Crisis
I am having a crisis with the word crisis. We have had the health care crisis, the obesity crisis, the hunger crisis, the unemployment crisis, the underemployed crisis, the banking crisis, the underbanked crisis, the housing crisis, the stimulus crisis, the price of gasoline crisis, the Greece debt crisis, and the Casey Anthony trial crisis. Now, it is the Debt Ceiling Crisis.
Language matters. As a consequence of hearing the word crisis in the title of each leading 7 to 14-day news cycle topic, we will become immune to the true meaning of crisis—reaching a point of no return. We like those in the past will tune out the boy calling “Wolf.” We will entirely miss the event or condition that actually signifies reaching a point of no return.
In the meantime, let’s have some creativity for the name of our weekly or bi-weekly crisis—deadlock, standstill, impasse, dilemma, predicament, imbroglio, muddle, or mess.
For now, I’m off to tackle my garden-weed crisis—oops, my garden-weed threatened takeover.