Words Matter
What ones says matters. A common refrain from someone who says ill-conceived comments is that they were only words and not actions, so ones comments do not really matter much. It is sort of the old childhood idiom of?”sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me”. Well, that like many sayings, they are often wrong and just a cute and memorable phase, such as: “good things come to those who wait”, “a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush “, “every cloud has a silver lining” ,“ ignorance is bliss”, etc. ?Only simpleton ?or an adolescent would take the expressions at face value a reliable tool to navigate the world. Words matter.
In business, words once spoken can destroy someone’s career with that company. The person uttering them may never make amends with the person they targeted to salvage a relationship. This is particularly true coming from an authority figure such as one’s boss. It’s game over after a vitriolic attack on someone, or who is publicly humiliated as to their competency, character, looks, or whatever. Once a ?bell once rung, it can’t be un-rung. For example, at a meeting the boss says that someone made an asinine decision that cost the company lots of money or caused others to lose their bonuses. This, even if?this is without proof, or that person was following orders. This might be a person only accused of: stealing, sexually assaulting someone, or any number of bad acts. The accusation alone is enough of a stigma to ruin someone. Ones words can also backfire on them and end their own career.
The saying that words don’t matter or ”sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me” is as much rubbish as ,“ ignorance is bliss”. Who has never said something they wish they could take back, but it was too late? In some instances, the words spoken represented the true sentiments of the person saying them, while in other cases they were just something to curry favor with others by side with them, knowing full well they were repeating lies and knew better. In some cases, employees were “encouraged” others to give false testimony in a legal deposition in order to stay in the good graces of the company and even putting that person in jeopardy of perjury. And this encouragement could easily be denied when carefully crafted to leave no fingerprints.
?Let’s look at this on an international ?landscape. Vladimir Putin has likely made empty threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine and elsewhere. This was done to intimidate NATO to be very careful to limit the support and equipment they provide to Kiev and dare not step over some unspoken red line less they precipitate a thermonuclear Armageddon. His well-chosen words have frighten the West as to how far they could go. And that if he were cornered and was losing the war, he would then have ?having nothing to lose as he would have hell to pay, or be killed by his own people. Therefore, he might pull the nuclear trigger and go out with a bang. This, as ?he alone decided to start the war,?his war crimes have been exposed, the long-term damage he has done to his country setting them back many decades to attempt to recover, have been well documented. Hopefully the same lesson will not have to be repeated by China in their saber rattling over Taiwan, as Being's economy is heading into dire straits and this type of distraction is made to order no matter how things unfold. Words again matter.
?We are seeing again how words matter in our country. Just look at Ye’s recent off the wall comments. And his being bi-Polar is not an excuse as he has lost major sponsors from Adidas to Balenciaga. We also have the curious case of Kyrie Irving star player of the the Brooklyn Nets, who initial inability to retract his racist words caused him a 5 game suspension. Then there is the self-proclaimed “Chief Twit” Elon Musk, who just bought his?latest toy Twitter, and who recently said of himself “I play the fool on Twitter and often shoot myself in the foot and cause myself all sorts of trouble”. He recently alluded to a ridiculous conspiracy theory on Twitter, which was so outrage that he had to take it down just a couple of hours later. He noted that he has ?Asperger’s Syndrome, where one often can’t filter their thoughts before they make inappropriate comments. Many others haven’t lost their filtering mechanism but say outrageous things for political gain because they know how powerful word are. And the updated proverbs should be “not every cloud has a silver lining”, “ignorance is not bliss”,?“good things don’t necessarily come to those who wait” and ”sticks and stones may break my bones and words can hurt me”.
?So words clearly do matter. Think before talking, make be responsible statements and think through the impact of your word, or accept the consequences. One who wants to spread lies, is a bad person.