Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate, and to humble.

Yehuda Berg

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On the first day of Human Communication 101, my professor came in very late. She was dressed wildly in mismatched styles, sunglasses, and tousled hair. She brought a beach bag, a large purse, a backpack, and a grocery bag with her and dug through each several times to attempt to find different items throughout the class. Closer to the end of class, her dramatics were transformed into our discussion topic when she asked, “What have I communicated to you today?”

In the very next class, she told us, “Every construct has a destruct.” She let it float above our puzzled faces for a few moments and then explained what she meant. “When you are communicating, every time you choose one word, you are also choosing all the words you don’t use.”

Recently, New Tork Times bestselling author Glennon Doyle mentioned on her podcast We Can Do Hard Things about how deeply important words are to her. I often resonate with much of what Glennon has to say, but this moment was like clouds cracking open with beaming rays of light shining down on a hidden treasure that had just been discovered.

For context, they were discussing gender and sexuality labels and how people experience those labels differently. The question arose if labels are trying to define something that may not be definable.

And Glennon responded with this:

“Right. And what you said when we talked this weekend is that the reason it doesn’t bother you that I won’t choose a sexuality or can’t. It’s not that I won’t. I’m not trying to be difficult. I just actually can’t find a word that feels correct. And I’m a writer. Words are really, really important to me. I will not. I’m always trying to desperately use these freaking symbols that are letters and words to accurately send a signal to you that actually really represents a true thing inside of me. And it’s unbelievably frustrating to me. They say a writer is someone for whom writing is harder than the average bear. It’s excruciating to me to try to find words that are true enough. And there is no label that is true enough for me in regards to sexuality, but there’s also no label that is true enough for me in regards to faith. Right? There is no label that’s true enough for me in regard to gender.” (We Can Do Hard Things, “Episode 26: Sexual Desire: How do we know who and what we really want? 14 September 2021”)

This entire response is amazing to me for many reasons, but most of those will be saved for another post.

But what she says about words and language here is so true. I feel this way so often. In conversations with friends and my significant other, trying to communicate with coworkers, writing lyrics or essays or blog posts. Sending a loved one a letter.

And I too feel unbelievably frustrated by it. Not only when I am trying to figure out how to translate my thoughts into a message to share with another person, but also because I have learned to be so aware of word choices that it is very difficult for me to interpret what others are sharing. My mind is trained by “every construct has a destruct” and every message I interpret passes through that filter, whether I want it to or not. It’s not that I don’t understand that other people may not necessarily choose their words with this in mind, but in my desire to want to listen well and understand them as well as possible, I try to decode what they are saying as precisely as I can.

Which, oddly enough, often causes misunderstandings. It is a paradox that haunts my daily interactions.

One thing I learned while studying journalism is that news articles typically should be written at a 5th-grade reading level so that the information being shared can be understood by a much larger number of the general population.

The goal of communicating is to share a message with another person or group of people, is it not? So one has to take into consideration how that message may be interpreted to communicate as clearly as possible. This is why I sometimes have a judgmental attitude toward people who flaunt advanced or specialized vocabulary in regular conversation.

While I know that I have no control over others’ word choices, I often find myself wishing that people would give a little extra effort to say what they actually mean or to at least prioritize making sure that the point of the message they want to send gets through. There are hundreds of times a day that someone will say something that could have several different meanings, but they usually expect me to know which one they are conveying. And I am guilty of wanting others to be mind readers, too! But when I catch myself or get called out for it, I don’t hesitate to try and clarify or word something differently and to try to learn and grow from it.

No one can ever choose all of the perfect words all the time. No one can ever choose all of the perfect words most of the time. But making an effort to? We can do that as often as we are willing.