As a writer, a lover of literature, an English teacher, and a general goofball there are a lot of potential answers to this question. Full disclosure, for those who may not know me in person, I do indeed curse. More than a little. But not quite a lot. If that makes sense. I’m a believer and I do live by faith (I shudder to say that I am religious, because I prefer to say I have a relationship with God) so there is always the conviction by those – particularly of the holier-than-thou crowd- who say you can’t possibly love God if those words come out of your mouth. Granted, the meaning behind words is only assigned by our personal and societal belief and assignment of them. But that’s a whole other subject. Anyway, I’ve done the attempts to give up cursing for lent, and I’ve stopped/cut down a lot as I got older, but there is one of those words in particular I desperately want to stop saying and strike from my vocabulary, but that’s another matter as well.
Today, the big word I think I would love to strike from my mind and my future is a simple one that we all use too much.
CAN’T
It’s a plague upon the world, if I’m being honest. It’s a crutch. One many of us use far too much, as well. I can’t do this, or I can’t do that. I can’t make it work. Some of us, my wife will tell you I’m particularly guilty of this at times in an attempt to disperse future disappointment in myself, actually use the word “can’t” before we even make an attempt. To say we can’t do something, though, is not only showing doubt about our own strengths and the intentions and faith of our creator (or the universe, or fate, or whatever your personal guiding principal is) but it is showing a lack of willingness to put forth the effort.
In a world where so many people have given up their strength and use any and every excuse possible to avoid not only failure but success as well “can’t” is one of the worst enablers possible. I want to do my best to stop saying “can’t,” at least not without making every effort possible first. It might not be the easiest thing I’ve ever done, but it’s something I CAN definitely do.
Damean Mathews 