In August I had emergency appendectomy surgery. I was happily minding my own business 
when, surprise, my appendix decided that it wanted to spend the rest its days relaxing on some hillside in France. I take some pleasure thinking about the shock it must have felt when it realized its destiny was a medical incinerator rather than a life of ease in the country. In case you are wondering, I am doing well now. My surgeon at the Mayo Clinic was great. Though, I have a friend who is an anesthesiologist who told me that the job of an anesthesiologist is to keep the surgeon from killing the patient. So maybe, since I am still alive, I should be talking about how good my anesthesiologist was.
One day, as I was conveying the joys of my experience to another person, I was struck by the way I was describing the surgery. I called it an “emergency appendectomy.” Like there is some other kind! Yes, technically it was an emergency surgery, but nobody plans such things. It is not like I cruise through the McDonald’s drive thru and while I am ordering my cardiac arrest, say, “Why don’t you throw an appendectomy in with that?”
I think it seems to say something about our society in general. Have you ever noticed how things seem to always be urgent and in a rush? Since everything is urgent, we have to call those things, which are by definition urgent, an “emergency” just so people know it is serious. I admit I felt pressure to describe my surgery as an emergency surgery partly so that people wouldn’t criticize me for not getting the things done I said I would do. These realizations have caused me to ponder some questions. What other times are we prone to add emergent superlatives to our phrases just to make them sound more dramatic? In what ways do we increase the stress and anxiety of life by doing so? Do we call things urgent, that may not be, just to apply pressure to others?