Silence Sucks

This was a repost, but I thought worth the read:

Oh trust me, I love peace and quiet. But that’s not the kind of silence I’m talking about here. I’m referring to the kind of silence that happens when people shut down and refuse to discuss problems, issues, upsets…you get the picture.


You see, I’m a communicator. When something goes wrong, I insist on talking about it—maybe not immediately, but certainly within a reasonable time-frame (which could be anywhere from a couple hours to a couple days, but rarely more than that). So in the unfortunate event that I piss someone off, or someone or something pisses me off, I discuss it. Talk it through. I apologize…or forgive…or I blog about it here…or all of the above. I never let it fester.

I’m lucky because I married someone who operates in the same open and communicative way. In fact, he’s usually the one who wants to talk things through right away and I’m usually the one who shuts down until I can figure out what went wrong and how it can be fixed. (So I do understand going silent ... temporarily.) But we always wind up discussing any upsets and are so much stronger by the time things get resolved. In that sense, conflict and adversity wind up bringing us even closer—we learn more than we ever thought possible.


The thing that sucks is that there are people out there who don’t want to talk about things—ever. When something bad happens, they shut down forever. They harbor all this anger or resentment or sadness and can’t—or simply won’t—discuss it. If you happen to cross this person’s path at the wrong time and speak or act out of turn, look out…because chances are you’ll get kicked to the curb with no explanation. No communication. No opportunity to fully understand what you may have done or how to repair the damage. All these people know is that you have harmed them—but chances are it’s not even your fault. They were already walking around with a victim mentality.

And that’s precisely why silence sucks—for the person who remains silent, and for the person who wants to talk about it—because nothing gets resolved, nobody learns or grows, and everybody loses.