The Best Resolution for the New Year — Silence!
There is a reason silence is golden.
Not everyone needs to know your every thought or plan. Not everyone needs to hear your opinion on everything. However, there are times when silence is suspicious and telling. So you need to know when to be silent and when to voice your concerns.
Shut Up! Keep Your Opinions to Yourself
Opinions are not facts.
So they are not relevant to many conversations. If you have an opinion on someone else’s life that they did not ask for then you need to keep that shit to yourself. Especially if you are offering those opinions to others who are not in their circle.
This brings us to the most important time when you should keep your opinions to yourself — online. Instead of looking like a fool to a small group of people, you risk your intelligence, lifestyle, and mental stability being questioned by billions of people. Not everything online can be erased and your biased opinion can be seen and shared by millions before you can erase or correct it.
Before you post that video or comment you should ask yourself; how does this opinion benefit anyone? Is this opinion relevant to everyone? Should I just keep this thought to myself? Or maybe the best thing for you is to test this though on someone outside your circle and watch their response. If it’s not good then you know you should shut up and keep your opinions to yourself.
Shut Up! Not Everyone Needs A Response
In life, there will always be people who will push your buttons to elicit a response from you. Or there will be people who simply speak for the sake of speaking. These people are not there to seek answers or help, so it’s not necessary to provide them with a response.
Narcissists are known to prod and poke you for information in a seemingly innocent quest to get to know you. When in reality, they are collecting information that they can use to harm you. So you need to be careful of the information you provide to others.
Then some people are just venting or using you are a sounding board. They don’t want a response. They simply need a listening ear to hear their concerns, worries, or ideas. In this case, your response doesn’t need to be verbal, but you should let them know you are listening and care about their thoughts.
Shut Up! Protect Your Peace
There are Twitter wars, fandom wars, and battles in the comment sections. There are streetfights, relationship discord, and the occasional hospital visit and assault case that all began because someone responded to something or voiced an unwanted opinion. In the end, you always end up wondering, was it worth it?
No, it’s not.
It’s not worth your peace to respond to people who don’t need it and are not qualified for a response. And you should be qualifying who needs a response to protect your peace. You can qualify your responses based on authority, necessity, privacy, and type of information requested.
Once you decide to protect your peace by not voicing every thought and providing unnecessary information, you’ll find yourself in fewer arguments and wasted conversations. It also helps in filtering and finessing your thoughts and ideas before you voice them out loud. Knowing when to shut up or speak up can help you appear more intelligent and even lead to better opportunities.
So, shut the fuck up! Okay?
