11. Conversations Don’t End When People Stop Speaking
Do you remember that class when you were a kid where the teacher poured toothpaste out the tube and then asked you to put it back? Students would then proceed to shove the offending paste back into the tube but to no avail. The lesson was that the toothpaste is like words, once you have been said them, you can’t take them back.
At the time this may have seemed like a silly lesson, but its importance grew as the years progressed. The power of words is undisputable. They can forge relationships, change the course of history or even destroy the world if those words were to release the nukes. To avoid the mistake of saying the wrong thing, you probably think before you speak.
There should be a delay between the mind and mouth. You may have heard the advice to not verbalize every single thought, but to weigh your words. Think about what you are trying to say. Who will it affect? Does it really exemplify what you are thinking, or could you phrase it differently to produce a better understanding? This is what an adult does naturally. While there are those who have no filter, hopefully, they are few and far between.
Although you can think about what you say before saying it, you can’t change what you have said. A person can try to explain their point further, but they can’t take their words back. It is impossible. But this kind of logic doesn’t matter to an anxious person. If you are anxious, you will be consumed with what you said because you believe you must have said something wrong.