Editorial - Say Less

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that “what you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” Have you ever experienced it? Someone who literally cannot stop talking. You can still hear them speak, yet you no longer comprehend it.

Not because they are speaking a foreign language, but because they are not really saying anything. We all do it sometimes, just talk and talk without actually saying anything.

Perhaps we want to feel like we’re heard and have others acknowledge our presence and existence. But is that really the best way to go about it? Would it be wiser instead to say less and draw more from being still… listening, seeing and feeling? I really appreciate people who are comfortable with silence.

You can sit at a table and have a delicious meal and not feel awkward when no one speaks. I love people who can communicate with one another not only with words but also with silence. Silence is in reality a gift. In that space between our words, we can find ourselves. When the mind is quiet, when there are no thoughts and no words to be said, we can hear our own heart talking to us.

We can hear our own soul and our own intuition. When we allow ourselves to be quiet, to simply breathe without forcing ourselves to say another word or think another thought, that’s when we can hear our inner voice, our heart, and intuition.

That’s when we can experience our own serenity, our own beauty, and perfection. Could it be that so many of us are under so much stress because we haven’t learned how to quiet our minds and embrace silence? We haven’t learned to recognize and appreciate the value and the wisdom that comes from being quiet.

Who says you have to be thinking and talking all the time? Who says it’s not okay to have moments of silence? Who says that you should be talking even when you have nothing valuable to say? Learn to talk less, say more. When you decide to use words, use them because they will brighten someone’s day and because they will teach people something valuable. Don’t just use words for the sake of using them. Use them because you truly have something to say.