Our time will come. Bollywood movie, Gully Boy is based on the rise of street rappers from Asia’s largest slum, Dharavi. Coming from a background of insignificance to the light of fame and glory, the story is ripe with grit, determination, passion and obviously struggle. The director  of the movie keeps the audience pumped up with the slogan Apna Time Aayega not through just a song but also through the background score. The experience is so impactful that I remember coming down on the escalator that was thumping with the rhythmic footsteps of almost every one coming out of the movie theatre. Apna Time Aayega, Apna Time Aayega echoed in the ambience. That is the power of words. Years after the release of the movie, the line continues to linger in our lives. Apparently, the original lyrics were sabka time aayega (everyone’s time will come) and the story goes that Javed Akhtar, the renowned lyricist and father of Gully Boy’s film director, Zoya Akhtar, suggested to replace the word Sabka to Apna. Apna means my own and sabka means everyones. Apna, my own, has a magnificent power to connect with the listeners as compared to sabka.

One word, just a change of word, changes the mind and makes it more adaptable. In todays’ Habits for Thinking, my focus is on the language that we use and how it shapes up our thinking. There is an immense amount of work done on how language and thinking are intertwined. Roger Martin writes in his book ‘Diaminds: Decoding the Mental Habits of Successful Thinkers”:

Thinking – especially thinking in words and sentences – is a form of internal communication. In thinking, you-in-the-present communicates with you-in-the-future. But though thinking is a private and covert activity, it is influenced by external interactions – in particular, by how you communicate with others. Communicative patterns become mental habits.
Roger Martin

He further guides:

Our ‘mind design principle’ for new and more successful mental habits is thus a simple one: because thinking is self-talk, talk and thought are linked. To change patterns of thinking, change the patterns of talking.

How we speak makes a difference to how we think. And sometimes, just a replacement of a word makes a sea of difference in the thought process and therefore in the action that follows.

A constructive word:

On a podcast, The Knowledge Project, Angela Duckworth, a professor of Psychology at University of Pennsylvania and author of Grit:The Power of Passion and Perseverance, a New York Times bestseller, was asked what she had to say to ‘follow your passion’ as an advice to people.  She said, I would like to change it to ‘develop’ your passion as an advice and not follow your passion. She went on to explain that many young people, at 18-22 years of age, do not know what their interest is and to give advice as ‘follow your passion’ is not a helpful suggestion to give. She suggested replacing the word follow with develop. Develop your passion gives a constructive path. You work on your interest on one day, and second day and third day and over the years you see it developed into a meaningful purpose that can either be a mainstream of your work life or your defining trait. Irrespective, that developed passion becomes a strength. One word- develop instead of follow changes the mission of the statement.

A transformational word:

If you have been active on Whatsapp groups that share lifestyle articles, you might have received the New York Times piece on naming the current state of mind by Adam Grant. It reads: ‘There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing. The neglected middle child of mental health can dull your motivation and focus — and it may be the dominant emotion of 2021.’ The author suggests that giving a name to an emotion, like languishing that means a sense of stagnation and emptiness, helps in managing that emotion.  

A couple of weeks later to this article, Whatsapp circulated another New York Times piece almost as an antidote to this one: The Other Side of Languishing Is Flourishing with suggestions on how to come out of this blah state of mind. Some excerpts are here:

A growing body of research shows that there are simple steps you can take to recharge your emotional batteries and spark a sense of fulfillment, purpose and happiness. The psychology community calls this lofty combination of physical, mental and emotional fitness “flourishing.” It is the exact opposite of languishing, that sense of stagnation Adam Grant wrote about recently for The Times.

Acknowledging small moments is also important for well-being, research shows. Psychologists call it “savoring.” Savoring is about appreciating an event or activity in the moment, sharing tiny victories and noticing the good things around you.”

This  post suggests replacing the word ‘languishing’ with ‘flourishing’ with a middle path of using ‘savouring’. Words shift mindsets, almost like from languishing to savouring where you move from being in the state of emptiness to being in the state of gratitude.

Words have the power to influence the way we think and act. Actually, our thinking, like stated earlier, is an internal conversation in words with our own self. A word has the power to lower the intensity of a negative thought to an extent that it starts fading into oblivion. And similarly, a word has the power to manifest a dream into reality. One can start small with everyday lexicon, where you soften a negative impact like ‘devastated’ with ‘upset’ or amplify a positive one with ‘ecstatic’ instead of ‘pleased.’ It works.

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
-George Orwell wrote in his novel, 1984

A thought can control words

This week make a mental note of words that you use in your thoughts and your speech. You can change just one word and make it a constructive statement. You can change just one word and allow growth around you. Every thought has a dark side and bright side of it, diminish the negativity and amplify the brightness with your words. The thought will grow too.

A couple of decades ago, as I joined my first job in a large media house I realised my language was changing. To fit into a new culture, the easiest thing to do is to pick up the language of your colleagues and workplace. At many urban workplaces, language is not clean, sparkly white and devoid of any abuse. It took me a deliberate effort to remove the newly entered F words and other not so pleasant lingo in my everyday language. A constant thought anchored my effort to change words. It is Mother’s Day tomorrow and I am so grateful to my mother for the gift of the right language. The thought that anchored my efforts to change my language was my mother’s saying to us:

“Apshabd na kaho. Labhon se nikla apshabd hamare vatavaran mein rahta hai aur kahin na kahin hamaare saath juda rah jaata hai.”

Do not use bad words. Once spoken, it lingers in the air around us and affects us in its own way.