UNPRECEDENTED? REALLY?

What a time it’s been. Lockdowns, alert levels, disruption and tragedy. And even as we come out of the worst of it, we’re staring down the barrel of some serious financial challenges. Yes, it’s been a time alright. But was it really unprecedented? Or is that just something we tell ourselves to feel better?

As we limped out of lockdown, I got to thinking about the language we’ve used to describe the past few months – and how words have the power to help us cope. So here’s a quick trip through bubbles, curves, levels and rebuilding to explore how language changes the way we think.

LANGUAGE, STORIES AND FEELINGS.

Humans deal with stuff by telling stories. To each other – and to ourselves. It’s how we understand the world. We’re built to recognise patterns in information – and those patterns convey meaning. Stories are recognisable patterns. So they form the signal within the noise.

In psychology this retelling of reality through stories is called cognitive reappraisal. It’s the fundamental power of positive thinking. Whatever you tell yourself is true. Or, as Henry Ford put it, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.”

Some understand this theoretically. But all of us get it intuitively. So as the world took a beating from COVID-19, our human ability to reframe reality through stories and language helped us comprehend the enormity of it all – and feel better.

Unprecedented use of unprecedented.

Did you notice? Seems like every second moment of the last three months has been ‘unprecedented’. Take a look at Google Trends and even our search history has seen ‘unprecedented’ leap to an unprecedented level. But why?

In part, because this is all big stuff. But it’s more than that. The idea that viruses are out there, ready to break out and attack us, is a terrifying thought. But reframing reality as a once in a lifetime ‘unprecedented event’ simplifies that story. It brings it all back to a moment in time and fuels the sense of unity we need to help us get through. It’s cognitive reappraisal on an unprecedented level.

Bubbles, curves, levels and lockdown.

This linguistic gymnastics has been prevalent throughout the health crisis. You might even say unprecedented. My favourite example was the idea of a ‘bubble’. We could have asked people to build ‘walls’ around themselves to stay safe. But walls are divisive, whereas bubbles are temporary, transparent and even fun. Colleen Ryan of TRA explores this idea in more detail – there’s no question that ‘bubbles’ were a stroke of communication genius.

It’s the same with curves. While everyone became an instant epidemiologist through April, our war against a killer virus became a battle to ‘flatten the curve’. No less important and, sadly, no less deadly. But far less scary – and a really simple story to tell.

Our ‘Levels’ did a similar job. They turned the reality of ‘house arrest’ into the challenge of a game. If we ‘stay home’ and ‘save lives’ we can jump through the levels and get out of lockdown. That’s gamification 101 – and it worked.

Rebuilding together.

As we look to tomorrow, we can still see great examples of linguistic reframing. ‘Recovery’ talks to going back. It’s literally about getting well again and getting back to how things were. ‘Rebuilding’ is about making something better. That’s why the government called this year’s budget ‘Rebuilding Together’.

And ‘together’ is the point, right? The best thing that happened over the last few months is that people pulled together to help us get through. We went into our ‘bubbles’, we worked through the ‘levels’ and we ‘flattened the curve’. And the magic of what happened was framed by brilliant language – pulling us together in unprecedented ways.

That’s what I reckon, what do you think?