Speechless

The great Dalai Lama once said, "Silence is sometimes the best answer." In a world with clutters of information, interests, and meanings, silence is one method to unclog the noise barrage.

During interpersonal conflicts, when at the peak of emotions, I believe that fire must not be met with fire but by water of silence.

When downtrodden as if the world heaved its weight on you, silence is a comfortable and immediate way of unburdening yourself.

Don't get me wrong. Being silent or speechless in certain circumstances does not entail apathy, cowardice nor defeat. No words or verbal cues to express self do not mean a lack in solution. In fact showing "calculated speechlessness" especially during crises indicates the communicators' ability to save the best for last.

He is not impulsive but very decisive. He may appear slow but the option to be speechless in order to evaluate self is a strategy to avoid the wastes of haste. For others he is unreliable because of lack of reply at the flick of a finger. But what is a short lull if in the long run the response is like the slogan, "You are in good hands."

For others, he seems to be an outcast. So what? There is nothing wrong with choosing to abandon the smorgasbord of information overload in favor of the fine dining of selective discernment of meanings.

It is okay to be speechless sometimes. It is okay to be silent sometimes especially when it is done to avoid hurting someone, to preserve a relationship or to reserve your energy for something more important. Remember, speechlessness in these contexts is a form of self-control. And self-control is power.