Listen More, Speak Less

Some people think that they can openly say whatever in on their mind, at whatever moment in time they feel the need to.  They refer to this behavior as a form of self-expression and often think it would kill them to keep their own feelings and opinions buried inside of them. They feel it's their right to VENT to others, and that action is nothing but SINCERITY.
 

But... Old wisdom tells us:

 " BE VERY VIGILANT WHEN WE  LISTEN AND MORE CAUTIOUS WHEN WE SPEAK."

So....Lets all think twice before we speak, and for those strong-minded people, it would safe you a lot of headaches if you not only think twice, but also count to ten... or even twenty (if you feel you are one of those"over-the-top" people who believes your-way is the only-way) before you speak on whatever comes to your tongue, I mean, mind. :)

My father sent me this passage via e-mail, and I just thought it was extremely significant, because well.... my father knows that I'm one of those strong-minded people and who's strongly opinionated quality often is misinterpreted as either rude, annoying or arrogant (sometimes all three, but not always).

In the passage below, a wise man tells us about an arrogant young man:

One day a young man was at the train station, he bought a pack of cookies....

With a couple minutes to spare until his trains arrival, he sat on a bench next to an elderly man....

He looked over at the the pack of cookies that were beside him, and opened it..

He reached his hand in the box to grab his first cookie, and immediately so did the elderly man who was next to him...

The arrogant young man was bothered and irritated by what the elderly man just did, but was able to contain himself....

He reached again for a second time to grab another cookie, and so did the elderly man.

And so on, that behavior continued until there was one cookie left in the small package.

On the last cookie, the elderly man reached in first and took only half of the cookie, leaving the young man with the other half....

The irritated young man no longer could contain his anger for the elderly man ....

So right before getting on his train he extrapolated the elderly man with cruel and offensive  words....

The elderly man without understanding the cause of the young man's sudden rage, thought it would be best to wait for the next train to avoid more offensive confrontations.

At this time the livid young man was on the train,  he sat back, relaxed, opened his bag to take out a book....

He saw something at the bottom of his bag that made him quickly realized what had happened.... what he saw was.... a brand new and never opened box of cookies.... His box of cookies... 

 
And only then he realized what a huge mistake he had committed.

The box of cookies he was sharing with the elderly man while waiting for the train, WASN'T HIS..

and yet he ate them, up to the last one, while the elderly man genuinely accepted to share his cookies, to the point of dividing the last one with the strange young man, he did not once seemed bothered or angry

and the arrogant young me\an brutally insulted him with offensive words.

AND THE WORST of all was that he could not ask for forgiveness and had no chance to undo or make up to the elderly man for his CRUEL words and action.

          For the elderly man, wasn't from that area, so he was never again seen again by the young man


 
This young man felt terribly bad and ashamed....That from there on he decided to changed the direction of his life.... AND BECAME A GREAT WRITER ON RELATIONSHIPS TOPICS BETWEEN PEOPLE.

There are FOUR things in life you can never get it back.

 1) The tears you have cried

2) The words after spoken

3) The opportunity that has been lost

4) The time after it has passed.

So let's practice on being more attentive when we LISTEN and more cautious when we SPEAK.