23 You Still Have More To Say

According to some estimates that I have seen, the average English speaker says nearly 800,000,000 words in their lifetime. That is an insane number of words. A lot of them are purposeless, a lot of them are all part of our mundane lives. But a lot of those words change lives. Your words have already changed peoples lives.  A large mistake people make is thinking that their words don’t matter. The words you speak, and don’t speak have an outsized impact on the world around you, and the people that you are speaking to. Simple compliments can make a stranger's day or a stranger's entire week. 

One moment will always stand out to me from college. It was when I was speaking to one of my residents (a very normal part of my job, an interaction I have had hundreds of times) and I asked him “how are you doing?” He replied with the casual “O, good.” To which I stopped him and repeated, “No, how are you actually doing?” He broke, and almost started crying. We spoke for almost an hour. Turns out he had been really struggling and didn’t feel like he had anyone to talk to about it. It turned out that he had been feeling like he was completely unheard.  He needed anyone, and in this case someone who was essentially a stranger to him, to actually take the time to use just a few extra words. I don’t know how his story is going, I spoke to him very little after that day, but I think he is doing better, because, at the end of the day, he still has more to say, more that should be heard.