Monday, 17 March 2014

Life Lesson 4: Know When To Stay Silent

This is something I really battle with. It’s not that I don’t know when to keep quiet but more I just don’t want to which you could argue is a good thing because I’m passionate & expressive, but at the same time I believe it’s important to know when to back-off. Many of us have this need to be right, and so we become confrontational and insistent that anyone who opposes our views be made to understand (and agree with) our views. It’s human nature. No one likes to be called out or told that they’re wrong. I really battle with this because everything I do is thought-out and there is motivation and logic behind every decision or viewpoint I have. When I argue with someone, there’s always this urgency to get my point across and of course sometimes this can do more harm than good.


What I’ve realised is there is also a benefit to dropping a topic for a while. Doing this gives the other person (and you) time to not only cool off, but also time to reflect on what has been said which could actually change their or your own view. Often in these instances you end up fighting just to be right and forget that the initial intention of the conversation was not to be confrontational. So I think being cognisant of when to step up for something or when to rather take a step back is crucial if we want to be fair to not only the people we interact with, but also to ourselves and I think the results can be much more productive than always adopting an aggressive approach.

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