What’s the most underrated life skill?
One underrated life skill is learning to pause before you speak. Its taken me a long time to master this, even if I haven’t mastered it at all.
I’ve always been defensive when I feel threatened or feel I need to get my point across. I’ve had a difficult time holding my words and patience. I’m a truth seeker and stand by honesty. I would call people out when they were wrong. If I chose to stay quiet, my face would say it.
As I’ve gotten older and understand what staying silent means, it’s shown me patience and strength and most of all peace. It doesn’t mean you’re weak or wrong. It doesn’t mean you have nothing valuable to say. Silence means listening and trying to see things from others point of view or just protecting your peace. Silence allows you to absorb the words or actions and assess them and either deal with it in a calm manner or not at all.
Silence is golden. Listening is a skill. The urgency to respond right away is also a skill that takes work.
My most recent practice is trying to stay silent when my daughter is complaining or discussing with me things in her life that feel utterly impossible. To me, it’s easy what to do and I try to help her and explain what to do but my advise is at time irrelevant to her. So, I must learn to just listen and say nothing. Simple words like, I understand or just a simple okay. I can’t give her the answers she is looking for so I must try to stay quiet but also keep my face in check.
Sometimes the best thing we can do for them and ourselves is pause and wait before we speak.
