in casual conversation, and I bristle a little, but I actually hate it when I’m coaching people about how to use language to get more of what they want (or to lose more of what they don’t want).
When coaching people, the argument goes something like, “That’s just a little game you’re playing with language—I’ll be happy when I get more money” or “That’s cute, but I need some “real” coaching.”
Are you kidding? Virtually everything for a human being is semantics. Our lives are bound to semantics.
Do you think Heidegger was fucking around when he said, “language is the house of being”?
Are people honestly arguing that they are more productive when worried, fearful, or upset?
The evidence points to this is total bullshit. Sorry, not sorry.
Everything we touch, see, or feel is instantly put into some semantic context, which immediately shapes our experience of whatever we touch, see, or feel.
Try to find three things in your life that don’t live for you semantically.
Sure, we have experiences that transcend language; there is no doubt about this. The momentary awe we feel when we see a sunrise, a glimpse of the divine when we see some piece of art—these are fleeting wisps of time.
Then, at the precise moment we become conscious of these things, language descends upon us, and we box the experience into some semantic cage.
It’s all semantics, dude.
Got To vs Get To
The difference between “got to” and “get to” is a fairly popular idea on the motivational speaker circuit, with no one particular source I could find. James Clear talks about it in Atomic Habits, and Jim Rohn talks about it before him. I’m sure there’s more than that if you want to look.
You could interpret Hamlet’s conversation with Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, “Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so,” in a way that fits the general idea of how we live lives rooted in our semantics.
My point is that it’s not a new thought.
And yet, changing that one letter from “o” to “e” changes everything. (Unless you’re an “it’s just semantics” kinda person.)
The implications should not be unclear.
When we have things we “got to do” we have built a house of obligation, burden, and domination. When we look at things as things “we get to do’, well then, we live a life full of privilege and opportunity, clearing the way for joy.
Understanding this is not all that difficult. Living it is something else.
The problem is the attempt to think “positively” and pretend we are happy about doing something we don’t experience joy for.
We are layering positive thinking on top of something we feel obligated to do, and as one of my mentors says, “icing hiding shit doesn’t make it a cake.”
Pretending you are happy to lose a client or that the market has 40% less activity than a year ago is not the answer.
I am not talking about faking it till we make it.
Look, that has a place, to be sure, but merely pouring “get-tos” over things we hate doing will not get us there.
What’s a girl to do?
We don’t rise to the occasion; we sink to the level of our preparation.
Both the Navy SEALS and the ancient Buddhists say this same thing (and when those two disparate groups share a thought, we might want to pay attention).
We are clear about this when it comes to physical activities. We go to the gym, run marathons, mountain bike, do yoga, etc., all to keep our bodies ready for the life we live (or prepare for the life we want to live).
But can we train our brains to live a grateful life?
Can we experience gratitude when we don’t get what we want? When things are shitty? When life hands us lemons?
The evidence is clear. Yes, we can.
Multiple studies over the last 50 years have demonstrated the value of mindfulness and meditation as tools for training our brains to interact with our environment gratefully.
The practice of living gratefully involves being on the lookout for opportunities to flip the switch, to move from obligation and burden to honor and privilege.
I have a friend, a fantastic performer, and painter, Stfon Moody, who calls this “aggressive appreciation.” Living life with a potent edge to look, to really see what’s in front of us at any given moment, and to find what there is to appreciate in that person, situation, or place.
Gratitude triggers are everywhere.
Surely, holding your newborn child is a moment most of us would agree triggers gratitude. Witnessing and participating in that one moment strikes most people as having witnessed a miracle—in fact, the whole thing is often packaged and spoken of as the “miracle of childbirth.”
Hard to argue against this idea.
Standing in the hospital, watching my wife experience pain I will never (thankfully) experience, in a final push (and a scream) pops out this tiny, perfect person; I was clear I had witnessed a miracle.
One egg, one sperm, met roughly nine months prior. They divided and divided and divided, with each cell containing the potential to become any body part. Each one somehow knew how to develop into toes and hair and lungs and blood, the whole thing somehow dividing and growing, and that turned into a fully perfectly formed baby girl (and then three years later another baby boy) – well shit – that was/is a miracle.
Seriously, who’s arguing against this?
At the same time, is there anything so common? Could anything be more ordinary? Is there anything that you and I, and literally every single other human, have more in common than being born? It is the very definition of ordinary. It could not possibly be more ordinary.
Being born is undoubtedly the most common and most miraculous thing we can ever experience.
Einstein said it best: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
Well, then, isn’t it just up to us how we look at it (And what we wind up saying about it)? I mean, is it a miracle? Yep! Is it ordinary? It couldn’t be more so.
Let’s start with coffee.
There's nothing like a cup of joe to start the day. It’s certainly one of the things I look forward to.
Simple and pure, it’s one of my favorite rituals.
Little is more common for us than starting the day this way. And yet, what a miracle!
Some Yemeni goat herder in the 15th century noticed his goats acting differently after eating some beans. Hundreds of years later, I open my cabinet, grind some of these magic beans, and I’m happier.
Someone invented trucks that deliver it to the store. Someone built roads. Someone stocked it. Every single step over these five centuries had to happen to bring that cup to your lips on this morning.
How did the generations of parents, grandparents, and great-great-great-great-grandparents all have to line up perfectly for this cup in front of me to happen? Are you joking?
That is a fucking miracle, dude.
It is all a miracle.
Maybe it is “just” semantics, dude.
After thinking about this for a while, a new thought struck me. What if I changed how I heard “it’s just semantics”?
What if the triviality imparted onto semantics by “just” in this sentence isn’t the only way to hear that sentence? Instead, what if it's meant to point out how simple it is to shift the quality of our life because semantics are malleable?
Miracle or ordinary? It’s just semantics. You get to choose.
Got to or get to? Same. Just semantics. You get to choose.
One gives you one quality of life, and the other gives you a different quality.
Choose. After all, it’s just semantics, dude.
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