Saying the Right Thing at the Right Time

 I have not given up getting my unpublished book “The Split Second:  In Consideration of Others or Look Up from the Phone and How to Deal with Rudeness in Others” published. There is some “pushback” against my concept of a society where we all get along and are nice to each other. Then there are others who have been wonderfully supportive of me to go on with this project. I am incredibly grateful to them. I hope I can get the good word out there. That is the hard part for me, right now.

I want to continue to discuss an important consideration of life and how we might be more considerate of others is sad these days for me and for others. I have a Word of the Day Calendar where I rip off  “yesterday’s word” and see what may be a word I have never heard of before (English has lots) or a reminder of a word I have not seen and/or used in a while. Recently, a given days’ word was “mot juste” which means, “the exact, appropriate word.”

When I saw this word (and I could not remember when I had seen it previously, but I had), I thought, if all of us tried to use the right or more appropriate wording with each other, life might be a bit better. I have had people tell me, and these are usually very insecure folks, that they feel they must watch what words they use around me. I always respond, “I watch what I say to everyone.”

Abigail Van Buren, otherwise known as Dear Abby, said and I paraphrase, “It would be nice if when I say something to someone else, I stop and think for a moment, ‘is it kind and is it true?”

This quote is the essence of my work, “The Split Second.” I try my best to use the right wording, right tone, and right inflection with all speech and/or conversation with others to convey what I am thinking, yet, what I am feeling at given moment.

I have known many people who want to express what they are thinking to someone usually about that someone and not have to think if it is appropriate or kind. There is an old expression, “to shoot from the hip.” I have no idea where that came from, but it describes the practice of just uttering what is one’s mind with no filters inside the mind. My own late mother used to say that she “shot from the hip.” The trouble with that is I have known many such people who want to express themselves quite candidly; however, they want other people to be careful about what is said to them. That is not right. We all need to be kind, thoughtful, and respectful of each other, all the time.

My book is about thoughtfulness for others and openly showing it. Many have told me that this is slipping away in society. I believe that we can truly become a society where we can all think of others as we “go out in the world.”  It must start somewhere, and I am willing to be a pioneer to bring it back into society.