If you see something, don't you dare say something.

The problems with staying silent when you don't have anything "nice" to say.

Storytime

Multiple times this weekend, I watched my 9yo nephew’s spirit get a tiny bit squashed by the words of an adult.

And it crushed me too.

The kicker is, I didn’t say anything. I let it happen. Which makes me a party to the crime.

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Damn, that adage has power.

Let me offer two examples.

The first came from a stranger. And I watched myself and five other adults say nothing.

“I’ll have the pork belly sandwich, like my Dad,” my nephew said to the server, looking her in the eye as he handed her his menu.

“The pork belly sandwich, please,” she corrected him.

“The pork belly sandwich, please,” he said, looking down, defeated by the reprimand.

She finished taking orders, and as soon as she left, the adults at the table all looked at each other in disgust. How dare she correct our child in front of us like that?! There were other incidents of her haughtiness that emerged during the one-hour lunch, but that reprimand of the only child at the table was enough for the three women at the table to lose our appetites altogether.

In the name of “keeping the peace” we swallowed our words and thoughts, until we left the restaurant, and then spent a good chunk of the next two days bad-mouthing the server and the restaurant to each other and anybody who would listen. 🤦🏻‍♀️

The second came from a family member. Without being asked to do so, Nephew wrote a thank you note in the guest book of the AIRBNB. While the rest of the family worked to pack up the cars and clean up the house before leaving, Nephew filled up a whole page with a short note and fun drawings.

Family member came up and asked him what he was doing. He showed her, with a bit of enthusiasm in his voice.

“That’s enough,” she said.

“I’m just adding detail,” Nephew said.

“There’s enough detail. You’re done.”

Nephew put down his pencil, slammed the book shut and stormed off.

And I said nothing.

If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.

I didn’t have anything nice to say to family member about that interaction, and it wasn’t any of my business, so I said nothing. And got a sore throat the next day. Hmmm….I wonder why???

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When does the newer adage “see something, say something” come into play?
Was it my responsibility to defend the creative endeavors of Nephew, or to support the adult authority of Family Member? Certainly swallowing our words with the server and bad-mouthing her around town wasn’t the right thing to do either.

Was it better that I kept my mouth shut, and swallowed my thoughts?

Sure, in both these instances, the damage wasn’t terrible. But it does add up. And when things add up over time, they result in long-term patterns and behaviors. Over time, the little hurts become one big hurt.

Like the habit of not saying anything when there isn’t anything nice to say. Swallowing those thoughts over time can really rip up your esophagus.

Lesson

Let’s take a look at that adage that we have all heard and said and lived by for so long:

If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

Although I suspect this phrase has Biblical roots, I couldn’t find an equivalent Bible verse. Instead, the first instance I could find it being used is in the 1942 movie Bambi:

Did you know that the word nice isn’t really all that nice?

I looked up the etymology of the word Nice, and it turns out, the word “nice” originates from Old French and Latin words that mean: “insane, foolish, ignorant, senseless, deranged, not-knowing”. . . in other words, not so nice.

nice (adj.) - from the online etymological dictionary -

late 13c., "foolish, ignorant, frivolous, senseless," from Old French nice (12c.) "careless, clumsy; weak; poor, needy; simple, stupid, silly, foolish," from Latin nescius "ignorant, unaware," literally "not-knowing," from ne- "not" (from PIE root *ne- "not") + stem of scire "to know" (see science). "The sense development has been extraordinary, even for an adj." [Weekley] — from "timid, faint-hearted" (pre-1300); to "fussy, fastidious" (late 14c.); to "dainty, delicate" (c. 1400); to "precise, careful" (1500s, preserved in such terms as a nice distinction and nice and early); to "agreeable, delightful" (1769); to "kind, thoughtful" (1830).

It kinda makes you want to never ever use the word “Nice” again, huh?

Now, let’s look at the sounds and energies of the word. Within the word Nice is the word Ice. Right there, the word gives a sense of icing out, freezing. [insert Ice-Queen here]. Then, put the big Negative Knickers N at the front of the word and you’re left with an undercurrent feeling of all things negative and blocked. No wonder the word is so easily used as sarcasm. It leaves a shiver down your spine of things feeling not as they seem. That intuitive spidey-sense of ice-shivers along your nerves telling you to look deeper, because the mask is not the truth.

This all gets me to thinking, how much do I censor myself because of this old adage, that seemingly originated from a cartoon rabbit? Am I swallowing too many of my words out of “niceness” and thus causing more harm to myself?

Homework

What I’ve started doing is replacing the word “Nice” with the word “Kind”. If you rephrase the adage in my mind “if you don’t have anything KIND to say, then don’t say anything at all,” it’s much easier to take a step back and find a way to rephrase what I want to say with kindness.

After the server reprimanded Nephew in the restaurant, instead of swallowing my anger so that it could come out later in all sorts of bad-mouthing the restaurant to others, I could’ve kindly taken her aside and offered her an opportunity to rectify the hurt feelings left at our table.

After Nephew slammed the book shut on his thank you note, I could’ve kindly suggested to Family Member that I didn’t see any harm in allowing Nephew to enjoy creative time on his own terms, and perhaps giving him a little agency, and even some compliments over his artwork might help her relationship with him.

I suggest you try replacing Nice with Kind. Every time you want to say the word “nice” use the word “kind” instead. It will change everything.

Kill ‘em with Kindness, as they say.

But that’s another entry (the letter K) for another day. . .

Did you know that I have two-other publications here on Substack? The MindfulSense Mentor🧚 and The 🧙🏼‍♂️Hobbit & The 🦉Owl.

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