The basics

Over the years I have made and kept many friends. I've also lost a few. I can honestly say that both success and failure are and were due in part to controlling or not controlling the spoken word. No matter how close we are to someone, it does not give us right to say whatever we choose, whenever we choose.

Words should be chosen and spoken with care, but they should be spoken. There are right things to say and right ways to say them. Equally, there are right things to say and the wrong way to say them. Not to mention, wrong and wrong.

All of this is because today I am wondering why communication is so hard. Why do some people struggle with saying how they feel? Why do people keep their feelings locked inside until they build and build and ultimately explode, and usually at the most inappropriate time so that the explosion draws more attention than the feelings expressed? I'm not at all sure the answer to these questions but they are on my mind due to an explosion I was hit with recently. And yet explosions like that are something that I'm wholly conscious of and try to avoid in my life. Especially this year. Because, like it or not, right now my life is filled with some very real family problems and emotions that call for a great deal of my time and energy. And leave me without the patience for, or energy necessary to bounce back from, being ambushed by unexpected emotional explosions when all along my door has been open for the very level of communication that the lack of which planted the minefield in the first place. Completely unnecessary. Completely exhausting.