Adjectives are the "spice" of language, adding flavour and character to our sentences, just as salt and pepper add taste to food. But, like any spice, they need to be used with caution.

Consider garlic. As well as flavouring your food, it goes on to taint everything you eat (and anyone you kiss) for a while.

It's the same with the adjectives we use to describe our reality.

There's always a risk that they will also go on to create our reality.

• If we call a team-member lazy, we'll start to see it in every interaction.

• If we label a type of conversation as difficult, we'll start to dread future conversations.

• If we label ourselves as worthless, guess how life starts to look?

So much of our suffering is rooted in the adjectives we use to describe ourselves and the world around us. And yet those adjectives don't even exist. They're all made from thought.

I'm not suggesting that you replace negative adjectives with positive ones.

But I encourage you to notice how often you're using unhelpful adjectives and get curious about how life would be if you stopped for a while.

Tony Piper • Ship 30 for 30 2023, Day 26