Some of the best wordsmiths I’ve ever heard are rappers.

Some of the most profound things I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing came from children, simply spoken.

Religiously speaking, even the Torah teaches us that words are not to be spoken lightly.  (As in the story of Jacob and Esau and the stealing of a blessing.)

According to a study from UPenn, the average person speaks between 6000-8000 words a day.

6000 chances to hurt somebody.

6000 chances to make somebody feel great.

I think, from personal experience, sometimes we take for granted that we can talk.  We say things we don’t mean, and treat the words that come out of us as temporary, fickle.  We say “I said it out of anger, I didn’t mean it.”  We say, “I should have said that to him/her before…”  Or, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

A couple of years ago, I played a little game with myself where I would “only speak a certain number of words a day.”  I didn’t actually keep track of how many words I spoke, rather, I kept track of the amount of time I spoke.  Knowing I had limited words made me a lot more cognizant of what I was saying and made me a lot more picky about what I let myself say.

Things I don’t think people say enough:

• I love you.
• I’m sorry.
• I was wrong.
• You are important to me.

The next time you’re arguing, the next time you’re having an emotional confrontation — remember that what you tell somebody can have an effect that lasts a lot longer than the fight itself.  Remember that the next time you want to take five seconds to tell someone you love them, the way they feel will last a lot longer than the time it took for you to say it.  Choose your words carefully.

Here is something Christopher Walken said about this:  ”Words are little bombs, and they have a lot of energy inside them.”

I couldn’t agree more.