Everybody loves simplification so here are two simple principles you can use in the practice of your life; two principles you must own to get more from life—and by “own” I mean not just understand and explain, but know and act from (without thinking) like an extension of your own mind and body. These principles are:

  1. Your life is created in language
  2. We (that includes you ) all need help

Your life is created in language

This is perhaps the most profound and all reaching principle that you must own to have access to power, freedom, and self-expression in your life.

By language, I do not mean languages like French, or Swahali but language itself as the unique capacity of human beings to be human beings.

Language is not just the capacity to communicate and describe; more accurately it is the capacity to create and perceive, or destroy and deceive. It is through language that the world occurs for us.

The infinite malleability of language is what accounts for why people either get along or don’t.  It is why there is literally no end to how people explain the world, and why relationships occur as difficult.

Language is the mechanism of “reality”

There is nothing that exists in your perception, be it people, animals, laws, rules, laws of nature, history, objects, ideas, values, etc. that is not constituted in language.

By that I mean that none of these things can enter your consciousness without language and because language is so all encompassing to us – like water to fish – we are not aware that it (language) is the mechanism of our individual and collective realities.  We come to confuse the way things and situations occur (seem) for us with “reality.”

The consequence—of not seeing this mechanism (of language) that causes the world to occur for us—is that we come to believe that the way the world occurs for us is “reality,” and therefore there must be something wrong with anyone else who claims that the world is otherwise than how we see it.

So we try to reason with them, and when that fails we exclude them in some way e.g. walking away,containing them, isolating them,  firing them, or killing them.  Unfortunately, that last option has never gone out of fashion.

We see in language

Don’t confuse what I’m saying here with changing perspective, or seeing things in a different way.  What I’m saying is that the very act of seeing itself occurs in language. In other words you see with language not with your eyes.

I don’t expect you to accept this at first exposure and it is not my intention for you to really embrace this principle in this brief article. But through my posts and articles on this site you will be exposed to many expressions of this principle.

Owning this will open up possibilities and opportunities for getting more out of life in your relationships, health, wealth and your career.

Owning this will make it possible for you to create or experience your work as truly rewarding and fulfilling.

Owning this will help you get more from your life.

We all need help

No one is an island. You are connected to the rest of humanity and they to you.

It is a supreme arrogance to think that you are independent of others; that you can do it on your own; that you don’t need any help.

You depend on the actions of others for the things that you come to expect, or take for granted in your daily life. Your morning newspaper, radio show, or TV program depend on other people committed to producing them. If doctors, mechanics, plumbers, or lawyers were to disappear from your life, your quality of life would be dramatically decreased. (No lawyer jokes please.)

Everything that these people do, your chiropractor, physiotherapist, waiter, sanitation worker, plumber, architect, teacher, etc. is a form of help, and this help has become depersonalized because we get it (this help) through the medium of money.

Money blinds us to the nature of transacting

Transacting with money often blinds us to the fact that what we are getting from other people is indeed help.  We only tend to notice it (the help) when we can’t get it e.g. if there is a strike, or when it is delivered with a genuine feeling of caring as when a nurse looks down at you, smiles and asks how you are feeling today.

We come to think that we work (transact) for money and not to help each other.

One good thing that comes out of natural disasters like the 2005 Tsunami or the earthquake in Haiti is that they very quickly unmask the illusion of independence and the belief of “I don’t need anybody.”

All of economic life and therefore career and work is about transacting for help: the best help we can provide to others, and the best help that we can get to take care of what we care about in life.

Therefore a powerful foundation for buiding your career, and fulfilling your ambition is the foundation of help: specifically providing the best help for others to take care of what’s important to them.

You need help to offer help

You can’t give the best help you can without getting good help from others; like teachers, coaches, mentors, colleagues, bosses, business partners, customers, suppliers, lawyers, doctors etc. people who will enable you to do heavy lifting you cannot do on your own, teach you the skills you need to perform, and help you take care of areas that you cannot or choose not to take care of on your own.

In short you can’t help without being helped, and the sooner you realize you need help and start asking and paying for it when necessary, the sooner you will be on the road to fulfilling your ambition.

Many of the articles that I write about are based on this essential principle. I wish for you all the help you need in life and may the articles and services you find here be … helpful. 😉