"Children were meant to be seen and not heard." "You have the right to remain silent...". "I don't mean to be rude, but...", yada, yada, yada, and so forth and so on. We've all been in those situations where we wonder if now is the time we let so and so know what we really think or should we allow discretion to be the better part of valor and zip our lips. Nowadays, we live in a politically correct world where many people would have you believe that humility, tactfulness, and a voice like a church mouse is the way you should live, but I want to let you in on a little secret. Sometimes, just sometimes, when the time is right and the proper mood has been set...you can feel free to open your mouth and give the next person exactly what's coming to them.

Communication and dialogue are meant to be a two way street, so what kind of traffic jam can you expect if you won't say what's on your mind? The quickest way that new thoughts and ideas are shared is through word of mouth. When Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and found that the earth was round after all, he didn't keep it to himself. Even though the idea of a flat world was the popular consensus, he educated the masses with his findings, but imagine the shambles if he had kept it to himself. The point here is that even though ideas and thoughts may clash, sometimes if we are able to maintain respect for the other person, we are still able to grow in learning in spite of our opposition.

When we feel we have been somehow wronged in our interactions with others, we can either take it or speak our mind on it. If your significant other does something that you don't like, there's a chance you may let it slide the first time. The question is, what happens after the second or third time? When we allow something to happen to us, but we don't offer our praise or disproval, we're silently "saying" that we don't mind what's happening. When you don't speak up when something is bothering you, you first grow irritated of being in the situation. Then you tend to get emotionally, mentally and sometimes physically drained from it, until one day, you can end up despising the person who's putting you in the situation except chances are, they have no idea they're offending you since you're not opening your mouth and letting them know.

I always believe that the truth shall set you free, but speaking the brutal truth just to be hurtful only traps the speaker in a cage of their own design. As I said earlier, you should speak up to let people know when they have hurt or wronged you, but saying that you're hurt or feel wronged does not require you to berate someone else. Now when it comes to you simply saying things to ridicule or embarass someone else, keep your thoughts and words to yourself. I don't need to say that "people are laughing at you, not with you" and I don't need to say "what goes around, comes around". All I need to say is that when we don't learn the value of when to be silent, we learn that lesson the hard way by the consequences we face.