When and How Did Everything Become Awesome? In The Lego Movie, the song, “Everything is AWESOME!!!” was Nominated for Best Original Song at the 87th Academy Awards, a Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media, and a Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Song. Personally, I’m grateful the song won none of these (but am sure the songwriter still feels awesome, right?).
Is Everything Awesome?
Satisfaction Isn’t Likely in an Ethos Where “Everything Is Awesome”
Inc. Magazine columnist Tim Askey begs us to “stop saying awesome,” pleading that...
When something describes everything, it describes nothing. I would advise any entrepreneur who aspires to be taken more seriously to eliminate this ubiquitous word from his or her vocabulary.
I just got back from Inc.’s GrowCo convention in Nashville. Lots of useful, enjoyable, wonderful stuff there, as always, but I was stunned by how almost every speech by every presenter and almost every overheard or casual conversation was peppered with the word awesome. It was inescapable, like verbal kudzu choking out the variegated richness of the English language–so omnipresent it seemed like an acceptable substitute for just about any word. “Awesome.” “Awesome.” “Awesome.” “Yeah, really awesome, man.”[1]
When and How Did Everything Become Awesome?
In The Lego Movie, the song, “Everything is AWESOME!!!” was Nominated for Best Original Song at the 87th Academy Awards, a Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media, and a Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Song. Personally, I’m grateful the song won none of these (but am sure the songwriter still feels awesome, right?).
A Nobel prize, a piece of string You know what’s awesome? Everything! Dogs with fleas, allergies A book of Greek antiquities Brand new pants, a very old vest Awesome items are the best
Trees, (frogs), clogs, they’re awesome Rocks, clocks, and socks, they’re awesome Figs, and jigs, and twigs, that’s awesome Everything you see or think or say is awesome[2]
Twigs are awesome? Perhaps I’m dating myself, but awesome was the word I uttered when at 10 years old, I first saw the Grand Canyon or later witnessed televised news of the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. By definition, it means: extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear. In addition, people in the 17th century who were saying that something was awesome did not necessarily mean “that is a thing of great beauty”; chances are, they might have meant “that is a thing that sends shivers of terror down my spine.”[3]
Besides the growing rage for the term, the point here is not merely to continue bashing its overuse, but rather, to demonstrate that when awesome is used for any measure or standard for satisfaction, it may leave us disappointed and malcontent. If we live in an “everything is awesome” ethos, by comparison, we grow more miserable by the day. Satisfaction is downright implausible in comparison to an ever-expanding standard of excitement, happiness, and awesomeness. How did we become so addicted to the enthusiasm and so abhorrent to boredom, simplicity, and tedium?
The Fault of Evolution
The following excerpts from Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow describes this breakdown well. The introductory chapter subtopic is titled The Right to Happiness and it addresses the conundrum.
For the first time in history, more people die today from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals combined. In the early twenty-first century, the average human is far more likely to die from bingeing at McDonald’s than from drought, Ebola or an al-Qaeda attack.
On the psychological level, happiness depends on expectations rather than objective conditions. We don’t become satisfied by leading a peaceful and prosperous existence. Rather, we become satisfied when reality matches our expectations. The bad news is that as conditions improve, expectations balloon. Dramatic improvements in conditions, as humankind has experienced in recent decades, translate into greater expectations rather than greater contentment.
This is all the fault of evolution. For countless generations our biochemical system adapted to increasing our chances of survival and reproduction, not our happiness. The biochemical system rewards actions conducive to survival and reproduction with pleasant sensations. But these are only an ephemeral sales gimmick. We struggle to get food and mates in order to avoid unpleasant sensations of hunger and to enjoy pleasing tastes and blissful orgasms. But nice tastes and blissful orgasms don’t last very long, and if we want to feel them again we have to go out looking for more food and mates.
Some may say that this is not so bad, because it isn’t the goal that makes us happy – it’s the journey. Climbing Mount Everest is more satisfying than standing at the top; flirting and foreplay are more exciting than having an orgasm; and conducting groundbreaking lab experiments is more interesting than receiving praise and prizes. Yet this hardly changes the picture. It just indicates that evolution controls us with a broad range of pleasures. Sometimes it seduces us with sensations of bliss and tranquility, while on other occasions it goads us forward with thrilling sensations of elation and excitement.
When an animal is looking for something that increases its chances of survival and reproduction (e.g. food, partners or social status), the brain produces sensations of alertness and excitement, which drive the animal to make even greater efforts because they are so very agreeable. In a famous experiment, scientists connected electrodes to the brains of several rats, enabling the animals to create sensations of excitement simply by pressing a pedal. When the rats were given a choice between tasty food and pressing the pedal, they preferred the pedal (much like kids preferring to play video games rather than come down to dinner). The rats pressed the pedal again and again, until they collapsed from hunger and exhaustion. [4] Humans too may prefer the excitement of the race to resting on the laurels of success. Yet what makes the race so attractive is the exhilarating sensations that go along with it. Nobody would have wanted to climb mountains, play video games or go on blind dates if such activities were accompanied solely by unpleasant sensations of stress, despair or boredom. [5]
When My Standard is Awe, I’m Doomed to Seek More
When I was younger, I got a quote tattooed around my bicep that reads “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”[6] Some years later I began to see this quote as a thief of my true satisfaction – I was like the rat addicted to the excitement (and the rush of dopamine) of my latest new idea or newest imaginings. As I’ve matured I’m happy that I climbed many mountains yet regret where I’ve chased my tail. The naïve pursuit to achieve sensations of excitement and enthusiasm was quite different than the satisfaction I now experience by building and implementing transactions that produce a reality that meets my expectations.
Last year I had the privilege of spending a month in a small farm village in rural France. There was little distraction except for the occasional neighing of horses or the gravel crunching under the arrival of the local boulangerie truck. The quiet was profound. After a few days, my pace slowed entirely. After a few weeks, I was content to read a book between naps, stroll through the town wondering about who built it, or ponder what culinary delights dinner may bring.
The ethos was one that, by contrast to my normal pace, was delightful and it revealed a truth about my normal existence: with the standard set to awesome, I’m ill-prepared to cherish boredom, simplicity, and tedium. In fact, a moment of it ensures that I’ll reach for my phone and check my email or play solitaire.
It also revealed that that ethos matters. Our standards for satisfaction may be more about the local buzz than the truth about what satisfies us. Knowing what satisfies us is not about what lights us up, but rather at the end, gives us the substance to say this will do.
- Why You Need to Stop Saying ‘Awesome’, Tim Askey, Inc. Magazine, April 13, 2015
- Everything Is AWESOME!!! lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, The Lego Movie: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, January 27, 2014
- https://www.dictionary.com/e/awesome/ citing Ammon Shea, Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation, Tarcher Perigee; Reprint edition (June 2, 2015). The word awe, we find a word that conveys a feeling of reverential admiration, respect, or adulation mixed with a sense of wonder, fear or overwhelming harm when expressed toward power, grandeur, or the sublime; as in to be in awe of. Consider too, the suffix some which is used in the formation of adjectives that indicate a tendency of considerable degree or an expansion of the quality or characterization of the word to which it is associated.
- The Brain and the Inner World: An Introduction to the Neuroscience of the Subjective Experience, Mark Solms, June 17, 2003
- Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, by Yuval Noah Harari, Harper; 1st Edition, February 21, 2017, pp 57-74
- W.H. Murray The Scottish Himalayan Expedition
AUTHOR
John Patterson
Co-founder and CEO
INFLUENTIAL U
John Patterson co-founded and manages the faculty and consultants of Influential U global. Since 1987, he has led workshops, programs, and conferences for over 100k people in diverse professions, industries, and cultures. His history includes corporate curriculum design focusing on business ecosystems, influence, leadership, and high-performance training and development.
