The Hyperbolization of Everything...
Have you heard these phrases in the last month?
That was amazing!
That was the worst!
Worst. [day, meeting, meal, insert your experience here]. ever.
You are the best!
I've observed how my kids talk, how my co-workers and I interact, and how we use our language. We talk a lot in superlatives and hyperbole, it seems.
While we know we are not talking in an absolutist sense, speaking in superlatives or hyperbole seems to develop an unspoken and false binary: that everything is the best or the worst.
So why am I taking up space on our blog? First, I am curious to know if anyone else sees this. Is this a cultural pattern or just some random observation? Second, I feel uneasy when we talk in binary, either/or, and win-loss language, especially when it comes to change work. A binary approach doesn't leave room for the messiness of life and the systems we create to manage the challenges of life. We create a 2-dimensional view of life and work when, in actuality, we live and work in 3D, where there is texture and nuance.
And that is where change work lives and thrives - in the messiness and nuance of the space between the ups and downs, highs and lows. We want to look at the challenge in 3D so that we can make solutions that are 3D, filled with depth, texture, and nuance.
We will have ups (Amazing!) and losses or failures (the worst.), but our successes don't give us permission to stop and rest on our laurels, and our losses are rarely showstoppers. And truth be told, much of our work is neither up nor down but showing up each day and bringing our best in the messiness. As much as we talk in superlatives, the reality is that much of life is liminal, the space between “amazing” and “the worst.”
And so we may speak in superlatives or hyperbole, but we live in between them and we get to use our creative capacity to navigate the big challenges, making things better and moving forward, acknowledging the brutal facts of the situation and hold hope that we can prevail in the end.