words have power

Choose your words carefully...they can make or break another's day.

I have said this many times over. You can be kind, spread goodness through words and others will naturally follow suit. You can spew out bitter profanities and again, others will follow suit. Your negativity can literally bring a world to its knees! How? Simple. You get mad at the barista at the local coffee shop for some small pittance. You have just created havoc in her world. Now she will become negative towards other customers in her line, who then go about being rude to the waitress at the diner, the mailman, an office worker...see how this cycle continues? Kind of like pay it forward, but making bad payments as you go about your day instead of good.

In our world, we currently have leaders who have been bombastic with regard to attitude and actions. This is leading to people taking up weapons and firing them at will at innocent people, claiming that they did it because...

The arguments here about the guns used is valid. If not a gun, it could have been other weapons of destruction. But a gun is quick, accessible and volatile. And the destruction-rampant. However, it is also what is in the heart of the one who choose to create deadly havoc...and how they acquired their source of inspiration in the first place.

After the dust has died down, what we have is a series of horrific events whose beginning may very well been when a person was swayed by the arrogant opinions of another.

I know how words work. When I was a teenager, I lived in a very sad abusive situation at home. About that time, the music group, Kansas had a song titled, "Dust in the Wind." The words, in a part, went, "don't hang on. Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky It slips away, all your money won't another minute buy..."

If you were going on 16 and heard those lyrics and were tired of life, what would YOUR reaction be?
Mine was to attempt suicide. I was tired of always being the one picked on, the one bullied, the one who was blamed for simply being by a mother who didn't want me and a father who was too weak to stick up for his own flesh and blood.

Words. What words will you be choosing today? Be a friend and spread kindness. Even after the fact of the shootings that took place this past weekend, on social media there again was finger pointing instead of just allowing the hatred to die. Hate breeds hate. Love blots out hate. Be a joyful person. Hate can stop with all of us just minding our words.