Words

  We need to be careful with our words. They're very powerful weapons. Not just what we say but how we say it. It's so important to make sure that our tone or verbiage with someone we care about (or anyone else I guess) is coming from a place of love. I'm very guilty of allowing myself to speak from a place of agitation and most often it's misplaced on those I love and care most about instead of me dealing with the frustrating situation all on it's own and not bringing it into my relationships with people.

  It's one of my least favorite qualities in myself. I'm not a patient person as much as I wish I was. I recently spoke in misplaced frustration to someone very dear to me.

  Many times we (mostly men) don't even realize that the way we say things is often more important than the things we say. Tone will determine interpretation and we can hurt the people we love. It takes 21 days of constant trying for something to become a habit. Over the next three weeks I'm going to try very hard to increase my patience level as well as my awareness of how I am speaking to people.

  I already know I curse too much and I've been working on that. It's odd how now that I've been making the attempt to curtail my swearing I notice other people doing it so often. I've even found myself becoming a little offended by it from time to time when I used to be the worst about it.

  My hope is not just that I become more patient but also that I'm capable of showing the people I love more of the respect they deserve from me. If you say you love someone doesn't that denote that they deserve the best of you? I realize that the people we love will be around for our darkest moments but they are there because it's where they want to be. That kind of respect has to be reciprocated.

  Our words have the most power over the ones who love us the most, therefore we need to be the most cautious with them. It's sad that they're often the ones we are least careful with. I think it's because we take forgiveness for granted.

  I believe that we become so used to forgiving each other that we relax and take for granted the idea that our transgressions will be forgiven. We decide that the things we say are no big deal to the ones we love when in fact those are the ones that think it is.

  I sat down and thought about just how selfish I am. When I make a mistake I apologize and I truly mean it. The selfishness comes in that I should think ahead more about the feelings of my loved ones and try not to say things or do things that I have to apologize for. None of us will ever be perfect but the people we love the most deserve our best efforts. We should try to spend our energy being our best for our loved ones instead of using all of our energy on the people who won't be there in our times of need.