Welcome to Stoic Snippets,
The philosophy that is short in length but not in depth.
When I was younger,
One of my favourite quotes came from a poster.
It may or may not have been Garfield,
I can't really remember.
But the bits I do remember,
It looked like Garfield was alongside his dopey dog,
Odie.
And he looked at him,
Just as Odie was about to speak.
He had his finger pressed against his lips as if to say,
Shh.
And the text on the poster said,
The compulsion to speak isn't always related to having something to say.
As a gregarious and chatty child myself,
I was well aware of how little stimulation was needed to get me to speak.
It got me into trouble on more than one occasion and embarrassed me on many more.
My mom bore the brunt of this,
With incessant asking of questions and talking.
Bless her,
She never complained.
The irony is that she is a very quiet person.
It's almost like I inherited all of her unspoken words.
When I stumbled upon this gem of K to the Younger this year,
I wished I'd heard it earlier.
He states,
I begin to speak only when I'm certain what I have to say isn't better left unsaid.
Now that's quite a remarkable quote,
Especially from a man who built his career on oratory.
He was a lawyer and then a senator.
In his speeches he was quick-witted and ruthless,
But like most powerful speakers,
His words were chosen carefully.
He was like a surgeon selecting a tool and sometimes a doctor deciding on a treatment,
And other times he was like a marksman selecting his target,
All depending on the context and what he wanted to do.
The result was when he spoke,
People listened.
There is an economy to words.
Like anything,
If you make something too common,
It loses value.
So instead of speaking a lot and saying little,
Can you become more efficient with your language?
Careful with your words so as not to waste any.
In doing so,
Can you make what you say matter even more?
Can we use the extra silence to think more and maybe even listen more?
Another great orator of the time,
Cicero,
Had this to say,
Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.
And the stoic slave Epictetus reminds us that we have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
Try take this advice into your day.
And if you'd like to find out more about these legends,
Then check out my new course on Stoicism.
It's a good one.
