When “We” Becomes “You”
– “I, struggling and feeble, floated, detached, along with other river-traveling rubber ducks.”
He is a well-know motivational speaker with insights that chip away at my preconceptions in just the right places. Most of us recognize a high-quality speech when we hear it:
– Excellent, stimulating content.
– Well-selected illustrations.
– Appropriate tone and delivery style.
– Well-paced presentation.
– Ahh, not too longwinded! (Research says that most of us can pay good attention for only about twenty minutes. I think I max out at fifteen.)
But just why was I having such a hard time listening to his discourse? Why was this battle of resistance within me? Well…he seemed aloof, above it all, having conquered his own shortcomings and now obtrusively barreling in on mine.
What could be the matter with me?
As he spoke, I started identifying categories of words, and that’s when I realized what was going on.
He shoveled out barrels of certain pronouns in his homily. I tripped over the quantity of them and quickly lost count. By the end, I drowned in the pronouns “I” and “You,” which separated him from me. He seemed to have “arrived” by constantly referring to his audience as “you.” He seemed above the fray.
Other pronouns received nary a mention. Scarce as gold veins in a mine, I was at a loss to find any of them. Not once did he mention the inclusive pronoun “we,” which would have indicated we were on this life journey together.
Noticing the imbalance was unavoidable.
I never heard him once utter the inclusive pronoun “We,” which would have linked our successes and struggles together as people with common challenges. Instead, my life (“You”) was juxtaposed against his (“I”).
It appeared that he had successfully run the rapids, dodging life’s obstacles, now a river’s length between us; it seemed that he, successful in all aspects of his life, had crossed the currents without me, while I, struggling and feeble, floated, detached, along with other river-traveling rubber ducks (“We”), still weighted down by our shortcomings. His success and his advice was unapproachable.
Unlike those in my previous two posts, he was not “We”-centered. He did not appear to join with us to help meet our common needs. The well-known motivational speaker did not include us as part of his family. He was exclusively “Me”-centered, and that made all the difference.