When You Don’t Think Before You Talk
It’s inevitable—there will be times when you open your mouth and out will pop something you recognize an instant later as something inappropriate. (“Hmmm – where did that come from, it’s not what I meant to say,” or worse, ”that came out terrible.”) I recently had lunch with a friend who had just shared how she’s in the Alchohol Anonymous program and as they proceeded to share other wonderful positive steps they’re taking in their life, I raised my water glass to toast them and said, ”I hadn’t known of your achievements beforehand or I could have been toasting you with champagne.” (Huh? Did I say that?)
Then there were the two times I asked my dear friend how her parents are, when she had already told me on two separate occasions that her mother had already passed.
Sometimes we just have foot in mouth disease, no matter how temporary it is, and we have to acknowledge our mistakes aloud. In the first case I just stammered, “well, maybe I could have toasted you with sparkling cider,” but even that seemed a little awkward.
Reminds me of the time I was once a candy striper (a hospital volunteer), during grammar school days. It was my job to take the snack cart around to offer drinks to the visitors if they wanted them. One night, ironically, everyone wanted black coffee…coffee itself wasn’t so unusual, since it was late and patient visitors were exhausted, but I thought having it black was. Room after room, people said they’d just have their coffee black. After about five rooms of this I came upon my next room with a large African-American family visiting a patient. I cheerily chirped, “and I suppose you’d all like black coffee?” I remember feeling embarrassed and trying to explain how everyone else was ordering black coffee that night and, of course, concerned that it somehow sounded prejudicial or at best, insensitive.
If you have a solid sense of self-esteem, when you make these kind of faux pas, you can recover politely and try not to immerse yourself in the kind of thinking about what a dope you are and what others may think of you. The reality is that when we experience embarrassment, we’re judging ourselves for not being politically or culturally correct, age-appropriate, etc. In reality, we live in a diverse world and though it requires us to stay alert and give a little more thought to our words, we’re often too caught up in saying the right thing to not be natural. Should a boo-boo slip out, how you handle yourself then is more important than what you’ve said or done.
Good luck word warriors!
Tags: feeling embarrassed, not thinking before talking, recovering from mistakes, saying the 'wrong' thing
