The impact of words.
The impact of
my words.
I never knew they carried such weight only until recently.
"I think it should be straight, not turn right"
and we ended up lost and in the wrong directions.
"Okay, we should make a U-turn, go up the flyover, make a left and then turn left where we were supposed to go right."
and we were back on track. Of course if I hadn't said straight and let her trust her own instincts in the first place, my mother wouldn't have been so flustered, agitated, hard-pressed for time. It wouldn't have tipped the near-full bottle of pent up negative emotions read to spill over inside her.
"Aiyo, why do you always stay at your girlfriend's house orh?"
Even though said in a light-hearted and joking manner, caused a breakup. I feel partially responsible that my brother is now single because what I said prompted his decision to stay home that fateful Monday night which led to a quarrel and caused the break.
(Well I mean of course I find it absolutely ridiculous that a girlfriend should want to pick a fight and call for a break over a family man wanting to stay home to be with his family which I think she should find attractive and a good trait for her future. I mean seriously if you really wanted to spend the time with him you could have come and slept in our home instead. As it already was, my brother was spending more time with your family than he was with his own probably because of your neediness. phew ok end of random rant)
Of course there are so many other instances which may be more or less important/significant than the 2 above, but what I'm trying to say (or maybe more of remind myself) is to be careful of our words. I mean, even the
slightest thing can have the
largest of impacts. Of course, given that I have now chosen to be more careful with the words that escape my mouth, and I am going to somewhat clam up, I need an avenue to let my thoughts out so here I am, dealing with
more words, blogging.
So maybe here's some advice : If you happen to be around sensitive people, or even if you are around people whom you feel your words may not carry so much weight or have much of an affect, you may be wrong. I'm not saying we always have to think so hard before we speak because that would be absurdly tiring and in any case, tact should prevail as much as common sense should, but maybe just being a little bit more careful would serve you well!
(ok more like advice to myself)