The Power of Words

Greetings Underlings,

A couple of months ago whilst conversing with one of my favourite people, I learnt an important lesson pertaining to the power of words. Put simply I made a brief off-the-cuff comment in the course of the conversation without giving adequate thought beforehand. It wasn’t until later that she told me that what I’d said hurt her. At the time of course, I was oblivious to this fact, however one thing was clear: had I given though to my words this hurt could have been avoided. Both being intelligent people, I thanked her for letting me know and gave a sincere apology.

The big issue these days is that in general, people do not give enough thought as to how their words impact upon others. The parallel I’m drawing is this: words have a power which is all too often overlooked. When we make a statement, we need to be aware that if our words are dissolute, they will always emblazon a permanent scar in people’s minds.

Using an analogy, imagine I were to get up in front of the church congregation and say something overtly inappropriate and callous along the lines of “You people are all self-righteous scum who deserve to be thrown into the lake of burning Sulfur.” Now having gone and said that, I could come back the next week and attempt apologize and say I was angry, drunk, ill or what have you – I could apologize until I was blue in the face – but in futility. The people would still harbor abhorrence and bitterness toward me for my previous actions. Point of the matter is that the moment words escape the lips, the damage has been done and the scars are beyond remedy.

Stop and think before you speak; it makes life so much easier and may even save an important relationship.

~ by X on July 13, 2005.