Words matter. Like more than you thought they did. Wrong words can do irreparable damage for however long you have left of your life. Kids don’t know what words have the potential to do by uttering the simplest of words and phrases. The more you think about it, the more you start to understand how damaging the words you choose can be.

Let’s take two words as an example: shut up. ‘Shut up’ seems innocuous at a surface level until you stop and look at what you are saying. The message you send saying, ‘Shut up,’ is ‘You are not all that important.’ Is that true? Or are you tired of listening? Either way, you are suddenly thrust into the spotlight, highlighting your weakness and insecurity. You might as well say, “You don’t matter. You aren’t important. I hate you.” Because those words are clear in their message. It’s all about me, and you don’t count.

But do we honestly mean that? If you think about it, you aren’t trying to stop the person from talking forever. You only want them to stop, albeit briefly. Long enough to say your peace. Or something else. It doesn’t matter what the ‘something else’ might be; it’s the impersonal approach to interrupting them. If you changed those two words to something more appropriate, then no one would get their feelings hurt. What if you said, “Please be quiet,” instead? How would that affect the person you were trying to communicate with? If they value your relationship with them, they will stop.

Have you considered what would happen if you changed how you spoke to others? If you speak life instead of death? Love instead of hate? How would that impact your existence?

We want to tell others how they should feel and react in difficult situations instead of listening to them. It’s so hard to listen! It’s easier to jump in with both feet and tell the person how they can fix their problems. When did we stop caring? When did we get so selfish and greedy that we forgot how to sit with someone and not say anything, instead choosing to listen?

Spend five minutes in your car, and you can see examples of selfish behavior almost immediately. Intrinsically, drivers who are traveling the speed limit often get cussed out and passed, sometimes inches away from a potentially fatal accident, all because they were in too big of a hurry to slow down. We forget faster speeds will not get us to our destination any quicker. Physics proves this to us, but we still believe that five, ten, or fifteen miles an hour over the posted limit will get us to our destination a few minutes sooner. Try to outrace your mapping program, and you’ll see exactly what I mean. You cannot arrive five minutes earlier because you went forty-five miles instead of thirty miles an hour. That behavior is selfish. Selfish behavior isn’t going the exact speed and staying in either lane, especially if you can’t get out of the left lane because the person on your right is also faster than the speed limit!

You have a huge responsibility in what you can speak into existence. Will you speak selfishness? Or will you step back and speak life into everyone you meet?

 Because, like it or not, your words count.