if any of you went to elementary school, you all know the saying you'd yell at others while sticking out your tongue "sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me". clearly, whoever wrote this lovely jingle didn't socialize with other people. moral of the story: words hurt.
like i said in the disclaimer, this post is not about nor directed at one person in particular; it is just something that has been bopping around in my head a lot the past couple of weeks.
when you open your mouth to speak to another individual, whether good or bad, those words effect that person one way or another--they may not show how it effected them, but it does.
(sorry, i'm going to use personal examples to illustrate this)
example a: while talking with one of the neighbor boys, he mentioned to my roommate and i that he thought we were 'easy' girls.
i, for one, do not want to be known as one of the 'easy' girls around town. in fact, it's one of the last things i want to be known for. i don't want boys to be getting this idea that i'm some booty call and that they want to hang out with me because it's guaranteed to have some action. NO. i have no idea where this young man got this idea from but it hit me really hard. it made me reflect on my actions and analyze myself. it made me think, "who else thinks this of me?" because, in all reality, i am far from easy. (sorry, boys)
example b: while talking with the same boy, he made the comment (after i defended myself how i was not easy) that maybe i would be easy if more boys were after me. ouch.
basically, the girl in me took this as "more boys would like you if you were prettier, skinnier, wore cuter clothes, etc. basically, i tore myself apart and focused on every little flaw i have.
example c: i'm not going to say what this person said, but they gave me one of the biggest compliments. it had been something i had been working on for a very long time and to have someone notice was a big deal. they will never know how much their minuscule comment to them meant the world to me.
just as, i'm sure, neither of these people realized how much their little comments effected me, we don't know how our words effect others.
granted, i know, girls over analyze and then analyze again, everything. however, i think words have very similar effects on boys. i think we tend to overlook the effect we have on others; not just our words, but our actions as well. how we treat an individual reflects how we feel about them. we never know what is going on in someone else's life and how one little comment can effect. you never know that you could be the breaking point in that person's self-esteem and how their feel about their worth of living. too many times, i've seen people beat themselves up over a comment someone made to them and truly begin to hate themselves. please, let us watch our words and be sensitive to those around us, because we never know the story they are hiding under their cover.
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