The people who have worked with me over the last few years have heard (and probably grown tired of) my rants about cliches and their use in modern business. It is my opinion that we've forgotten about substance and about communication in our language. But we want to sound like we know what we're talking about or be on the cutting edge (how's that for a cliche?) so we use the words or phrases we learned at the last seminar we attended, whether we know what they mean or not.
Among my least favorite "phrases" is "thought processes." There was a time when one was asked a question like: "What do you think about this?" The answer would be something like: "I think we should...", or "My thoughts on the matter are...", Today the answer one is likely to get is:"My thought processes are....." I always felt this was pretentious and that the speaker was only trying yo impress.
We even had a presentation at one of our management meetings where the speaker related that his company would " take your data and bucketize it..." To this day I don't know what he meant!
But this isn't a rant about cliches, although I've wanted to do one for a long time. I've had other cliches or maybe more appropriately, slogans, on my mind a lot in the last few days. Things like "grab for the gusto," "you only live once," and "Carpe diem."
You see, a person that I'm quite fond of recently received a medical diagnosis of the sort none of us wants to get. In fact, this is the third person that I've worked with that has received similar news in the last several months. With these diagnoses, they face at best, months or years of unpleasant treatment. People in the prime of their lives, with bright futures or with their golden years at hand, will, along with their loved ones, be forever changed.
In hearing of the latest diagnosis, I had a feeling of great uncertainty. First, I felt anguish for my friend but I also realized that if this can happen to these friends, it can happen to me or to someone very close to me. It makes me think about how you and I should live our lives daily. That's what made the cliches come to mind.
I certainly don't claim to have the answers or the right thing to say that will help someone approach their life to make sure they are getting the most from it but I am reminded of the Harry Chapin song "The Cat's in the Cradle" (1974). The lyrics tell of a father who is too busy to enjoy time with his son, hoping to do that later in life, only to find the son is then too busy. I recall my teenage years when the last thing I wanted to do was spend time with my father. By the time I was in my mid twenties and came to my senses, his health was such that I never got to know him man-to-man.
I was in conversation recently with a young man who was asking me about how I was enjoying retirement. He went on to say he couldn't wait until he retired so he could do some things he longed to do. I quickly admonished him that if he had things he truly wanted to do, he must do them now. The next life changing or ending diagnosis may be his.
I think the late, great Lewis Grizzard may have said it best, however grammatically incorrect: "This ain't no dress rehearsal!" You have to get it right the first time.
