(Dobbs) One Word You Don't Know That Could Change Your Life

If you need a New Year's resolution, this might be it.

“Chill.” 

It’s a word whose meaning has changed. Just like “bad,” which used to mean, well, if something was awful, it was bad, but now some people say something’s “bad” if it’s really really good. Go figure. 

Then there’s “handle.” Once upon a time, a handle was what you grabbed on a teapot.

Then along came CB radios and it became your name, and now with the internet it’s your “screen name,” whether it actually has your name in it or not. 

And don’t get me started on “awesome.” In early English it was used to signify terror and dread. “Awful” is its offshoot. But somewhere along the way, “awesome” did a U-turn and now it means something of wonder… a sensational sunset is “awesome”… although when you give a cashier perfect change for a cup of coffee and the cashier tells you that’s “awesome,” it loses any meaning at all.

“Troll” is another one. Once it meant a creature in the folklore of Scandinavia who lived in a cave.

How it got to be a verb about provoking an online fight is something I can’t figure out.

The computer age has turned many words upside down. Remember the day when the only thing you thought of when someone mentioned a “cloud” was what you saw in the sky overhead? Or when “friend” was a noun for someone you liked? Now it’s a verb for connecting with someone. “Text” once was a readout of what someone wrote, now it’s what the doctor’s office sends to confirm your appointment. In the olden days you took a tablet when you were sick. Now you read one when you’re sick.

We won’t even go into “tweet.”

But… as we say in my business… I’ve buried the lede, which strangely enough is the way we journalists spell “lead,” as in “lead sentence” or “lead story.” And the lede I’ve buried is “chill.”

Until somebody rewrites the dictionary yet again, “chill” doesn’t just mean “get cold” any more. It also means “Don’t get hot.” As in, “Calm down,” “Cool it,” “Don’t have a conniption!”

Well, there’s a word in Arabic which says that and more. It’s a word whose meaning I try to apply when something goes bad in my own life, whether superficial or serious. The word is “malesh” and what it means is, don’t agonize over things you can’t control. It’s a philosophy that many people in that part of the world need every day of their punishing lives. Control what you can, but don’t sweat the stuff you can’t control because it won’t get you any closer to your goals.

Having roamed around the world most of my working life— often in the Middle East, where I assure you that people like me have very little control— I have long applied the meaning of “malesh” to the travails of travel, not to mention the threats I’ve faced when I’ve gotten there.

Think of the travel part this way: you and I both could be standing in an airport line that’s barely moving. 

We both know that we could miss our flight and if that happens, we could miss our connection too. You can get all hot and bothered while I can be standing there cool as a cucumber, and you know what? You won’t get where we’re trying to go a single second faster than I will. All you’ll get, in fact, is an ulcer.

Likewise, dealing with the weather. If you plan a great day outdoors but rain is pouring down… “malesh.” I lived for half a decade in London and the Londoners get it right. They grab their “wellies” (galoshes) and their “brollies” (umbrellas) and they go out, rain or shine. 

If they waited only for shine, they’d usually be stuck indoors. It’s the weather for heaven’s sake. Even when it’s destructive, what can you do?! You can think “malesh” and get on with your life.

Of course “malesh” is far more important for your peace of mind when far more serious issues come up. Like in politics. When my side loses an election, I am disappointed, but while it might cost some defeated candidates a few nights’ sleep, it doesn’t keep me awake for an extra second. What’s done is done, there’s nothing I can do to change it. Malesh. Don’t get me wrong, “malesh” doesn’t mean give up. What it means is, if it’s even possible, do a better job figuring out how to make things right than you managed to do last time.

When our nation suffered the terror attacks of 9/11, we did a good job of dealing with the disaster. By and large, we mourned the murders of so many innocents but we didn’t dwell on the loss, we dealt with it.

That wasn’t the time for me to tell people to live by a word that came from the Arab world but ironically, whether anyone knew it or not, we were practicing malesh. Within the bounds of what we could do to protect ourselves, we took control of our future. Many terrorists who already knew the word paid the price for it.

You can even mitigate the misery of deadly disease with “malesh,” as long as you can acknowledge that life isn’t fair and neither is death. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do everything you can to control an unbearable burden— pursue every prospect from preventive to palliative— but nothing is gained by getting all churned up inside. No matter how tragic it is, what happens, happens. Disease, disability, and death don’t discriminate. Medical magic has its limits. “Malesh” doesn’t mean you’re resigned to the calamity, but it does mean you’re dealing with it in the best way you can. 

So here’s my idea for a new year’s resolution. When something goes wrong, focus on what you can control. Worry and regret won’t bring you more peace. But thinking “malesh” might.

Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 37-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.