revolutionary in training

By Isahrai Malachy Azaria

(For Part 1, click here.)

After thinking about complicated speech for a few days, I tried to put it into action. The response I got from most people was “What’s wrong?” or “You seem so distant!” My long-winded reputation goes far and wide and my attempt at brevity threw everyone for a loop. I’m the girl who starts to tell a story and more than one of my friends will interrupt and say “Is this just a story or is this an Isahrai-story? Because I have to get up early in the morning!” Or there’s my one friend who has a natural gift for putting things simply. When I’m getting too rambly for my own good, he points an imaginary remote at my face and says “Fast forward.” (And I’ve only smacked him for doing so twice!) I doubt I’ll ever be as brief as that, but I think there is a happy medium to be found between speaking-in-manifesto and speaking like a caveman. As I try to figure out where that balance is, I’ve discovered a few (hopefully brief!) rules:

Make no excuses.

If I am attempting to justify myself, I should stop. Justification is a defensive action and will negatively affect to tone of the conversation and the reaction of the people I’m speaking to.

Spit it out already.

If I’m trying to bide my time to avoid making a point because I’m afraid of offending someone or causing a disagreement, I should just get to the point already. There’s no use pissing the person off by wasting their time with my hemming and hawing before I even get to the actual controversial part.

Life is short.

If there is an easier way to say it, do it. I used to avoid clichés as if they were this horrible disease that might wipe out the entire planet’s population and by refusing to say it, I was providing the only vaccine. I used to avoid clichés like the plague. As a writer, I’m taught to shun them and, in writing for the masses, this is good advice. If someone wants to read “A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet,” they’ll read Shakespeare, not my article on composting. However, in conversation (be it face-to-face, email, instant messaging), a cliché can go a long way in not only proving a point but proving your sincerity by refusing to dance around an issue or waste time. When applied appropriately, clichés work for their intended purpose: to express a fundamental truth or, at least, a socially accepted generalization.

Let’s give them something to talk about.

One unexpected result of uncomplicating my speech is that I am rewarded with genuine interest. I usually have exhausted the story or the talking point before I pause to come up for air. This eliminates any interaction with the person I’m speaking to because I’ve already exhausted their questions before they asked them. Choosing to speak more simply has proven to yield a more engaged, layered conversation.

I don’t know.

We make our speech complicated on purpose, often to avoid confrontation or liability. We also complicate it when we want to avoid looking foolish. It’s taken me a long time to learn to say, “I don’t know.” I’m frequently asked by a client if I know how to do X, Y, and Z. Usually I know 2 out of 3. I used to say, “Sure, of course!’ and then I’d work all night searching the internet for a tutorial. I’d justify these instances as “learning experiences” when really, they were failures, heart attacks, and burned bridges waiting to happen. I finally realized that I wasn’t really learning much from these crash courses as I was too busy trying to meet the deadline and sound like I knew what I was doing. Now, when I am approached with a task I don’t know how to do, I admit it. I follow it up with “If you’re not on a tight deadline, I can figure it out, give you a break on my fee for this part of the project, and get a great addition to my skill set. Or I can find someone who knows how to do it right now.” Surprisingly, 9 times out of 10, the client is so impressed with my honesty that they give me the leeway to figure it out on my own.

Me talk good.

Speaking simply does not mean using only one syllable words. It just means only using the best word, the best example, or the even the best body language response for the situation. Furthermore, applying these lessons beyond my speech, living simply does not mean taking the easy way out. It just means conscientiously choosing my path, avoiding unnecessary distractions, and not being afraid of being a “cliché” just because I follow someone else’s example.

Putting things simply certainly hasn’t quieted me much. I’m still very wordy (in case you didn’t notice) and know how to digress with the best of them. Consciously thinking about uncomplicated speech, though, has forced me to be more forthright, take more responsibility, and be a proactive participant – both as a speaker and listener – in conversation. Putting things simply has uncomplicated my speech process but it has also allowed me to delve further into my thought process and has empowered me to connect more intimately and quickly with others.

And, finally, my last rule for putting it simply: If trampling elephants pop into my head as the next example in my bullet point list of examples for something I was not asked to provide examples for… it’s time to simply shut up.

Enough said.

Isahrai Malachy Azaria is a freelance writer, designer, consultant, and singer-songwriter extraordinaire. A New Yorker at heart, she currently lives in Zihuatenejo, Mexico where her creative juices mix with the local flavors of the tropics while maintaining a strong love of Starbucks and all things Mac. For more information, check out her website at www.irmacreative.com.