When the Words You Trust Betray You

When I was a kid, I used to do something weird. I’d take a word—any word—and repeat it out loud over and over again.

Not once or twice. I’m talking twenty, thirty, maybe fifty times.

“Orange. Orange. Orange. Orange…”

Eventually, the word would break. It would stop being a color. Or a fruit. Or anything.

It would lose all meaning and become just… sound.

Noise.

Turns out, it’s not that weird. It’s a real thing. There’s a name for it: semantic satiation.

It happens when your brain gets overloaded from hearing the same word and temporarily detaches it from its meaning. The neurons processing the concept get fatigued, and the word slips into static.

That might sound like a quirky brain trick, but I think there’s something deeper going on..

Because it doesn’t just happen with words.

It happens with beliefs.

It happens with the things we repeat to ourselves—until they become meaningless, outdated, or worse, invisible.

You think you’re living with truth. But you’re just running on old definitions.

Here’s what I started to notice: Most of the words I lived by: success, love, strength, loyalty, discipline—weren’t based on what they meant. They were based on when they hit me hardest.

Not when I first learned them.

When they got burned into me emotionally.

When I felt them—not in my head, but in my chest.

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You don’t live by the dictionary.

You live by the imprint—the emotional moment when a word got embedded.

You see, this letter came out of a personal mission I set for myself this year: Become the chillest man alive in 2025. And I don’t mean fake chill—the kind where you act like nothing gets to you, but inside, you're constantly clenching.

I mean actual chill.

The kind of grounded, peaceful presence you can feel in your nervous system.

That. That’s what I wanted.

So I approached it the only way I know how: Like a problem to solve.

I used the same model I wrote about in Unfck Your Thinking*—specifically from Chapter 5 (How to Think Less and Learn Faster) and Chapter 8 (Solving Problems Like a Mental Engineer).

Break the thing down to its core. Get to the root. Then rebuild it with intention. Something like:

What’s the root of not being chill? I care too much.

And why do I care too much? Because I’m trying to control everything.

• Outcomes

• timing

• other people

• the future.

Control is the hidden tension behind all my overthinking.

So the answer seemed obvious: Let go of control.

But letting go didn’t feel strong enough. It felt… soft. Like trying to convince your brain to stop thinking by thinking harder about not thinking.

So I kept digging. I searched for a word that felt deeper.

Stronger. Truer.

And I landed on one I’d heard a million times—but never actually looked at: Surrender.

And something clicked.

I started digging into it. Etymology, examples, the way people use it, misuse it, resist it. And I realized my definition of surrender was completely outdated. Actually, it wasn’t even mine. It was borrowed. Flawed. Incomplete.

To me, surrender used to mean defeat.

Like in history class: Napoleon surrendering. War generals giving up. White flags. Loss.

It was passive. Weak. Final.

But the more I sat with it—actually felt it—the more I saw it differently.

Surrender isn’t about giving up. It’s about giving in.

Not out of weakness. But out of trust.

It’s not letting go of the fight because you’re afraid—It’s letting go because you’ve realized the fight was never worth it in the first place.

Surrender is letting go…But deeper.

You’re not just releasing control. You’re releasing the illusion that control was ever doing anything for you.

You surrender in love. In art. In life.

To create. To connect. To feel.

You have to let your guard down.

You have to stop clenching everything so tightly and allow life to move through you.

And ironically, it’s in those moments—when you stop gripping—that you finally feel free.

So yeah. That’s why this letter exists. Because I’ve realized that becoming chill isn’t about doing less. It’s about holding less, and surrender is the language of that shift.

The Personal Definition Model - A software update for your inner operating system.

Here’s how I see it now: You’re still you—same device, same body, same story.

But the definitions you’re running on? The ones powering your decisions, your relationships, your sense of self?

A lot of those haven’t been updated since childhood. They’re Version 1.0. Hard-coded by emotion, fear, praise, or trauma—not intention.

And just like ignoring software updates on your phone, if you don’t upgrade your beliefs, you start to crash. Slower responses. Outdated tools. Misaligned behavior.

This isn’t therapy. It’s not journaling.

It’s a practical system reboot, but for your meaning. And Here’s the model I use:

1. Pick a word or belief you think you “know.”

It’s usually one of the obvious ones. The ones that feel safe, baked-in, automatic.

Words like:

• Discipline

• Freedom

• Confidence

• Success

• Loyalty

• Love

• Power

• Surrender

If nothing comes to mind, ask:

What’s a word I use to define myself or others?

What belief do I act on without ever questioning?

2. Trace the emotional imprint.

• Forget where you learned it.

• Find where it got reinforced.

What experience gave this word its meaning in my life?

What did it feel like?

Where did I first embody it—not intellectually, but physically?

This is the key. You didn’t learn your most important definitions from books. You learned them from breakups, failures, childhood praise, betrayal, survival.

They live in your nervous system. Not in a dictionary.

3. Ask: What version have I been living by?

This is where the hidden software shows itself.

You might say you believe “love is trust.” But if you constantly test people, over-explain yourself, or hold back—what’s your actual definition?

Your real definition is in your actions, not your intentions.

4. Now ask: Is this definition still true for me?

Not “is it good” or “is it bad.” Just…is it current?

Does it still serve the version of you you’re trying to become? Or is it a leftover belief from an older version of you?

This is the system update.

5. Rewrite—not with words. With behavior.

This part isn’t poetic, it’s practice. You don’t need to craft the perfect new sentence. You just need to live as if the new definition is true—until your body believes it too.

“I don’t surrender to fear anymore. I surrender to people I love, to causes I believe in, to the moment I’m in.”

That’s not theory. That’s Version 2.0 of the word. And over time, that becomes the new imprint.

Final thought

Most people never update the definitions they live by. They just repeat them.

They trust the words—long after the words have stopped serving them. You don’t have to.

You didn’t choose how most of your beliefs were installed. But you do get to choose which ones stay.

So, Pick one. Trace it. Feel it. Redefine it.

That’s the real software update.

That’s how you build your V2.

Until next time,

Benoit