A Personal Reflection on Words

Excerpt from Daily Cures, Wisdom for Healthy Aging by Connie Mason Michaelis

Flannery O’Connor famously said, “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” When I read something that I’ve written for the paper. I’m amazed that I wrote it. I ask myself, “How did I ever come up with that?” I am continually writing myself notes with a quote or an idea I come across, anticipating that an article will emerge. I have a collection of napkins or scraps of paper with ideas.

So let’s pretend for a minute that everything that you spoke would be transcribed onto paper. With today’s artificial intelligence, that may not be too absurd; even now, there is software that will translate your voice into written text. Have you said something in the past that you no longer believe? What words have you repeated again and again, that continue to be your personal truth? What are you sorry that you said? The spoken word is powerful, and so often we open our mouths with no thought of the impact the words will have. If you knew the words were going to be translated onto paper, would you say them at all? What would change in the way you communicate if everything you said in a day could be reviewed on paper before you went to bed?

I believe that one improvement as we age is that we are better at measuring our words. Time and experience have taught us that many things are left best unspoken. At the same time, we learn that we have precious time to tell people we love them, to share a compliment, or words of encouragement. Dale Carnegie said, “You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world’s happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.”

"A word let out of the cage cannot be whistled back again." Horace