We are all exposed to tons of words everyday, just to name a few off... words said in blogs, ppl's comments on your blog or facebook wall, things that ppl say to you on msn, or public/private conversations in uni/phone/skype, etc, words are everywhere. It's a good 'invention' which allows us to express ourselves, converse with each other, to basically communicate. Imagine a world without words, we'd be pro in charades. No words, just songs without lyrics. Thank God for words.
Yet, I can't help but to notice, that some of us are really proud creatures. Why I say that, I think that some of us would use words to manipulate, to lie, bring someone else down, puff ourselves up, make ourselves look or sound good, make others look bad or sound bad.. mostly for the sake of our pride! We might not be aware of it, but if we slow things down and take a moment to listen what some of the words others and ourselves utter, we might be surprise how true this is.
Some do it consciously, others.. unconsciously. I find it pretty common that we always try to boast, to make ourselves look and sound better and to have people thinking highly about us, we're cautious about what people think about us. There's defintiely room to genuinely and honestly say good stuff about ourselves, eg when someone asks us something about ourselves. What I really can't stand is when we lie to make ourselves look and sound good. I was in a weird position when my friend was making up stuff to another to boast and in another case to protect his pride, I knew the truth but the other person didn't. I really can't believe it, didnt just happened once but.. yeah one too many. Why do we do it? We value what people think about us. We're proud creatures. It's so much easier to come up with something than to admit the truth and feel ashamed, embarassed. It becomes our natural response once we do it one too many times.
Scary. What people truly are. We can't tell people's true nature just by the words they utter, or posted on fb/msn and stuff. We can't tell what people have been doing behind our backs, and all we see in front of us could all just be disguised, made up by empty words.
If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all
We should be careful about the things we say about someone else or something. How would you feel if people are talking bad stuff about you? To make things worse, what if they weren't true but people are making it up, or they misunderstood some things or had insufficient facts and evidence eg. gossips. And it happens sooooo often as well, for some.. more often than others, and we could be doing it unconsciously, over an msn chat, on the phone, daily convo's, etc etc. Get the facts right, if you're not sure about something go find out about it before spreading rumors about how it might be true or that it IS true when it's actually not. To put it simply, just avoid saying anything bad about others, regardless if it's true or not.
Having said all that, I feel there's room to critic, but it has to be constructive. If you and your friend wanna critic about another friend, you should at least tell that friend his/her shortcomings in hope that he/she'll learn from it, instead of leaving it at that. That's what a true friend would do. That's what I would want my friends to be doing anyways, to correct me where I'm wrong. Having said that, we shouldn't be going all out and pinpointing every single tiny bit of shortcomings. It's not like we are perfect ourselves, judging others about things we fall short in ourselves... sigh, self-check self-check.. please..
And then there's words we say when we're pissified (angry). I feel that the best thing to do when we're angry is to distant ourselves from the person we're angry at, until we've chilled. Words we say when we're angry will be words we'll definitely, definitely regret saying later... trust me, been there done that never wanna do it again. Harsh words that stab the heart like a dagger, they leave a really lasting pain. And as much as you wanna take back your words, you can't.. the damage's been done. You'll say things you don't mean, you'll hurt those who you love, there'll be this awkward feeling between you and that person even though things have resolved... I just don't see anything good coming from speaking when we're in an angry state. We can't get a hold of ourselves, we aren't thinking rationally, all we want to do is to express all that hatred and anxiety, let it all out cos it'll make us feel better after that.
It's easier to let go and throw a punch then to hold one back, which one is more natural? which one makes you feel superior, makes you feel good momentarily? but, which one is true strength found in
Having said that, there is such a thing as a 'good anger'. But it should be one where it's controlled. Scolding in order to correct one where one has did a mistake is what I would call 'good anger', and it is definitely something that has to be done sometimes, no doubt about it. Sometimes you just have to be stern and let out some bombings to make sure the message gets across, but this would be the rare case that we'd wanna avoid at all cause. Evaluate the seriousness of the issue, and act accordingly, if it's nothing biggie we shouldn't go all stressed out about it, the 'defender' probably didn't mean to do it in most of the cases as well.
I think I wrote a lot of the negative aspects that words bring, it's just things that I observe and think about, but there is the positive aspect to it as well. We can use words to encourage, to motivate, to inspire, to give thanks, in song lyrics to serenade haha, heaps of good uses. It brings joy, it's uplifting, it's encouraging, motivating to have someone say something good about you, or something that you did, or compliments you. It's something we should all do more often. If the world was filled with people like that, beautiful, but that's a big IF, sad to say, this world is lacking optimistic, positive people, that's what I think, and apparently things get worse once you take a step into the working world.
People around us have much influence in the words that we say, we tend to follow after some of the words that our friends use, I know that as fact and it's not even funny. But if you make a conscious effort not to succumb to the peer pressure, we should be able to fend off all the negative words and comments that others might use and not follow after them, it's definitely doable, and it's definitely something we should all make a conscious effort to do.
What are some of the words we say, how often do we put others down, indirectly or directly. When was the last time someone put us down, made a negative comment, left us feeling slightly hurt, it's not something we wanna hear too often. When was the last time we genuinely praised or said something good about another. When was the last time someone said something nice about you, it's something we'd like to hear more often don't we.
I think we just need to be more mindful bout the words that we say and the impact it has on others. If we have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all. But... there's still room for jokes between friends =)
