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A friend of mine had some issues with her clearance this week, and because it’s the last week of our exams, she had to hurry to get everything sorted. She was going from one office to another, trying to fix things, and as you can imagine, she was already completely drained.
Then something happened that made me think twice.
She came back yesterday after all the stress and burst into tears. After I had calmed her down, I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that someone in one of the offices she had gone to said something mean to her.
So I asked, “What did she say?” Guess what? Madam couldn’t remember. The thing that had apparently broken her heart so badly, she couldn’t even remember the exact words.
In my head, I was like, “Wait. The thing that made you cry this hard, you can’t remember what was said? As how?” But then I realised something, it wasn’t necessarily the words, it was how those words made her feel in that moment.
It was the combination of everything, the exhaustion, the frustration, the backlog of stress she had already been carrying, the running around from one office to another. And then, on top of all of that, someone said something that probably made her feel small, dismissed, or attacked.
It was just one more thing hitting someone who was already at her limit, and sometimes, that is exactly how it works with people.
Dearest reader, every day, people walk around carrying things you know absolutely nothing about. You may meet someone on the very day they are barely holding themselves together, and you won’t even know.
So, be kind.
Not just with what you say, but with how you say it, because sometimes the delivery is what stays with people. Someone who has had one hell of a day may hear “all you do is complain” very differently from someone who is having the best day of their life.
And please, leave that self-righteous pedestal of “That’s not what I said” or “That’s not what I meant.” I’m not saying intentions don’t matter, they do. But if you care about people, you should care about the impact of your words too.
Pay attention to how you make people feel, because sometimes, people won’t remember the exact words you said, but you see the way you made them feel? They will never forget that.
@favvy_Okwansđź–¤.
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