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I want to begin today’s article with a confession: Most of the articles I write are something I have come up with on my own or are about something I have observed, but today’s story is merely a recital of a concept I read in a book years ago.

For most of my life, I have mostly seen things in black and white, meaning I saw the issues in the world as being either one way or another; you were either happy or mad, it was either right or wrong, and the answer was either yes or no. I remember years ago, at a point in my life, trying to figure out how to improve my place in the world. More specifically, I was trying to figure out how to make more money.

While reading a book about changing one’s life, I was presented with the advice to learn more vocabulary words. With my black-and-white mentality at that time, I remember thinking to myself, “This has got to be the craziest advice ever. How in the hell can expanding your vocabulary possibly increase your income or change your life in any meaningful way?” But, like most things in life that become clearer with age, I have realized there is in fact some truth to the concept (although I still haven’t increased my income to the level I prefer!).

The logic behind the concept was that if you had a limited vocabulary then you could not clearly or specifically express or even identify the emotion, thought or problem you had or were trying to solve. As an attorney, I have spent nearly 25 years behind my desk and I have had more exposure to clients’ emotions than I ever dreamed I would, and one of the things that I have learned about solving a problem – whether financial, social, emotional, personal, or whatever – is that the more precisely and specifically you can identify the issue, the more likely you will be to identify the pivotal point that then allows you to make a change.

I have found that the more words you can use to describe something, the more precisely you can analyze it, and the more precisely you can analyze it, the more likely you are to identify the pivotal factor you need to change.

There is another benefit, insomuch as it allows people to think and feel additional levels of emotion or thought about something. For example, I have seen numerous people who were either happy or mad, meaning they seemed to have no emotions between the two. That kind of limitation must severely impede a person’s ability to function with emotional maturity. Imagine, if you will, that you are contemplating a business transaction. There might be an issue that concerns you about the deal, but with a limited vocabulary, you can’t properly identify or describe the problem, which may or may not be an actual problem (beyond what you perceive). If you could only see or feel the situation in the abstract and express it in only the simplest terms, you likely wouldn’t have the confidence or capacity to make an informed and confident choice about whether to move forward with the transaction.

As we add to our personal vocabularies, we can begin to realize there are other emotions than just happy or mad. Instead, when we are upset, we can begin to understand the spectrum of emotion, and whether what we are feeling is concern, slight irritation, general unhappiness, or even indifference. If all we knew was happy or mad, then if our emotion leaned toward the “mad” side of the spectrum, we might automatically react with anger. On the flip side of the coin, if we were feeling positive, then we may overlook an issue that would otherwise need to be addressed, and overcorrect into “happy” territory with a reckless abandon that destines the activity for doom.

You may look at today’s article and think, much like I did at one time, that this is crazy. I won’t blame you. I can only tell you that over time this advice will eventually help you develop a whole new attitude about expression and the many facets of life.

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