It’s the damage that we do and never know. It’s the words that we don’t say that scare me so.
–Elvis Costello
We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.
–Winston Churchill
From the time we are toddlers and learn the power of NO, most of us have a pretty good understanding of the power of words. Over time we also learn that has been said cannot really be taken back. The words cannot be unsaid once they are out there. It takes us a lot longer to figure out that the opposite is also true.
What what we don’t say can’t ever be heard.
It can only be…guessed at…imagined…dreamed of…ignored… unknown.
If you don’t say something, are you really in control of it as Churchill said, or does it control you?
What would happen if you did say it?
What would happen if you didn’t ever say it?
Would you rather regret something that happens because of what you said,
or something that happens because you don’t say anything?
Or something that doesn’t happen because you don’t say anything?
Maybe you wouldn’t regret it.
Maybe it would change something in a small way.
Maybe it would change everything.
For better?
For worse?
You don’t ever get to find out.
Unless you say it.
What’s the most important thing I never said?
It’s something I didn’t write to someone.
It’s in the distant past, I’m not beating myself up about it now, but I recognize that it was a mistake, possibly a big mistake.
Not (only) because of the eventual outcome, but because the only reason I didn’t respond was because I was afraid of being hurt.
With the scant amount of wisdom I’ve gained in the years since then, I realize that being afraid of being hurt is one of the worst reasons not to say or do something. Someday, maybe I’ll be wise enough to use words when words are called for.
Words are powerful.
Even ones that never get said.
I’ll keep practicing.