Everyone has pet peeves, right? Everyone has something (or somethingS)
that annoy them. You know you’re thinking about yours as you read
this. Drivers who don’t use turn signals? Yeah—what’s so hard about
flipping a switch?
How about people who leave shopping carts right in the middle of the
parking lot? Or the less-than-considerate people who walk by a
garbage can and toss their wrapper on the ground? I can hear my
daughter’s voice, chastising them with a “That’s being
a litterbug.” Another one? How about the misuse of to, too and two?
Or their, there and they’re? Makes. Me. Crazy.
Which
is probably part of the reason that I get a little shiver when I notice
someone misusing words like price vs value. Or busy vs productive. I
guess they’re really not misusing them so much as they’re using them to
mean something
different than what they likely intended. Pet peeve!!
For
example; when someone is discussing a Beachbody program with me, and
they ask, “How much does it cost?” I know they want a dollars and cents
response. But I don’t look at it that way. To me, there’s cost
and then there’s value.
Sure, I can tell you what the charge will be on your credit card, but
what’s more important, in my opinion, to understand, is what that
represents, exactly. Is it an expense or is it an investment? To me,
it’s only about the cost if you don’t see value in
it; if there’s value, the cost suddenly makes a lot more sense.
Take
paper towels as an example. You could buy the really inexpensive ones,
but use twice as many to do the job of one (and yes, I realize I sound
like a commercial for Bounty), so in the end, you’ve not really saved
because you’re buying
twice as much. Or how about the gas you put in your car? You could go
the cheap route and pay for it miles down the road when some part of
your engine fails because it’s been gunked up with cheap fuel.
Something
else I hear a lot of is “I’m so busy!” Is busy really the same thing
as being productive? I don’t think it is. I can be busy all day and
accomplish pretty much nothing…nothing that really matters, anyway.
It’s like reading
and comprehending…sure, I read four chapters of a book last night, but
couldn’t tell you a darn thing about what the content was.
Are
you productive in your days? Intentional in your actions? Sure,
there’s always time for a little daydream or mindlessness, but
overall—are you doing things that should be done? Need to be done?
Help you by being done? Or are you
avoiding necessary tasks by doing silly little things and saying you’re
busy?
How
about the word JUST. Ooooh, that one gets me every time. I’m just a
Mom. I’m just trying to lose 5 pounds. I just wish such and such would
happen. I just need 3 minutes of your time. Read all of those
sentences again without the
word JUST. Can you hear how much stronger they are? JUST sounds like
an apology in there. I’m just a Mom? PLEASE! No Mom I know is JUST a
Mom. OWN that…I’m a Mom. I mean, visually, I see the first sentence as
someone fidgeting with her fingers, looking
down at her shoes. The other, I picture a strong woman, standing there
with a kiddo on one hip and a laptop bag on the other! JUST need to
lose 5 pounds? Why is that a “just” kind of thing? I need to lose 5
pounds. Period. Just do it? DO IT!
I
don’t know if people are lazy, preoccupied or they just don’t care, but
I think far too often people speak without thinking. Without being
intentional. There are knee-jerk, automatic responses to questions,
(Hi, how are you? Fine,
you?) that are almost not even heard because there’s no expectation of
anything other than a “standard” comeback. These thoughtless responses
aren’t always necessarily rude or anything, but I wonder what would
happen if people put more thought into the question,
the response and the conversation that might ensue.
I
challenge you to be more intentional in you next conversation; see what
happens. It’s a practice that takes time to develop, but I have to
think we’d all be busier---nah, more productive!---if our dialogue was a
little more real!
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