Reverb10 :: Wisdom

I've decided to be a part of Reverb10. It's a 31-day blogging challenge where you reply to the daily writing prompts that are designed to get you to reflect on this past year as well as provide some insight for the upcoming year. I'm going to give myself 5-7 minutes for each post.

Day 10 :: December 10, 2010 :: Wisdom

• What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out? (Author: Susannah Conway)

This year has been full of challenges and opportunities for personal growth. I'm constantly analyzing situations and wondering how I can 'do better.'

At some point over the past year, I found myself telling myself, more often than not, to shutup. Of course, that's the internal conversation. Of late, it just seems that I can't get a word in in some conversations. I mean, recently, I've been in more countless situations where people like to hear themselves talk; people who've forgotten or don't care about the meaning of a 'conversation'.

So I've resorted to telling myself to just shutup. And it has to be shutup. I know that self-censoring is an option, but in these cases, I'm not choosing my words, I'm choosing no words. I've decided that I'm not going to battle for speaking time. I've decided that I'll just sit back and watch the show from another vantage point. Actually, it's possible that I'll tune out all together.

It used to be that I'd force myself into the conversation and get my point across ... it got to be exhausting: "what I'm trying to say is ..." or "I had a similar situation ...".

Unfortunately, the wisdom of that decision is not being a better listener. No, these people who entrap others to prop themselves up don't care if you're listening or not. So, the wisdom for me is being able to be comfortable in my quiet space and when I decide to add something to a discussion, my contribution is more thoughtful.