Stop Thinking Before you Speak
Thinking about what you say is possibly the easiest way to ruin your life
Before making the assumption that I’m crazy, please hear me out. When faced with a problem, how many times have you been told by somebody: “don’t worry, just be yourself.”
If you’re like me, the number is countless, but do you ever think about this advice and try to dissect what it really means? How do you actually be yourself and how difficult is it to do?
Stop thinking before you speak.
Every time you give thought to what you’re about to say, you’re preventing your true self from shining through.
Now, let me apply a bit of context to this idea before disaster strikes. There are situations where you do HAVE to give thought to what you’re going to say.
Take a job interview for example; when asked by the hiring manager “why did you apply for this position?” As tempting as it may be, DON’T scoff with amusement and sarcastically blurt out the response “because I want money.”
However, every time your talking to someone, be it a friend, relative, or colleague.
If you are constantly thinking about the right thing to say, all of the time.
Then you’re turning your entire life into a test.
A test that never ends,
a test full of questions with no right answer,
a test that will drain you of every last ounce of energy,
a test stopping you, from being you.
Throughout our entire childhood and adolescence, when were the times that we would feel the most anxious and stressed? For me, it was the hours, days, and weeks leading up to a test.
“If every time someone asks you a question, you try to say the right answer, your entire life is a test.” — Kanye West.
This is much easier said than done of course because as humans we are naturally social creatures, we have the innate and deep-rooted desire to seek approval from others.
But, if you can learn to break free from this shackle of limitation if you feel comfortable saying what you really think and can express how you really feel, if you can start to speak freely without the fear of judgment then you really can “just be yourself” after all; and quite frankly, it is absolutely liberating.
You have one life, stop spending it trying to please others. No matter how many times you do decide to take that test and say “the right thing” it’s still impossible to please everyone in the process. So why not just be yourself, you may as well. (Providing that you remain respectful, of course!)
Be yourself, everyone else is taken.
There is not another single person on the planet who is the same as you, so to believe that you’re not special, is beyond ridiculous. Don’t hide yourself trying to be someone you’re not, enough people are doing that for you.
If you’re scared of losing friends, or scared that people will see you differently if you start being yourself, then these aren’t real friends nor are they people that you want to be around. People are scared of loss, but sometimes it can be the most freeing thing in the world.
“Being yourself is what makes you different now.” — Avelino
I struggled a lot with this through school, every time I was with a group of my ‘friends’ I wasn’t even able to enjoy myself because I was just constantly trying to say the right thing, trying to find the right words, trying to say something funny and I would be absolutely terrified every time I spoke in fear that I would get responded by silence. To 16-year-old me, the silence was the loudest thing in the entire world. So, if I could offer one piece of advice to every single person that reads this:
Stop thinking before you speak.
