I Have a Mouth – But I Keep It Shut Sometimes
I have an opinion – an educated one – on just about everything. However I have learned that there are times when the best thing one can do in life is to keep one’s mouth shut. I might know a little about a lot, but that doesn’t mean that I know everything about anything. When that subject is a person I’ve never met, I do what needs to be done:
I keep my mouth shut.
It isn’t easy, being opinionated by nature and coming across as an arrogant know-it-all sometimes. And I struggled, really struggled to stay out of a mess that involved three subjects that I’ve had a lot of experience with: sobriety, parenting, and staying married. However I realized that for all of my experience – and struggles – with these subjects, I don’t know jack about them. What has worked for me as I approach my 7th year anniversary of sobriety will not necessarily work for someone else. It can’t – because in the end everyone’s battle is inside them, where others can’t get.
It’s just you and your adversary on the battlefield – and inevitably that adversary turns out to be you yourself because who else really knows how to defeat you?
In some cultures people need to speak up, to break their silence. Ours is not one of those cultures. There’s a balance between the two when words are called for, and another time when the best course of action is silence – and staying out of someone else’s business.
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