Proverbs 14:3
Sometimes we say too much. This is
especially true when we are bragging about something we have done. The human
tendency is to embellish the story with each telling. We don’t mean to change
it, or purposefully make the story better, but we add little details to paint
ourselves in a better light.
This seems especially true for those people
who have a personal story that matches every situation. They are in a
conversation with a group of people and every story that is told by someone
else gets matched with a story from them. And of course their story is funnier,
or more tragic than the story told by the other person. They always win the
one-ups-manship battle.
Now maybe their life is the most interesting
on the planet. Maybe they do have experiences that match with everyone in their
world. But when people express their pride in this way, it gets tiresome. They
seem to dominate the conversation and turn it toward them.
I think Mark Twain might have had this verse
in mind when he famously said “It is better to keep your mouth closed
and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” When we say too much, we often
say too much.
We
need to learn to curb our responses. This is especially true for those who have
a camera pointed at them. Now a word spoken years ago can be brought up again
to hurt. Even in a marriage, words spoken in the heat of a moment, can be
brought up again and again because of the pain they caused.
I
find that if we can remain silent when attacked, not responding with the immediate
answer that puts our attacker in their place, then our answers will be more
appropriate. But if we lash out in that moment, we will regret what we say. Our
pride will take hold and set the timer on our destruction.
We
can become a shock absorber, letting things said lose their potency with our
lack of response. When we don’t react in kind, the other person really doesn’t
know how to react. They were expecting their emotion to be mirrored by you.
They expect an anger response from their angry outburst. They expect sarcasm when
they have been sarcastic. So when you give them a response without the poison,
they lose their bearings. They don’t know what their next move will be. You
have changed the rules of the conversation.
I
want to encourage you to say less in response today, to measure your words,
saying only what is absolutely true.