Do you ever have the feeling of words tumbling out of your mouth, only to leave you kicking yourself later? Where did those words come from?
This happens to me a bunch, and what I say that embarrasses myself isn’t usually mean-spirited or hurtful: Rather, it’s some grand philosophy over how the world works. Or, I’ll extrapolate a small and meaningless happening to apply to some grander scheme of life how I see it — at that moment.
For instance, the other day a friend told me about trying to lose weight, and I started in about the information age, and use of mind and body and how the best financial income sources today involve use of mind, not body, and thus, we must be diligent about using our bodies in some way during our off-hours to compensate. (Maybe I’ll write a blog post on this topic.)
Anyway: Every time these theories tumble out, I am slightly embarrassed if my conversation companion is uninterested. Because I’ve revealed some idea I’m turning over in my head, or have read about, and often times, a companion doesn’t care to hear about the grand picture after she’s just complimented the salad.
My pastor shared the following admonition and it made me realize that thoughts turn so easily into words, sometimes before we even realize it:
Watch your thoughts, for they become your words
Watch your words, for they become your actions
Watch your actions, for they become your habits
Watch your habits, for they become your character
Watch your character, for it becomes your legacy
Like many truisms, this has been attributed to Mahatma Ghandi and Nelson Mandela — so in other words, who knows where it came from. But I like those thoughts to live by.
I like that poem — SO TRUE!
I’d rather kick myself a few times for words that come out of my mouth than keep myself quiet 🙂
Ok, to make this totally about myself (as always), shortly after I graduated from high school I ran into this guy from high school who was in the theater program. The previous year some of the program’s stars had graduated, and I said, “So I heard the program isn’t NEARLY as good as it used to be now that Seth and Chris were gone…” I was supposed to add, had meant to add, “except for you,” but when I made the first half of the statement his eyes had gone glassy and he was numbly nodding with a forced smile and I got embarrassed and couldn’t finish. Adding “except for you” suddenly sounded fake. We said good-bye and it was horribly awkward. I’m sure to this day he thinks I’m a bitch.
I love it
We humans have a huge in-built bias to act consistently with words we have already stated publicly. Salesmen understand this tendency all too well. Unfortunately voters do not, significant damage was done to John Kerry’s campaign by being labelled a flip-flopper.
There are many good quotes on why slavish devotion to consistency is daft, this is my favorite:-
‘A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines.’ – Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are more here, including the full version of the one above http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Consistency
@Alexis: Good point. Don’t let anyone silence your voice, my friend. 🙂
@Pauline: Ouch. Queen of foot-in-mouth.
@frerddy: Thanks!
@Andrew: Phew! I love this idea of “foolish consistency.” Makes me feel bigger about going back on my grand declarations, such as that I would never get married, and then, would never leave journalism. And then I did both. Well, I meant it at the time!
These quotes are fantastic:
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.” –YES!