Choose Wisdom

Anonymous Everyone has little bits of wisdom... whether instilled into you in your childhood, or learned from experience, our corpus of unwritten wisdom literature is made up of phrases like "if it's a job worth doing, it's worth doing well." Here's a phrase I've been meditating on lately... "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." Now, I'm not sure I agree entirely with this phrase. I know a few people who are definitely too "nice" sometimes, and yes, it's possible. Sometimes things have to be said that, frankly, might not be "nice," but that doesn't mean that they have to be mean. I often find myself walking the line between "say it" and "don't say it." I've spent most of my life as a "quiet" person, who at one point had to decide to stop reading when around other people in order to make friends. I guess you could say I'm reserved, and I've been accused of pushing people away by not sharing my thoughts or feelings with them. But even I am not immune to the opposite problem. Even I sometimes mentally (or literally) clap a hand over my mouth and think, "I did not just say that!" Those phrases usually have less to do with me, and more to do with someone else. Unfortunately, there are no "undo" buttons when you're talking, and prevention is the only cure. It's something most of us could stand to work on. Tonight at dinner, my companions heard me make a small step in the right direction... sound began to come out of my mouth, but my comment was quickly processed and successfully silenced before it could become coherent. They knew what I was going to say, but it didn't really need to be said, and I, I am proud to say, did not say it. So, under the influence of some ancient and contemporary wisdom, I think I'm going to "swallow" a few more pithy phrases in the future. Funny though they may be, they are less funny when I think them all the way through. I'm also going to take this chance to apologize to the victim of more than one of my rogue sentences (though again, that is not to say that they are undeserved), and say I'm sorry to Ben for doubting (out loud) his ability to provide for us by seducing wealthy heiresses, among other things. From now on, in an effort to "choose wisdom," I will try to leave such doubts unsaid. Deserved or underserved, wisdom tells me that some thoughts ought to be left unspoken.