Has the wellness world turned ‘intentional’ into a cliché?

The word “intentional” is weighed down by repetition in a world that seems to be breathlessly hurtling towards wellness. It has become the most popular adjective for a range of lifestyle content. There’s intentional dating, intentional skincare, intentional parenting and exhortations to just “be intentional”.

It’s not the word itself but overuse that risks devaluing its meaning, turning it into a cliché. Intentional implies a sense of being deliberate, with will and focus, or with awareness. The word traces its roots to the Latin intendere, meaning to strain or turn one’s attention towards.

In India, a couple of decades ago, asking, “what is your intention?” was a pointed remark to call out another person’s questionable motives. Intentional wasn’t an adjective we used that often.

Around the turn of the millennium as corporate India adopted Americanisms, leadership workshops boomed and the word became part of goal-setting exercises. A popular practice in leadership sessions involves participants jotting down one intention to lead better teams.

The word moved out of group discussions and into the cultural lingua franca during the pandemic as people’s attention turned towards wellness, self-care and mental health. For instance, a grounding ritual included noting one’s intention for the day.

In the post-pandemic world, as wellness becomes even more commodified, the word is everywhere, so much so that it seems to have lost its meaning and become a shortcut to signal a sense of being mindful of even the most mundane or ridiculous things. Sample this: a newly launched cafe’s design is intentional with intentional menus and even chipped mugs are intentional. It’s lazy repetition of a word, instead of describing specifics that make the space unique.

“I think words come to mean less (due to over exposure), and when this happens people tend to use them more carelessly,” says poet, writer and professor of linguistics K. Srilata. She explains that certain words are bandied about at different points in time. For instance, “farm-to-table” picked up a decade ago and was repeated until it became no longer fashionable to do so, but it doesn’t mean people no longer seek farm-fresh food. Srilata agrees that the pandemic led to an emphasis on wellness, and “words like intention, mindfulness and conscious took off”. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but using words without thought defeats their purpose.

Words placed in the right context bring meaning to life, says Bengaluru-based poet and translator Mani Rao. She notes the “brainwash brought on by advertisers who have intentions on our pockets, eyeballs and minds”. These words that come to define cultural shifts bear the brunt of repetition to the point of becoming cringe-inducing.

This in turn affects human behaviour. Just like we can go into autopilot while doing repetitive tasks, the mind too can slip into easy patterns and use words that are familiar rather than intentionally (sorry!) seeking out alternatives. Social media has had a role to play in the way we’re using words—when certain sentences and groups of words reap likes, shares and engagement, we start relying on them more in the hope of gaining attention. And intention is one word we’re tossing around like candy right now.

Word usage requires thought and imagination. In an AI-driven world, it becomes even more pertinent to deliberate and reflect on its meaning to avoid cognitive atrophy.