Why do we make everything a battle?

Using wartime language in everyday life can have unintended consequences.

Photo by Brett Jordan of Unsplash

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the ongoing mass shootings in this country. Why are we where we are, and why are we ok with how we’ve gotten here? Is there something more we can all do, beyond donating money to victims and related causes, and offering thoughts and prayers?

One small thing that I keep coming back to is our culture’s widespread use of wartime language in decidedly non-war situations. Nearly all of us do it, mostly unconsciously: Your colleague is “killing it” in sales, your pickleball opponent was in full “warrior mode” on the court. A cancer survivor “battled” the disease and “won.” These are anger words, they are wartime words. They’re words that can do more harm than good, especially when we use them in the context of everyday life.

When we use that language, what does it communicate to other people? How does it make people feel?  If you’re killing it, that means someone else isn’t. It's very aggressive. It assumes you sacrificed someone else. In my previous newsletter, I talked about how society can try to get to a place where we aren't so angry all the time, that we don't have to blame one another for everything. Finding other ways to express ourselves and our accomplishments without using wartime language could be an important step.

In the cancer community, there’s been a backlash against calling cancer patients warriors or victors. In fact, a study from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, found that “reading about a person’s ‘battle’ or ‘fight’ against cancer makes cancer treatment seem more difficult,” and that “battle metaphors increase fatalistic beliefs about cancer prevention.” These words are harmful, not motivating.

Think about it: if one person survives and another doesn't, does it mean one was a better warrior than the other? Of course not. That language puts people at odds, and I can tell you as a survivor myself, it doesn’t accurately reflect what is really a journey through treatment and, hopefully, recovery. 

It’s easy to see the appeal of such fierce, adversarial words: Using them gives one a sense of triumph, of euphoria, of beating something or winning the war. These powerful words help us feel powerful, but to what end? Why do we feel like we need to triumph over one another, when really the ultimate goal should be to come together, to foster connectedness and collectivism and support and care in all areas of our life.

The negative associations of fighting and battling and winning and losing puts people at odds in every situation—it turns life into a zero-sum game. If you’re beating or killing or crushing it in work or play or relationships, it means someone else is losing. And in order to come together as a society, we need to stop using language that creates winners and losers.

There’s another downside of always feeling like you have to kill it or crush it. You can’t always kill it. So what does it do to your mental health to feel that constant pressure to win at all costs? That pressure impacts our own expectations of ourselves, and our feelings of falling short.

We can feel those same feelings of accomplishment and strength and euphoria without resorting to battle language. There’s more power in the specificity, actually. Instead of a generic compliment like “you’re killing it on this project” you might say “that was a thorough and creative presentation you gave yesterday”. Instead of “he slayed the competition at the bbq cook-off” you might say “his flavorful fall-apart ribs deserved that grand prize.” It’s not about defeating others —the focus is on a person’s unique accomplishment and how they achieved it.

War language has been around forever, of course, and maybe we weren’t as sensitive to it before now, because the world was different. We weren't going around hurting each other. But that type of language can have an impact on us and how we see the world and one another. Let’s celebrate our personal achievements and efforts, without making war against others in the process. There is space for all of us to do great things.

Who I’m following: One of my favorite Twitter accounts right now belongs to Patron, Ukrainian bomb-sniffing Jack Russell Terrier. He is a hero of Ukraine. He’s a soldier that’s saving lives, teaching children how to love instead of hate, and I find him adorable and inspiring.

What I’m reading: Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, by Susan Cain. The message of the book is that life is bittersweet—in order to experience the good in life, we need to experience the bad. Things in life are bitter and sad and troubling (I’m thinking once again of so many mass shootings), but it's ok to find joy and laugh at things, even when it doesn’t feel like it is. The world is heavy, but the bitter and the sweet can co-exist.

What I’ve bookmarked: The New York Times interview with Krista Tippett, of the “On Being” podcast. She’s just an awesome human. In the article, she talks about how as a society, we love quick answers. We love to know the solution right away, and don’t take the time to actually sit with the question. The idea stopped me in my tracks, because I am someone who reacts quickly and wants to get things done and have an answer ready now. Wait, you want me to sit with the question? Why can’t I just answer the question? It’s something for me to think about.