Speak Only When it Improves the Silence.
If you’ve ever been in a crowded bar or restaurant, you know just how hard it can be to hear the person next to you. There’s 200 people packed into one room, and since everyone’s talking loudly, you have to talk louder just to compensate, sometimes even yell, which creates a compounding effect that makes it harder to hear others, and harder for others to hear you.
This is natural, but because we are trying so hard to make our voices heard, we don’t always realize that we’re obstructing other voices in the process. Of course, in a bar or restaurant this is never on purpose, we are just responding to our environment. But as we look out on our relationships, our jobs and even our national discourse, our surroundings can often produce very similar behavior. Why? Because it’s hard to hold ourselves back when we feel passionate about something, it’s exasperating to fight to be heard but feel like no one is listening, and it’s frustrating when we fight for what we believe is right and see no one taking action.
I’ve lived most of my life in this frustration. I’d never let an opportunity go by without fighting against what I viewed was wrong. But it wasn’t until I went too far that I noticed the damage I had left in my path, because as any trained fire fighter (or person with an IQ of 10) would tell you, the absolute worst weapon against fire is more fire. And by the time I realized what I was doing, I feared if it was too late to recovery from the debris of the relationships I torched; I still do.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had an opinion about things. Usually a strong one, and I wasn’t afraid to let people know it. My parents raised me to stand for what I believe in, to speak up and speak clearly. If I had something in my teeth they would tell me. If I was mumbling my words, they’d tell me. But their intentions were clear, “if we didn’t love you, we wouldn’t tell you.” And I learned to be ok with that. I’d rather be told I had something in my teeth than to go out in public and embarrass my self. This is what you do for someone you love. And I thought everyone saw it the same way. So when I saw opportunities to return the favor to others, I never understood why it wasn’t well received. I was just trying to help.
My role models were people who were like this too. They always seemed to be right and didn’t care what people thought, so the path for me was evident. When the few friends I did have would come to me with a problem that they caused, I made that fact clear to them. When the teacher would grade me in a way I didn’t agree with, I’d argue with them about it, and when a group of my mentors would call me out on something I had done, I’d call them out on being poor mentors. Being right was the most important thing in my mind, you couldn’t change the world by being wrong.
Over time I concluded the problem must be with everyone else. But the older I got, the more of my friends would move away or move on. I began struggling with my health, and when I needed someone the most, there was no one around. I slowly found my self in a life far from what I imagined, and I didn’t know how I got there. Why were the important people in my life leaving? Why did I constantly argue with the friends and family I did have? Why did my attempts to help people often turn into arguments? I knew I wasn’t a bad person, I speak up because I care, I give advice because I want to help, I stubbornly hold on to my arguments because I honestly believe that the right information can change peoples lives. But my approach clearly wasn’t working. My life was not a model of how everyone else should live, it was becoming one I barely wanted to live.
Some time passed and luckily one of my closest friends moved back. He was just as opinionated as I was, yet he didn’t struggle with the same social problems. I explained my frustrations to him, why I still didn’t get why my attempts to help people would go astray so often, but in response he just said the simplest thing, “sometimes it isn’t what you say, it’s how you say it.” I’m embarrassed by how profound that statement was to me. But it got me thinking. I started to challenge it, as I typically do with something I don’t fully understand, “why should it matter how I say something? It’s either right or its not.“ But as I was arguing with the only person who was trying to help me, it started to really sink in. I took a cold hard look at the quality of life I was living, how unfulfilled and unhappy I had been for so long, it was becoming painfully obvious; I may know what I’m talking about, I may even be right, but I’m alone. I’d become negative, impatient, and judgmental. This is not who I wanted to be, and this kind of person could never significantly help anyone, much less the world. So I decided to give this new approach a try.
At the time I was living in a house with a few roommates, I got along with everyone for the most part, but there was one roommate in particular I just didn’t mesh with. One rainy day while coming home from work I noticed him on the living room couch, I heard he had just broken up with his girlfriend, but he was trying to make light of it by telling jokes and acting like it didn’t matter, but no matter how much he tried to mask it, you could tell he was in a lot of pain.
We started talking and I slowly brought the story out of him, he actually did want to talk about it. I figured I had a chance at really connecting with him for the first time, but didn’t want to butcher an opportunity like this as I had so many times in the past, so I said to my self: “I’m not going to say a single thing about me and won’t give my opinion on anything. I’m just going to listen.” This was really hard for me, but the results were remarkable.
I would ask questions about how he felt, invite him to share what he was thinking and kept quiet about my opinions. This went on for over two hours, but I was enjoying every minute of it. The conversation eventually delved into other topics, life, age, happiness, I told him that he would make a great writer and encouraged him to try it, that got him really excited. By the end we were having a good time and ended up playing some video games. After some time I wished him the best and said I needed to head out, but before I left the room he stopped me and just said “hey J…thank you.” It was one of the most sincere thank you’s I have ever heard, I smiled and thanked him back. As I walked back to my room I had a slight smile on my face and tears welling in my eyes. I walked into my room, closed the door and said in a soft tone “That’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.” I did have value, I truly could help people, and ironically my opinions and advice had nothing to do with it. I realized how grateful I had been for those who had taken the time to talk things out with me that way in the past, it wasn’t just how they shared their thoughts, it was how they made me feel that left an impact. That was the favor I needed to pass on, because it was those people who had helped me the most.
The high that I got after helping my roomate felt so much better than any argument I had ever won. It truly is greater to give than to receive. And sometimes it is greater to listen than to speak.
I probably would have never said this five years ago, but winning an argument will never feel as good as winning a friend, and you can affect a lot more change this way. Because amongst all the noise that overwhelms us in this world, there is a deafening silence for a voice that unites, a voice of love, a voice of understanding and compassion, a voice that builds people up. I believe it is one of our most critical vulnerabilities as a society, and I refuse to be a part of the problem any longer.
Because out of all my failed relationships and missed opportunities, I have learned that the solution is not to speak less, it is to listen more, and to let what you learn guide your heart, words and actions. Because there is always more to the story, there is always something to learn and there is always a friend to be made. So let us not struggle to hear each other when we are in such close proximity, it just takes one of us to start a rippling effect that can eventually affect millions. There are few messages I feel more strongly about than this one, because I really can’t help but to wonder, how much more progress could we in our world as friends rather than as enemies?
