The strongest power you have is your words. Be careful how you use them. Words can make or break you. Worse yet, your words can help or hurt others.
I know you have heard the old adage, “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words (names) can never hurt me.” The first part is correct, however, words can hurt. Words can destroy! Not only do we need to watch our words for our own sake, we need to be mindful of them for others too. A wise man once said to listen is our greatest gift. What exactly did he mean by this?
Does it mean that we are never to talk and only listen? Of course not. We were given a mouth for a reason. But we were given only one mouth and two ears! We need to listen twice as much as we talk and we will learn a whole lot more. When we are talking, it is hard to listen and we will miss alot that is going on around us. Not only are we affecting our own hearing by talking too much, we are also affecting those around us. Case in point, how can we have a truly meaningful conversation with someone if we are doing all the talking? I have a real bad habit of this that I am trying to fix myself.
Have you ever tried to have a thought of your own while listening to three or more teenage girls talking? If you can, then you are an exception to the human race. If you want to know if these young ladies are really listening try this. Ask a question of them that is off subject and watch their responses. Make sure you have your camera ready because you will get some really strange looks. Everyone of them will tell you they know what the other is saying, but if you really pay attention, you will notice some very distinct differences of what they are saying to each other. Now I will admit that girls are much better at this than boys but they aren’t as good as they think they are. Actually if you dare to record their conversation and play it back to them, there may even be some hurt feelings between at least two of them.
As far as your words hurting yourself, try this and see what happens. Take one day and do nothing but call yourself stupid, moron or what ever bad thing you can come up with. Then take another day and praise yourself. Tell yourself how you are doing such a great job, how good you look and how nice of a person you are. After this little experiment, ask yourself which day you felt good at the end of the day and which day you felt terrible. Be careful not to overdue the bad things you say because this is very powerful stuff you’re dealing with.
What about your words hurting others? Well after you tried your little experiment on yourself, imagine how it feels coming from someone else. There is a real truth to this that you will have to test for yourself. But if you really try it, you will learn to choose your words a little more carefully. Try to change words like “hate” to “dislike” and see if you yourself don’t feel better about yourself after talking to your neighbor about the old grumpy man down the street.
If you will take my advice and start monitoring the words you use and how many words you use, I will guarantee, you will feel better and so will those around you. Take care my friends and Remember, we are all in this together.
