Hey everyone! I hope everyone has been having a blessed week. I am currently writing this entry on the road as I head back upstate to college for the second semester of the school year. It is nearly 2AM and while I should be sleeping, I felt the urge to share something of importance that will hopefully pick at your minds a little:
The 5 seconds you take to utter 5 words to someone, potentially has the power to make or break someone’s day…
…potentially has the power to make or break the rest of someone’s life.
Take a few moments right now to think about the very last thing you said to someone. Can you remember? I don’t know about you all, but sometimes I forget just how much I can impact someone else. Usually, it’s because as we go about our daily lives, (TYPICALLY) we tend to assume that there’s nothing extraordinary about, say, asking a friend to borrow a pencil, or responding to a waiter when they ask, “Soup or salad?” Have you ever wondered how you could make someone feel simply by saying 5 words like, “Thanks for always being there” or “You have a golden heart”? But do you also ever wonder how it makes someone feel when you say 5 words like, “You are such an idiot” or “You look like a joke.”
We’ve all seen those movies where the misfit student is being called out by high school jerks, right? We typically boo them, see them as villains, and set ourselves apart of them..but what if one negative 5 worded sentence, regardless of it being a “joke” or not…causes us to cross that line that ultimately puts us in the same category of those villains? That small sentence, that is now long gone from your memory, might stick with someone for the rest of the day, week…life. And unless this person lets you know how it made them feel, you’ll never truly know how much you emotionally affected them.
Even when it comes to non-verbals such as a smile or an eye roll, you still hold as much power as you would with hundreds of words…isn’t that crazy?
Quick story time:
I first met one of my best friends in 8th grade and I had no clue what I was in store for as our relationship would continue over the years. See, I’m going to be real for a second, junior high was a pretty rough several years (as I’ve mentioned before in a past blog entry). I used to think that if I ever went at LEAST an entire day of being happy…that something was wrong. Yeah..pretty sad, isn’t it? I remember confiding in my best friend about how I felt and I’ll never forget what he told me. He told me that I deserved happiness…that if anyone deserved to be happy, it was me…and if I was happy for a day, then to let myself feel happy for a week, then a month, then a year, then a lifetime. He put it so simplistically and matter-of-fact like.
Those words, five and a half years later, still live in my heart. And I still live by his instructions.
Words are so important. Words entice emotion…depending on how we utilize them. I’ve got a lil’ baby challenge for you guys this week, real simple. I challenge you to make an effort and tell at least two people in your lives something positive you’ve always thought about them, but have never actually told them before. The short amount of time you take to do this could literally stay in their hearts for the long run.
And who knows? Maybe in about five and a half years they’ll be an even better version of themselves then they are now because of it, all thanks to YOU… ❤
Patches 