The Mouth Stumbles

“When the mouth stumbles, it is worse than the foot.” (Oji)

In essence, a wrong word is more harmful than the action. We often say “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” That’s a damn lie. A simple statement can truly change the course of a relationship. Anyone who has read or watched Othello, can attest to this. The way that Iago uses his words to poison Othello to madness and murder is far more powerful than if he simply crafted a way to murder his enemy. He manipulates him in a way that allows Othello to destroy himself and his legacy so thoroughly that death would have only turned him into a martyr.

There’s a reason that villains like Iago—or for the present moment, Littlefinger from Game of Thrones—inspires such hatred. These characters realized that violence can come more easily through words.

We all have a moment that lives rent free in our head. Someone gave us a backhanded compliment. Someone mentioned a dark time in our past. Someone suggested that we were not up for the task. Their words are now permanence. We either act to prove them wrong or we cling to them as truth.

We also remember when we misspoke. We said something that should not have been said. You know it the moment it leaves your mouth. You see the person crumple, tighten, or shut down and you know you said the wrong thing. You did violence to the other person, unwittingly. The problem is that most times, it’s too late to retrieve those words and swallow them back. You can’t dust yourself off and move on. The best you can do is seek forgiveness and hope.

Mind your words more than you mind your feet. You may recover from a fall, but you might not recover from your words.