It Is Better To Remain Silent
Sometimes words are just too much. I may not be the”brightest light on the Christmas tree”, but I am certainly not a full blown “power outage” either. People think they know you and oftentimes will express this verbally, but situations will expose the real truth. As time goes on you realize it is not always necessary to give everything you have away, not all of your opinions, not all of your feelings, and not everything you know/or think you know. I have honed this skill carefully and use it regularly. Although, this is true there are still people in your life who will challenge this ability of yours to keep things to yourself.
This is because people ALL need to have a “voice”, we all want to be heard. Some require and auditorium filled to capacity in order to “mic it out”, that is not to say what these folks want to convey is any more significant than those who choose a quiet one-on-one intimate talk. The talkers aren’t always the best listeners, and being realistic listening is an acquired skill. We grow tired of being in the perceived inactive state, because we are impatient.
My latest experience that prompted this piece came as the result of someone I know, and THEIR “guilt trip”. Additionally, it is the beginning of one of my father’s favorite sayings and it’s meaning eluded me until I was older due to a very short attention span with “adult old sayings”. Little did I know one day I’d be quoting those very same words.
I bet there was an occasion or two in your childhood that you broke something. Maybe you were playing in the house, maybe you touched something you were told not to. Once it was broken then you tried to hide the fact YOU were totally and completely responsible for this mishap. Maybe you hid the object hoping it would not be missed, maybe you reported you “discovered” it broken to draw the attention away from self (not an option for the only children out there), maybe you outright lied, or maybe you blamed it on someone else. While none of these is the honorable thing to do, we are humans and what we imagine is generally far worse than what actually will take place. This is expected behavior in a child and though it is undesirable one can understand.
Yet the same behavior in an adult is not understood nor tolerated, sorry you don’t get a pass because once you enter adulthood the “token/chip” you carry with you at all at all times is responsibility. Now you can deny it if you want to but it changes nothing. YOU ARE LYING TO YOURSELF! I have come to know this individual for blaming mistakes, bad behavior, etc. on someone other than self it still does not take away from how annoying the characteristic is. The long term result is you do not believe anything, absent of documented proof, this person says. The more he talks the further away from what actually occurred, you become We are at the point that an omission would be welcome.
As I recognize I am NOT the only person who knows a being like this, I offer the advice of the old saying that is timeless(as most of them are).
“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open one’s mouth and remove ALL doubt.”
hafacenturyncounting 