Jan 21
The three punctuations that will determine your life: you have to choose wisely!
“What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.”
Are you a fool of stops?
Are you living in a semi-coma?
Are you breathing through a comma?
I have never really paid attention to punctuation in my life. I have always felt like they are non-existent.
There is no day I do something where I think:
What does this punctuation mean to me?
I often accept the punctuations that other people define for me. You will marry that girl. Full Stop.
You will be a low performer today. Semicolon. Now is your Turn.
You are not worthy of my time. Comma. Go seek out help somewhere else.
I have spent most of my life accepting other people’s full stops. I have been a fool most of the time. That is foolish. Full Stop.
What if we could challenge other people’s punctuation about us?
“Don’t accept it. Reframe it!” once a friend told me. “You should own the frame, Man!” another one yelled at me once.
I am learning to create frames regarding other people’s expectations and choices. The one thing that has helped me the most is the “punctuations” framework.
Let’s examine every language’s three most powerful punctuations:
- The full stop.
- The semicolon;
- The comma,
Once we have understood those punctuations, we can leverage them to reclaim the power over our lives.
THE FULL STOP.
“The full stop (Commonwealth English), period (North American English), or full point ., is a punctuation mark. It is used for several purposes, most often to mark the end of a declarative sentence (as distinguished from a question or exclamation).”
Full stop — Wikipedia (2022, October 5).
The end of a declarative sentence? Right!
We have all been there. We have been served with a fool stop. A full stop has killed many dreams, beliefs, or gut feelings.
From a young age, we have been served with: “That is it. Full stop!”
Be it in relationships, dating, business meetings, or personnel growth, there are the fool-stop gatekeepers.
Most of them have fallen in that gate. Now they are serving you the awful taste into their mouth. They are paying it forward in a negative way.
“I have tried it. It is impossible!”
“You are not the right person for the role!”
“You are too weak to reach the top of this mountain!”
“You will never be like that person!”
“That is crazy. Are you stupid?”
Well, you get the idea. There are some moments where there are actual full stops. They are delivered outside of both your circle of control and influence. The universe tells you that that is not the way for you. In that case, and only in that case, you must acknowledge the message and move on.
However, in many cases, people will give you the full stop. You should avoid falling into their finite game. Just because they have failed does not mean that the sample will happen to you. They might offer you only two options; find a third one that better fits your needs and objectives.
The semicolon and the comma are two ways of reclaiming the power of punctuation in our lives.
THE SEMICOLON;
“The semicolon or semi-colon[1] ; is a symbol commonly used as orthographic punctuation. In the English language, a semicolon is most commonly used to link (in a single sentence) two independent clauses that are closely related in thought.”
Semicolon — Wikipedia. (2022, November 14).!”
That is the most confusing punctuation. The semicolon is an endangered species. We need clarification about when to use it or not. Hence we use it less and less.
Yet it is a great starting point to reclaim that power.
We often know the reasons behind our actions. We can link our heads because the path is clear to us. Other people might only see the first part of the objectives we have in mind. Before we even finish our sentence, we are already served with a fool stop.
“I hate to break it to you, but you cannot make it!” is the first thing they will tell you. Often we take that answer as a fatality. We must not just say, “You might be right.” and stop there.
We can use the power of the semicolon and reframe our minds. For example, “You might be right; I will never know if I don’t try.”
We are already shifting away from the victim mentality by adding the semicolon mindset. We might never be able to reach the objective we set. The worst-case scenario is that we fail. They might be right in that case, yet we will have learned one more way not to do it.
Now we are ready to reach the ultimate level of punctuation.
THE COMMA,
“The comma is used in many contexts and languages, mainly to separate parts of a sentence such as clauses, and items in lists mainly when there are three or more items listed. The word comma comes from the Greek κόμμα (kómma), which originally meant a cut-off piece, specifically in grammar, a short clause.”
Comma — Wikipedia. (2022, November 10).
A cut-off piece? Yes, that is what we are looking for. Indeed each time people offer a perspective about it, that is all it is: a cut-off piece.
Yes, most of the time, people’s opinions are just commentaries about our lives. They are rapid to judge, cluster, and put us into the limited beliefs paving the walls of their minds.
The comma is the space we need between breathing in and out. We must not stop living just because we are told to make a fool stop. That is why so many ideas are killed into our minds before we even try them out.
With the comma, we just acknowledge other people’s inputs are one piece of the puzzle.
“You cannot make it.” can be rephrased as “Yes, I Can’t make it, indeed, because I am a work in progress.”
“You will fail.” is to be completed by “I will fail unless I fail to learn the lesson.”
“Your goal is not realistic.” said differently can be: “My goal is not realistic because I need to slice it into small steps that I can walk every day.”
You get the idea, don’t you?
I am like you. I am not a fan of a semicolon when it comes to writing. I prefer the two extremes: a full stop or a comma. However, I am learning not to be filled by other people’s stops. I try to breathe out and not hold my breath just because someone told me to.
I am learning not to let other people define my path to success. Instead, I am learning to break their barriers and use the power of the comma to get to my success criteria.
I don’t want to be fooled at the end. I don’t want to hit a dead end because I am full of other people’s stops.
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You can read my previous article on The ABC of toughness starts with us: Resilience is the root of all it is! (Friendly link)
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