Choose Your Words Wisely

Just because everyone says something, that doesn't make it right. One thing that I have heard and seen on my social media walls, is "I wish you would just die." Really? Yes, it is a very common phrase, but it is a very hurtful saying.

Imagine for a second that you have a huge fight with someone that you know. No, you aren't really close, but something happened where the person just really hurt you somehow. So, during your argument, you utter the words, "Why don't you just do the world a favor and kill yourself!" I want you to take that a step further. You wake up the next day and there, all over your social media is that this person committed suicide. OMG The last thing you said to them was to kill themselves and then they did exactly that. I don't know about you, but for me, that would lead to a lot of guilt.

What you didn't know was that before your argument, they were trying to decide if life was worth it or not. You worked in a job that you hated, their car just broke down and the repair bill was going to be huge, and the person that they thought they were going to spend the rest of their lives with was cheating on them. They were trying to decide if they really wanted to even be in this world, and you just confirmed to them that the world didn't even want them around.

Anyway, after your confrontation, you felt good. You left off a lot of steam and in your eyes, you said something that really needed to be said. So maybe, instead of wishing them dead, maybe you could say, 'Do you really want people to think that little of you?' Tell them that some of their choices are really hurting you. Just think of another way to get your point across.

Maybe it's someone that works in a store and all you can think of is that they should be working anywhere else and that they have just put you in a bad mood for no reason. What you don't know is that the person usually is very nice and helpful to their customers and they are having a bad day. It just seems like everything in their life is going downhill and they see no upside in their future. In you walk and you tell them exactly what their solution is ... "Go kill yourself!" Well, you may or may not ever hear that that evening, when they got home from work, they decided to end their lives and do the world the favor like you said.

Let's stop judging each other. Let's try to speak to each other the way that you want to be spoken to. One of my favorite movies is Bambi. I'm going to close this with a line from the movie. Like Thumper said when he gets in trouble for laughing at Bambi. "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all." Maybe, we should all hold our tongues a little bit. Let's try not to wish harm to others. Maybe, instead, we can work to help stop the pain!