Language - 003
One night this week, I was sitting on the couch holding my daughter, Golda, facing towards me. After a few minutes, she started to whine. We stood up and paced the living room. She immediately calmed down and scanned the room curiously.
I understand her and yet she’s never spoken a word. Golda is nearly 18 weeks old, which is crazy– I've been in a relationship with someone for almost 5 months that doesn’t speak English or really even understand it.
Because of Golda, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we communicate. How we use our bodies, our expressions, and our language in different ways to shape the world around us and our perceptions of it.
This month, let’s talk languages.
Happy snacking.
Art by Wayne White
I. New Language
The first class I ever took in college was linguistics (after one semester I quickly learned why the 9am Monday classes were always available). One of the things that still sticks with me is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the idea that language shapes thought. Changing our language, or not having a word for something, or not using a verb tense affects how we think.
Here are 3 very short stories from the last few years about how changing my language affected my thinking.
1. Contractor vs Freelancer
I started freelancing in the Summer of 2016. The freelance life is supposed to come with more freedom, higher day rates, a flexible schedule, and an independent spirit. After 2 years of “freelancing” I realized I didn’t have any of those. I felt tied down. That’s because I realized that I wasn’t freelancing. I was contracting. I still had a 40 hour a week job, just in 2-4 month contracts. So since last Summer, I’ve tried to own being a freelancer– finding my own clients, working from home, saying no to timelines and budgets and feedback that didn’t work with my expectations. And it’s made all the difference.
2. Is it an Emergency?
Talking about my parenting approach to a friend, I said that I am more of a “put my oxygen mask on first” parent. I believe in self-care and getting sleep and exercise so I can be more present and energized. But she called me out: “that metaphor assumes an emergency. Is it an emergency? Are you in crisis? Try reframing that approach. I believe that you can only give from your overflow.”
I can only give from my overflow.
My cup needs to be overflowing before I can give my time, energy, love, attention to other people. This is not an emergency.
3. The Weakness of Strength
In January, I lead a workshop on leadership. One of the key ideas in my research came from The School of Life, which coined “The Weakness of Strength” theory. It’s this idea that every person has strengths, and those traits have shadow sides.
So being a decisive leader might also mean you alienate your team because you don’t include them in decision-making. Or you fell in love with your spontaneous, adventurous partner who is now on your nerves for being uncommitted and bad at planning.
It’s such a helpful reframe for me in being aware of my strengths and their shadow sides with my partners at Caveday, with my marriage, and with my friends. What’s the shadow side of your greatest strength?
Art by Dan Ferrer
II. Foreign Language
How high school Spanish helped reframe my career transition.
For the last several months, I’ve felt like I’ve been in transition. Maybe it’s been years. It’s hard to know where to start counting.
The transition has been centered around my career. At some points I would’ve said I felt stuck. At others, I wasn’t even really thinking about it. When I look back at the path, it’s starting to take shape, but more times that not, I still feel pretty lost. Lost in what to call myself, what I really want, what the world needs, what makes me come alive, and what can make me money.
If you’ve ever felt similarly, I think I can help.
The story goes like this. I left one industry and haven’t yet arrived at a new one. More specifically, I left a job in advertising and decided to not go back. It had a clear hierarchy and ladder to climb, lots of linear careers rising through the ranks making good money. But I felt like I outgrew it and had other ambitions that didn’t mesh with who I would be if I stayed.
Our identity is tied to our work.
Because so much of who we are is wrapped up in what we do, it’s been a frustrating and harrowing journey. Simply because I don’t have a full-time job, or because I don’t feel confident in how to introduce myself, I feel like I am “identityless.” That quickly can escalate into a crisis. I question who I am. I talk through what I’m passionate about. I read about purpose and living an undivided life. I journal what my values are. I have long, existential conversations with friends without resolutions or a clear path. All of this self-reflection can be helpful. And exhausting.
Then, in the middle of a conversation with a friend, I was reminded of an early high school lesson in Spanish that has changed how I frame this problem.
Let me explain.
I took Spanish for 7 years. I’ve had amazing teachers that have left such an imprint that I still am able to speak fluently when traveling to Spanish speaking countries, even 15 years since my last Spanish class. The lessons and teaching were so memorable, they’ve rewired how I think. When I was 11, Señorita Scanlon taught my introductory course. It was a lot of memorizing conversations. “Yo soy Jacobo. Yo soy de Chicago. Yo estoy feliz.” I am Jacob. I am from Chicago. I am happy.
We don’t question very much at that early age, we just memorize… until high school. I’m 15 and I’m taking classes with Señora Abreu, the same phrase doesn’t make as much sense.
Soy and estoy both mean “I am” …but how?
We spent weeks learning the difference between the verbs “ser” and “estar” which both mean “to be.” We’d make lists and learn new vocabulary trying to sort out the difference. Mnemonic devices littered our notes and walls. And 18 years later, I still remember.
The Cliff’s Notes version is that “SER” is used to denote things that are permanent, and “ESTAR” is temporary. So looking back on that original sentence makes sense. Yo soy Jacobo (permanent). Yo soy de Chicago (permanent). Yo estoy feliz (temporary).
This was a reminder and a relief as I navigate my career transition. There are parts of my identity that are permanent. This is who I am. Always. I am a father. A son. A brother. An artist. A caretaker. An explorer. Yo soy.
My job title and “what I do” can be much more temporary. This is who I am. For right now, but not always. I am an art director. A designer. A creative director. A consultant. A traveler. A coder. An Angelino. A New Yorker. Yo estoy. This is who I am, but they can and will change. They don’t have to be permanent.
Seth Godin does a great job of condensing this idea in his post, “I Have Fear” from August 17, 2017:
There’s a common mistranslation that causes us trouble.
We say, “I am afraid,” as if the fear is us, forever. We don’t say, “I am a fever” or “I am a sore foot.” No, in those cases, we acknowledge that it’s a temporary condition, something we have, at least for now, but won’t have forever.
“Right now, I have fear about launching this project,” is quite different from, “I’m afraid.”
Who We Are is Always Changing
Reframing my career as a temporary, fluid part of my identity has been energizing. I don’t put as much pressure on myself to feel like a commitment to a job title or a LinkedIn headline is my forever-identity.
Reminding myself that these things change and that in a way, we are all navigating constant change in our lives. That has helped me. And I hope it’s helped you, too.
Note: For those that speak Spanish fluently, I am aware that typically “ser” is used to talk about a profession. But for my personal definitions, my profession is only a part who I am now and doesn’t have to be permanent.
Art by Magnus Atom
III. Language Paradoxes
At the beginning of this year, I set out my goals and realized that some of them felt in conflict.
How can I be a more present father WHILE taking on more work?
How can I plan my life and still leave room for flexibility when things change?
How can I choose my path and still trust the universe has my back?
I’m learning that we don’t have to think about some of these things as “either/or.” Life is not as simple as having mutually exclusive choices. Life is complicated. Life creates paradoxes. “Both/And.”
Having an argument is often an either/or. I am right and they are wrong. But is there a truth where both are right? Or both are partly right?
Being a part of a community requires me being my independent self and being an anonymous part of a group.
Two things can exist at the same time. Not as opposites, not as either/ors but as both/ands. Science and religion. Change and stasis. Love and fear. Choice and fate.
A lot of this thinking was clarified in reading Parker Palmer’s work (thanks to Casey Rosengren for the recommendation). In one of his talks, he asserts that there are five habits of the heart. But really, you only need to consider two:
Chutzpah is the audacity to believe that I have a voice that deserves to be heard and a right to speak it. And humility is the awareness that my truth is not complete and I need to listen openly and respectfully. That’s a pretty deep paradox.
We often try to oversimplify things into either/or because it’s easier. But it’s not how the world or life works. Things are complex and interconnected. Holding space for both/and requires patience and work.
Conflicts arise because of either/or mentalities. Resolutions come from an understanding of both/and. In a way, better understanding the paradoxes of life can lead to peace.
Art by Jean Bevier
IV. Fin
As always, thanks for opening the refrigerator and sharing your thoughts. If you get something out of it, feel free to share it with a friend. The only way this thing grows is when you tell someone else about it. Send them this link.
-Jake
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