words – The Corrigan Encore

The pen and the sword

May 23, 2022 John Corrigan

Words can influence, inspire and destroy a soul. Violence only brings death or harm and sometime both. Violence is a complex process but its rewards are short lived. Words live on for generations and inspire grandparents, parents, and children.

What we say to others matters so much and what we write down matters even more. Words can help but they can also hurt. Lies can and often do result in harm and in extreme cases death.

You can lie to everyone and use the lies as a tool to get what you want. You may never even suffer the consequences of lying to others however you will one day be faced with a situation in which you have to look to your self for truth and if all you have done is lied you will not be able to trust yourself.

Lets make a focused effort today and this week to use true words that make the world better.

Only or Already

April 13, 2022 John Corrigan

I am going on vacation soon and I woke up this morning thinking it was Thursday… It is not it is Wednesday. The self talk invaded and the words it’s only Wednesday invaded my mind space. I thought about what I needed to do for the day then week and then I decided to try a mental experiment and changed my self talk to “It’s already Wednesday?” from “It’s only Wednesday.”

I got to tell you this experiment has helped inject energy into my day and seems to be doing the trick. The feeling of perennial minutia has been replaced with the can do attitude and now I almost am hoping for a little more work time so that I can get some things done before vacation.

I had an English professor who spoke about the power of words. Words matter, and they can and do make a difference, even the words we speak within ourselves.

How to make others

January 11, 2022 John Corrigan

My wife bought and has started using a halo (she has always had one since I’ve known her) actually, it is called the Amazon Halo Band. The Amazon Halo Band will track sleep fitness and over all health as long as you wear it. Full disclosure here, I am an Apple fanboy. I am still rocking the 1st generation Apple watch. Why am I rocking the 1st gen watch? Well it still works and I love it however, at the beginning of this year I made a new years resolution to loose some weight and if.. no no WHEN I loose 20 lbs I plan on rewarding myself with a brand new shiny Apple watch.

Last night my wife was showing me her new fitness band and one feature that she loved. The band will analysis the tone of your voice and tell you how based on your tone others are perceiving you. I thought this feature was incredible! She turned on the feature and as she and I spoke the words happy, confident and amused floated across her I phones screen (the band works with I phones). I was blown away by the technology and the geek and me wanted to know how it worked what was the algorithm used for making these calls? How do you analysis tone? Is timbre involved?

The human/husband/bestfriend was kind of pleased with the words that floated across the phones screen as she spoke. It is very important in a relationship to build up the other person. You will be at your best when the other person is also at their best. I loved that my wife felt all those things while she and I were speaking. Don’t get me wrong my wife is fun, kind, smart, confident woman. I did nothing to make her that way either but I never want to be the reason that she feels bummed out, unhappy, dumb, mean or shamed.

I will admit I have been angry with some people and I have treated them in a way that would (if they paid any attention to my words) make them feel bad and that is not great. I think that we should always use our words to make others feel at the very least safe. When it comes to loved ones we should certainly use our words to make them feel like they are the most important people on the planet!

According to this Linkedin in post, an average of 7000 words leave your mouth per day. At the very least I hope that a majority of the words are perceived as uplifting and complimentary. Sometimes it can be hard to build. It always seems harder to build than it does to tear down but its builders that make a difference.

Humanity has been on this earth for 300000 years and accomplished some amazing and some truly horrific feats. Lets work together with our words to make the majority of humanities feats going forward truly amazing and good.

peace

john3c