The Power of Words

Words are a valuable tool that we have been blessed with, many overlook the importance of words and I think we do not credit them as much.

The way I see it, this topic can divide itself into four distinctive parts and they are the following:

1. Listening
2. Reading
3. Writing
4. Speaking

Now this is going to sound very familiar if you ever had to learn a language academically. This is how my French-learning journey looked like throughout some years at school and I only recently realized the importance of these subsections.

Listening

You yourself must have met a number of people who put a great emphasis on the idea of listening. It is a tool that can help generate appropriate responses and raise the correct questions. One thing to keep in mind is that everyone loves talking about themselves, everyone wants to try and relate their stories. By giving a chance to people and allowing them to talk, it aids you with the ability to generate meaningful questions or follow-ups that will possibly give the conversation a greater value.

I have seen this approach used with an interviewer by the name of Anas Bukhash, it was something I recognized at the very beginning when I randomly came across one of his interviews. He utilizes silence which makes space for the interviewee to express themselves freely. This is a trick many interviewers use since this provokes the interviewee to express themselves more by trying to fill in the silence. By being a better listener, interviewers such as Anas are able to have meaningful conversations.

In conclusion, if you want to have meaningful conversations, be a better listener.

Reading

We live in a digital era where content has become fast-paced and is easily consumed. TikTok is a great example of fast-paced content. There can be advantages to TikTok such as perhaps getting educated on different topics and what not. The issue with this is that TikTok is going to provide you with surface-level information. I also read on how TikTok is basically getting us to decrease our attention spans, this basically makes it harder for us to focus on tasks that may require a lot of time or a lot of effort. This is generally affected by the constant bursts in dopamine through TikTok, it provides a great level of dopamine which basically rewards the brain for scrolling, this is why we spend hours upon hours on TikTok.

You may now ask, why did I just go on a rant about TikTok? Well, TikTok did indeed affect my dopamine levels when it came to having a shorter attention span. I used to read pretty often back then, but after the TikTok apocalypse… I found it a bit hard to do tasks that required a longer attention span such as reading. I resulted into reading articles and blog posts which basically did not require that long of an attention span. This aided with stretching out my attention span as I shifted towards reading longer pieces of writing. The resolution was that I was finally able to sit down and actually read a full book.

Importance of Reading

Think of it like this, reading is basically you receiving ideas through words on a page that have been carefully structured in a way to make the delivery as facile as possible. How powerful is that? You being able to consume countless ideas just by having your eyes cross some words on a page. Reading stretches your mind, whether it be fiction or non-fiction. It helps with giving you inspiration and perhaps guiding you towards someone you want to become.

I have spoken to someone about reading before and they presented me with a perfect example as to how reading can affect our brains.

The picture above displays how your brain looks like currently, the dots may represent thoughts, ideas and experiences. The lines are what links them together, basically relating one idea to another. When you decide to pick up a book and read, you start generating more dots and more links such as the picture below.

There is one thing you may notice about this picture, some of the dots that were generated in your brain do not have any links? Why is that?

This is because you have not lived them yet to generate any links between them. Those dots with no links might generate connections after you read something and thinking you forgot about it right away. This is generally not the case, it is stored in your subconscious and it is going to help you out when necessary (when you live it).

Example:
Let us say I know nothing about people with narcissistic behaviors. One day, I randomly decide to pick up a book about narcissism and read through it. I may go over a list of narcissistic behaviors within that book and manage to relate some to experiences I have had, other behaviors might consciously stick with me and some might stay in my subconscious. Now some years go by, I meet a narcissistic person with the behaviors that were stored in my subconscious, this would immediately ring a bell and bring them to my conscious level and increase my awareness.

Writing

Writing is one of the most effective tools one can learn, it is basically giving yourself the power to move your ideas into the brains of people through words. Many people also result to journaling when it comes to taking care of their mental health, it is basically the idea of putting all your thoughts into words which then helps with processing and aligning them. It helps you think straight and sort out all your thoughts in the best way possible. I am personally a big fan of journaling since I enjoy writing, if I ever have something I need to do or I feel stressed, I head over to journaling and it works wonders.

Many people subconsciously move over to journaling when it comes to clearing their mind or when it comes to things that they need to do, the way they do that is by texting their friends. They may know the answer themselves to whatever it is but they need a method of processing their thoughts so writing to a friend may make that process much easier since it is indeed a form of journaling.

Speaking

The ability to give out a speech or converse in a proper manner also ranks high when it comes to your own personal skills. Being able to portray your opinions confidently may open more doors and opportunities for you. It would be a shame if you were the perfect candidate for a position but your lack of skill in speaking prevents you from getting that position; perhaps someone else that may not be as perfect for the position gets it since they are better at speaking. You do not want to close the doors that have opened up for you.

Conclusion

In conclusion, words come into four different subdivisions and if you are interested in self-development, they would be something you would want to look into considering their importance.