It’s Time We Watch What We Say.

Something I don’t like to hear when people discuss incredibly important topics is someone passing a comment saying, ‘People are so sensitive these days’.

Well, how is that a bad thing?

I don’t understand why it is considered a weakness to keep in mind that the world is a lot bigger than the one we are made to experience around us, and it isn’t wrong to try and be more considerate of the things we say or do, unintentionally or otherwise.

Now, before we start calling out people for their problematic behaviour, we need to understand that not everyone has been given the same amount of exposure or opportunity to better themselves. What we know right now isn’t absolute, and I believe that as long as a person is willing to introspect and do better, we should give them a chance to do so.

Does this let people off the hook for what they have said or done in the past?

Well, no.

But growth is never linear. Our past may define our mistakes, but saying that we lack the scope for growth at all in the future is very misleading. And very incorrect.

We are all capable of both good and bad; what defines us is whether we choose to do better or otherwise. I know, it probably sounds worn-out by now, but it is pretty much how things work. Although how we define a person goes much deeper than that, it helps when we take into account the amount of effort they are trying to put into doing somethig better.

That being said, let’s focus on the most important point of this post.

The point is that it is okay to make mistakes along the way. Frankly, we’ve all been a little problematic at some point in our lives. But we should actively watch what we say because we have no idea how something might land when we actually convey our thoughts to someone.

What we say might not necessarily convey what we mean, and the context can vary a lot depending upon the perspectives of the people in the conversation. Which is why it is extremely important to watch what we say and choose our words wisely and as carefully as possible. We may never know when our words end up hurting somebody unintentionally.

In any case, it’s always better to be cautious, and it doesn’t really hurt to be a better person with every day.

It’s just a thought that came to me after seeing a comment on my previous blog post that was, well, not-very-nice, so to speak. Sometimes, seemingly nice compliments can sound extremely backhanded and shallow to the person who is at the receiving end of them, and it made me think about how many times we might have said something similar and unintentionally ended up hurting people’s feelings.

There’s obviously no way of knowing exactly what the damage we have done could be. But there is always the promise of tomorrow and knowing that we can do better starting right now. It’s okay to admit that what we might have done could be wrong, no justification necessary. It’s okay to admit that something we might have done in the past wasn’t the right thing to do.

But we can always do better, right? There is always scope for growth.

Let’s be more mindful when we say certain things to people, why don’t we? Xx

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Featured Image by Glen Carrie on Unsplash