And the Buzzword Is . . .
This will come as a shock to those who know that my least favorite buzzword is "actionable." I first encountered this gem while working as a temp secretary for Harvard Community Health Plan. Knowing they couldn't possibly want to do something actionable, I changed the term to "feasible" and was taken to task by the office harridan. Three years of law school, some sheepskin and a few admissions to practice later, I can say with authority that the only proper use for actionable is "you can get sued for doing it." After enjoying such a long run, actionable, that oft-mended and tattered buzzword, must be relegated to the dustbin of trendy terms. It's time to take on the crusade against a new and, to my mind, thoroughly annoying buzzword: journey.
Each of us in on our own journey, or a personal journey, or in different places in our journeys. I have actually heard a licensed social worker use "journey" more than half a dozen times this week in a single conversation. As a dues paying member of a religious community, I would personally make a charitable donation if I never again heard that we are all at different places in our Jewish journeys. If you're a regular church member, you probably have some version of journey at your house of worship, too. You might even find it just as overused and annoying.
What's so wrong with "journey"? Other than being the oldest and most hackneyed metaphor for life, not much. Its current usage, however, that we are all on our own journeys wins the carnival brass ring for overstating the obvious. If we were in any way on a group journey, we'd be at each others throats in a heartbeat.
Consider for a moment, THE JOURNEY as it appears in Exodus. Almost as soon as these folks leave Egypt, they quarrel, whinge, and make themselves the least pleasant of company for roughly the next 40 years. They want to go back to Egypt, they question the leadership, they gripe about the food. They take the least efficient route possible, so as to include a mountain (symbolism alert), get an engraved copy of the top ten of 613 laws and completely circumnavigate a country that's only the size of New Jersey to enter the back way.
How far was their actual journey? I calculated their lack of progress with a friend earlier this year. Had they used the most direct route, they would have travelled 125 miles, or 3.125 miles in 40 lunar years. Unlike the solar calendar, a lunar one loses 11 days each year and adds 7 leap months over a 19 year period. That means "forty" lunar years really had an extra 15 months or so. This trek was 495 lunar months: they traveled precisely 1/4 mile every 29 or 30 days.
Now, consider that these people had no real common goal. The ones who left Egypt were only there to die out so a new generation could go to a different hostile place than the one they left. They probably could have managed to die just the same if they'd saved their sandal leather. Then, we have the Pyrrhic victory of the key protagonist. He gets to see the Promised Land but not to enter, because if you ignore God's precise instructions -- even in the smallest way -- you get to star in your very own Greek tragedy. Now, that makes a nice bedtime story. Then there are those chosen to scout out and enter a land just brimming with enemies and much bloodshed ensues.
Is the thought of undertaking a journey with others sounding better and better? If your taste runs to archetypes, try out the Orc version in Lord of the Rings. It takes fewer than 40 years, still takes the least efficient route, still has a mountain and the end is more satisfying. You get the added bonus of elves, comic relief from the dwarves and a far better prose style. Superior in many ways in both text and film. Key, however, is the way the whole Fellowship disbands as their suspicions and quarrels increase. OF COURSE we are "all on our own journeys." Just look at how well collective ones work out.
Join me in my campaign to eradicate "journey" with its slew of adjectives (personal, individual, unique, spiritual) from everyday parlance, or at least add it to your bingo card. Then, send me your own pet buzzwords.
Each of us in on our own journey, or a personal journey, or in different places in our journeys. I have actually heard a licensed social worker use "journey" more than half a dozen times this week in a single conversation. As a dues paying member of a religious community, I would personally make a charitable donation if I never again heard that we are all at different places in our Jewish journeys. If you're a regular church member, you probably have some version of journey at your house of worship, too. You might even find it just as overused and annoying.
What's so wrong with "journey"? Other than being the oldest and most hackneyed metaphor for life, not much. Its current usage, however, that we are all on our own journeys wins the carnival brass ring for overstating the obvious. If we were in any way on a group journey, we'd be at each others throats in a heartbeat.
Consider for a moment, THE JOURNEY as it appears in Exodus. Almost as soon as these folks leave Egypt, they quarrel, whinge, and make themselves the least pleasant of company for roughly the next 40 years. They want to go back to Egypt, they question the leadership, they gripe about the food. They take the least efficient route possible, so as to include a mountain (symbolism alert), get an engraved copy of the top ten of 613 laws and completely circumnavigate a country that's only the size of New Jersey to enter the back way.
How far was their actual journey? I calculated their lack of progress with a friend earlier this year. Had they used the most direct route, they would have travelled 125 miles, or 3.125 miles in 40 lunar years. Unlike the solar calendar, a lunar one loses 11 days each year and adds 7 leap months over a 19 year period. That means "forty" lunar years really had an extra 15 months or so. This trek was 495 lunar months: they traveled precisely 1/4 mile every 29 or 30 days.
Now, consider that these people had no real common goal. The ones who left Egypt were only there to die out so a new generation could go to a different hostile place than the one they left. They probably could have managed to die just the same if they'd saved their sandal leather. Then, we have the Pyrrhic victory of the key protagonist. He gets to see the Promised Land but not to enter, because if you ignore God's precise instructions -- even in the smallest way -- you get to star in your very own Greek tragedy. Now, that makes a nice bedtime story. Then there are those chosen to scout out and enter a land just brimming with enemies and much bloodshed ensues.
Is the thought of undertaking a journey with others sounding better and better? If your taste runs to archetypes, try out the Orc version in Lord of the Rings. It takes fewer than 40 years, still takes the least efficient route, still has a mountain and the end is more satisfying. You get the added bonus of elves, comic relief from the dwarves and a far better prose style. Superior in many ways in both text and film. Key, however, is the way the whole Fellowship disbands as their suspicions and quarrels increase. OF COURSE we are "all on our own journeys." Just look at how well collective ones work out.
Join me in my campaign to eradicate "journey" with its slew of adjectives (personal, individual, unique, spiritual) from everyday parlance, or at least add it to your bingo card. Then, send me your own pet buzzwords.