Nothing To Say - Grasshopper

The Grasshopper offered this lengthy message to me: “If you have nothing to say and choose to speak anyway, say something you’ve never said before.”

I had to let that one sit for a while before I could make an attempt to grasp its meaning.

Here’s what came up for me. Usually, when we fill in the gaps in conversation when we really have nothing substantive to say, we offer worn out platitudes and threadbare opinions. We ignore our mother’s advice of, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, say nothing at all.”

The Grasshopper’s mom must’ve had a different take. She apparently advised, “If you choose to speak, say something different than you normally do.”

I take that to mean to take a pause before you opine and dig deeper into the sublime before in with your opinion you chime.

I’m not a big fan of “making conversation.” I have that in the category of “small talk.” That’s not to say that all your conversations have to be fact based think pieces. I can casually chat about nothing with the best of them, but if my nothing is filled with all the stuff people are tired of hearing, then they’re going to stop hearing me.

The best piece of advice I got about offering your views was this: Have a purpose in speaking.

So, to sum up, before you let words willy-nilly fall from your lips, take a pause and check if they’re worn out quips.

All the best,