Reading is how you borrow other people’s words until you find your own.
GRATITUDE
WHAT THIS MEANS
Nobody invents a vocabulary from scratch. You collect phrasings that fit things you had already noticed but could not say, and after enough of them your own voice turns out to be the particular mix you assembled. Borrowing is not copying, it is how every writer and speaker has ever started. What feels like finding your voice is mostly having enough words to be precise.
Read something this week that nobody assigned, and keep the sentences that make you stop. Write down three of them. Then put one into your own words in a conversation and see what it does.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Whose sentences are you still borrowing while you find yours?
MORE IN COMMUNICATION & LANGUAGE
- Say your own name the way your family says it. Making it easier for others shouldn’t mean making it smaller.
- Don’t apologize for what isn’t your fault just to end the tension. Save sorry for when it’s real.
- “Let’s take a break and talk tomorrow” isn’t running away, as long as you actually come back tomorrow.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.