Micro words, (how many do you use)?

Micro… interesting prompt.  Micro, extremely small or very small in relation to others.  The only thing that comes to mind is words.  I think about the small (or micro) amount of words that I use in life compared to the number of words I know and that exist in life.  Words drive everyday interactions at work at home, everywhere.  With the exorbitant number of active words, you would think that expressing ideas, thoughts, and feelings might not be that difficult.  Turns out, it is.

At an early age, you start to learn several words every week; building your vocabulary.  As you progress in education, your word use is analyzed tested.  Yet, as we get older, we form a small subset of words that we use to communicate with each other in conversation or writing.  We even go so far as to shorten the few words we use commonly.  Maybe this happens when you aren’t in school anymore or when you stop reading?  Though I have noticed when reading books here lately, even authors have a preferred set of words that they like to use repeatedly.

The reason it interests me is that it seems that we are continuously diminishing our knowledge base.  From Excel sheets to apps that manage your life to recordings that read books to you, it just seems that as technology gets savvier, our brains are exercised much less.  I shouldn’t say that they are exercised less; I should say that they get very little time to focus.  In my experience, lack of focus typically makes us less productive.

Quote of the Day

“Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage but simply because they have never organized their energies around a goal.” -Elbert Hubbard