The Bind of Absolutes
I’ll never like to dance.
The sentence itself seems harmless, uttered one hot autumn afternoon in high school. I didn’t know how this declaration would shape me, binding me to a seemingly trivial promise.
Absolute language seems like a good idea in the moment. Whatever statement you are making becomes more emphatic with an always, never, only, or every. She’s never on time, everyone would agree this is wrong, or every day is an endless pit of emails.
We declare absolute statements over ourselves, over others, over what we consume or produce. Absolutes can be harmful for a few reasons:
Absolutes often create an opening for your audience to undermine your argument or message. Really, she has never been on time? Really, every single person on this earth would agree about this one idea? Really, the emails have absolutely no end?
Absolutes spoken over yourself or others can create unrealistic expectations, become self-fulfilling prophecies, or function as restricting labels.
Absolutes often lack specificity. I’ve read many student essays that start with generalized absolutes that make the scope far too wide to be effective: throughout all of history, everyone in the world, or no one would ever.
Anyone who knows me well is probably laughing right now because I tend to be a dramatic person with a proclivity toward absolute language. I once made it my New Year’s Resolution to not use absolutes that entire year. (It didn’t last long.)
I suppose this inclination toward absolutes is why I know how perilous they can be. When I first stated that I’d never like to dance, I didn’t realize how I’d carry that with me. Even at the time, it wasn’t true. (My mom and I had a routine of swing dancing in the kitchen to delay doing the dishes.) However, I wanted to be someone of integrity, someone who didn’t go back on their word, so I started believing the absolute I’d told myself, forcing it to be true.
In recent years, I’ve realized how many absolutes I’ve convinced myself of. I’m not a runner, always make life more difficult for myself, will never fall asleep, and so on. I put limits on who I could be through the language I used. These inflexible absolutes dictated how I saw myself. For me, letting go of absolutes was a step toward grace, allowing myself to be human and change.
Whether writing an essay, constructing professional copy, or simply speaking to yourself, be careful with absolute language, pay attention to what you speak over yourself and others, and offer yourself and your audience the grace to grow.
Today, I like to dance, and maybe tomorrow I won’t, but that’s okay too.