A Language Thought

A Language Thought:

(Click for Audio) I’ve heard it before that English must be one of the hardest languages to learn. Is a sentence hard to decipher? Is a paragraph an anomaly? Are the words always spelled the same in every occurrence? Do words even mean the same every time they are used? And if I only “read” how do I ever learn to “pronounce”?

Since I barely know Spanish and know there are uniqueness to that language, I can only surmise there must be major differences in my native tongue that makes it very difficult for a newbie. Much less for any one of us who have been around the block a time or two. Words, structure and communication keeps changing. Frequently!

This morning I was thinking about the word “fret” – you know, where you talk about worrying over something, rather than the ridges used on a guitar neck, or the action of something corroding under the onslaught of another chemical or process. Did you know that “fret” often meant the act of eating by a small animal?

Is it any wonder that English can be a difficult language! For any of us! When I was younger our dictionary was two volumes of thick reading material…Today, it’s digital and found on my portable devices! Easily accessed from anywhere.

When we take a word from singular to plural, from present to past or future tense, there are changes that occur to make the word sound out the way it needs to sound, and it’s resultant meaning not change from the intent of the original. But there are also words that change the order of the letters to change from one phase to another. Fire and Fiery come to mind…

When studying an ancient and mostly unused language then we notice the same kind of changes. Take Greek for just a moment. Biblical Greek is not the same as Modern Greek. The language keeps growing, stretching and changing through the years – much like the Queen’s English and American English are different and take divergent paths. Words are spelled unique to the source of the main language. I suspect this is the norm for any language as the years progress. New words and new ways of saying things are required.

Teaching a lesson last night I shared that the word we often refer to in English as “Teach” and it’s varied tense forms, actually comes from multiple words in Biblical Greek that someone interpreted and then translated from the older language to the newer language. Somewhere in our past some scholar took a somewhat dead language and made sense of all the words to tell us what it means today. And not necessarily into my modern language, because it made stops along the way into Latin, German, French, Spanish and a host of other languages that my mind cannot grab a hold of…

Fascinating thought! We are so connected to so many other languages. English has been the collection of a large portion of words from a multitude of languages, both modern and ancient. Their spellings, definitions, and usage has modified over the generations of users that require the words.

Sometimes the words speak of the action you see others doing even though the language has morphed into a multitude of phrases. But when you “see” love, then it does not matter what language you speak, you identify it as “love”!

But here I am today with a full schedule, preparing to leave and pick up the granddaughter for some “Emma time” over the next several days, and my brain keeps dipping back into the language pool. I will gnaw at it in my subconscious and fret over the inability to sit in front of my books and computer and root around it for a while, and hope the foundation of the thought does not slip into a deep well of a far off future time and place.

Somewhere along the way we make sense of the language, communicate it outwards, get the point across to whoever we are speaking to, and hope they understand it sufficiently to act upon the knowledge.

Here’s a thought:

A learner becomes a teacher
Every time they use
What was taught and exampled
And transfer it to another.

Just saying….Do not quit learning, nor fail to use any moment as an example of living and speaking correctly to those that are learning from your teaching…and example.

What’s Your Degree In?

Some folks are very proud of where they matriculated…

…and what their degree is in, and they should be. But then some “lord” their school, along with their personal status at graduation, the clubs they belonged to, and the friends they made (some are now pretty famous). I’m happy for great education experiences, but for everyone that brags about their own awesomeness, there are plenty more, and maybe the majority, who are simply happy to be alive and kicking! Regardless of their matriculation status.

There are many who graduated from the “School of Hard Knocks” and those are probably the most successful ones I know – they’ve taken what life has dished out and proved their mettle to anyone who would listen. Even with a degree. From an Ivy League University….or the local community college.

A degree does not make you smarter than anyone else, but as I have learned later in life – a degree is not to pound facts into your brain (anyone can do this), rather, it’s to teach me how to learn, think with an expanded perspective and experience the world around me in a somewhat differently organized fashion. My education, when I’ve applied myself to it correctly, opened up the world of wonder and I slipped into a new framework of exploration.

Yesterday, a friend made a comment that caught my attention, and it went something like this:

Too many have a degree in Foot Dragging.

Ain’t this the truth! They never get anything done! You know that old adage about the best time to plant a shade tree that you get to enjoy today. Right? You’ve not heard it? Well, to enjoy it today that tree should have been planted 20 years ago!

Someone gets close to a milestone victory lap and you ask, “What have you done to prepare?” “Oh, nothing. Que Sera, Sera…” Wait. You plan on enjoying retirement without having prepared for it? Going to take a test, and you haven’t studied? Start to build a house and you’ve not applied for permits? Or drawn up plans? Really?

So. Not having a degree in Foot Dragging, you propose a possible solution to the proud graduate. They drag themselves, and you, through the mud puddle of negatives to prove that it cannot be done, and here’s a hundred reasons why not…

I’m at a point of being like Jesus, although these words were applied to a different problem.

And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. (Matthew 10:14 NKJV)

Shake the dust, or washing your hands off the subject… That’s showing that you can not condone or be responsible for the actions or thought processes of the person in question!

It was Colin Powell who famously stated: “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” [Source] You have to prepare… Work hard… And when you make mistakes, and you will, then you have to learn from that mistake. Quit getting back up from your mistakes, and eventually you will agree to be the failure that last stumble said you were. You are never a failure if you get back up again. (Proverbs 24:16)

I keep myself in the “learning” mode. There’s so much to know, and so little time! I do not have an ear for music, but I wonder why I struggle with wanting to play the keyboard… Maybe there’s still time. But I am focusing on learning more ancient Hebrew and Greek for my biblical studies. I really want to grasp how the language worked during the times that the bible was penned.

Another friend (thank’s Brett) reminded a group of folks that wasting time watching all those reruns instead of being productive was not a wise use of time. We should be accountable for how we spend the moments of our lives.

It’s never too late. Turn the TV off. Get up. Leave that foot dragging mode next to the curbside for the rubbish and trash pickup. Apply yourself to something productive.

Do I Need My Family? Yes…

It’s later in life that we often learn the true value of something.

Whether it’s conserving every penny against the need on retirement day, or that those extra calories you take for granted that a younger body will burn up…and you are no longer young! We often learn something at a later date and wish we had understood it better. When we were younger. Now that we are older.

When Do We Stop Learning

Can We Fill Our Brain?

I woke this morning thinking about all the new stuff showing up on my plate and wondering what it would take to absorb it completely.

Is there room in my brain for all this stuff?

Then I thought: Will my brain ever fill up? Does this mean there comes a time when we no longer learn? What will it be like when I stop learning? Do I want to stop learning? (Think of a stagnant pond for the answer!)

Wouldn’t that be a boring time!

A little personal research shows me there will probably never be a time that I will stop learning, unless I chose to stop picking up new things to put on my plate.

So. What happens to all those things that I do learn.

The human brain consists of about one billion neurons. Each neuron forms about 1,000 connections to other neurons, amounting to more than a trillion connections. If each neuron could only help store a single memory, running out of space would be a problem. You might have only a few gigabytes of storage space, similar to the space in an iPod or a USB flash drive. Yet neurons combine so that each one helps with many memories at a time, exponentially increasing the brain’s memory storage capacity to something closer to around 2.5 petabytes (or a million gigabytes). For comparison, if your brain worked like a digital video recorder in a television, 2.5 petabytes would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows. You would have to leave the TV running continuously for more than 300 years to use up all that storage. (Click here for source)

The 100/0 Principle…

All or Nothing…

Remember the song? Of course you do! Now, let’s all sing together…The Hokey Pokey!

Put your right foot in, put your right foot out,  and shake it all about, do the hokey pokey, and turn yourself about…

That’s what it’s all about!

Of course, nothing is complete until you get to the end of the song and finally you get to put your whole self in… That’s what it’s really all about!

Completely in the game… Holding nothing back…

Some time back I received an email, and the following in An Excerpt from The 100/0 Principle by Al Ritter (emphasis mine).

What is the most effective way to create and sustain great relationships with others?

It’s The 100/0 Principle: You take full responsibility (the 100) for the relationship, expecting nothing (the 0) in return.

Implementing The 100/0 Principle is not natural for most of us.

It takes real commitment to the relationship and a good dose of self-discipline to think, act and give 100 percent.

The 100/0 Principle applies to those people in your life where the relationships are too important to react automatically or judgmentally.

Each of us must determine the relationships to which this principle should apply. For most of us, it applies to work associates, customers, suppliers, family and friends.

• STEP 1 – Determine what you can do to make the relationship work…then do it. Demonstrate respect and kindness to the other person, whether he/she deserves it or not.
• STEP 2 – Do not expect anything in return. Zero, zip, nada.
• STEP 3 – Do not allow anything the other person says or does (no matter how annoying!) to affect you. In other words, don’t take the bait.
• STEP 4 – Be persistent with your graciousness and kindness. Often we give up too soon, especially when others don’t respond in kind. Remember to expect nothing in return.

At times (usually few), the relationship can remain challenging, even toxic, despite your 100 percent commitment and self-discipline.

When this occurs, you need to avoid being the “Knower” and shift to being the “Learner.”

Avoid Knower statements/ thoughts like “that won’t work,” “I’m right, you are wrong,” “I know it and you don’t,” “I’ll teach you,” “that’s just the way it is,” “I need to tell you what I know,” etc.

Instead, use Learner statements/thoughts like “Let me find out what is going on and try to understand the situation,” “I could be wrong,” “I wonder if there is anything of value here,” “I wonder if…” etc. In other words, as a Learner, be curious!

Principle Paradox

This may strike you as strange, but here’s the paradox: When you take authentic responsibility for a relationship, more often than not the other person quickly chooses to take responsibility as well. Consequently, the 100/0 relationship quickly transforms into something approaching 100/100. When that occurs, true breakthroughs happen for the individuals involved, their teams, their organizations and their families.

Why do we not give our all to a relationship? Good question! Do you know someone who gives their all? Perhaps from them we can learn something!