Recently, I got a card from one of the least persons to expect a card from. So many things made the card feel so special, ranging from the fact that the person made the card herself to the most beautiful part of her writing the words by herself. The writing on the card was so thoughtful and was meant to motivate me and compliment me. I was so excited reading through it, and I just couldn’t stop thinking about what I did to deserve such a thoughtful present from her.
And what even made it more beautiful was the fact that we had learned that day of the power of words, and it got me really emotional. I was reminded of how much little right words can do and also little wrong words can do. Sometimes, all we need to make a difference is just one right word. Often times, we let ourselves get controlled by our hurts, our thoughts, and emotions, and just choose to say the wrong words even when we are sure that they will hurt the other person.
We owe it to ourselves and others to always put in extra effort to say good words. Why? Because words can’t be taken back once said. And this is why we have just one mouth. We have the luxury of seeing twice as much, listening twice as much, smelling twice as much, but we only have the luxury of speaking half as much. And I’m sure this is why James advised us to be quick to hear but slow to speak. I have heard and seen cases when what we see and have heard seem so right, but then it was still all wrong. And that’s because we are always very quick to speak rather than listen. All we need is just that one word from someone without listening to the end.
Most times, you can only fully grasp the message the other person is trying to pass across when you listen to the end. But sadly, we usually don’t have the patience to wait that long. We just want to get to the end even before it starts. What we do at this time is that we form our ideas and thoughts around every word that we hear. And once we hear a part that fits perfectly into our assumptions, we stop listening at that point and start waiting eagerly to speak. And in some worse cases, we don’t even wait until the other person is done. We just interrupt them instead so we don’t forget what we have in mind to say.
I’m guilty of this. Most of us are, and trust me, it’s time we just learn to do better. Having a misunderstanding with someone shouldn’t make us enemies or rivals. It should be us against the misunderstanding, not against ourselves. Often, we go against ourselves, and that’s why we have more broken relationships than relationships that work. Words are a great spice in building anything beautiful, so we all have to put in effort to say the right words. But most importantly, we have to learn to listen too. Words come out wrong sometimes, but we shouldn’t let our pride and ego make us defend those wrong words. Apologize for it and make amends.
Thank you for reading through. 💜