He who guards his lips guards his soul, but he who
speaks rashly will come to ruin. – Proverbs 13:3
A Japanese proverb says, “The silent man is the best to listen to.” George Barnard Shaw, the Irish playwright,
once said, “I believe in the discipline of silence and could talk for hours
about it.” Shaw was also a critic. He wryly observed, “She had lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately the power of speech.”
Our generation can’t tolerate
silence. We’d rather fill the air with
foolishness than endure an awkward silence.
Far too often, we speak first and think later. Sometimes we assume that the only words worth
listening to are the ones coming out of our own mouths. Rather than really listening to our friends,
we use their words as springboards from which to launch our own opinions. Even our best intentions can be sabotaged if
we speak up too quickly. For example, a
friend shares a problem, and we blurt out bad advice without even thinking
about the implications. Rarely do we regret
taking the time to think before speaking, but how often do we long to take back
something we said on the spur of the moment?
Careless words, tossed out without
thinking, have more power than we might think.
They have the power to hurt others or to embarrass them. Our foolish words are equally capable of
hurting and embarrassing us! They are
like feathers of a pillow shaken into the wind: it’s impossible to retrieve all
the feathers once the wind carries them away.
It is just as impossible to recover every hurtful word once it has left
our mouth.
You do have protection from
regretting what you say. It’s called silence. When you are tempted to speak without
thinking or to say something unkind, it’s better to say nothing at all. Silence is never as awkward as rashly spoken
words.
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