As a language teacher, I think about languages all of the time. Language is a representation of thought. There are some words that do a very effective job of representing the concepts that they portray. Some words do a very poor job. One of the good (and bad) things about speaking a language like English in a country like the United States is that the language is still very alive. We can decide on adopting new words and phrases and discard the unneeded
The words that we use represent the thoughts that we have and they also change the way that we look at the world. For example imagine trying to paint a sunset, with only blue paint. It would be almost impossible to create an accurate representation because the tools that you are working with limit your possibilities. Conversely imagine trying to paint a midnight sky with only yellow and orange. I think about this a lot when I hear languages like French and German. In my mind, I can’t imagine a punk rock song in French because the language doesn’t represent anger well. Nor can I imagine a romantic movie in German, the language sound just doesn’t seem to fit (I’m sure both of these things exist).
So my suggestion is to replace TODAY and TOMORROW. These are truly neutral words that carry no emotion with them. However they should. Today is all that we have. It should have a word that truly represents what we should be doing with it. My suggestion would be something like “SOWDAY” or “HUNTDAY”. In historical terms, farmers and hunters needed to do something today in order to eat tomorrow. They truly understood something that we’ve lost in modern times, the idea that now is precious. My replacement for tomorrow is “REAPDAY”. As we all know, tomorrow never truly arrives; it is always one day ahead of SOWDAY. Therefore it pushes gratification off into the future at all times. By using a word like this we would anticipate that now is not about taking, now is about doing. Receiving is in the future and only comes if we did the things we needed to do on SOWDAY. I actually prefer HUNTDAY but sow and reap go together better.
So even if you don’t change your vocabulary to include: HUNTDAY, SOWDAY or REAPDAY, I would suggest that you put the idea into your head. Today is your chance to do. Tomorrow is only your opportunity to get if you did the work today. Get out there and make today happen.
Huryk Unlimited 