Member-only story
3 Gates of Speech, Plus 1
My Mom always talked about 3 gates of speech:
- Is it true?
- Is it kind?
- Is it about the person you’re talking to?
There are so many things to be cognizant of that often, we may not realize what we are doing. When communicating, there are so many things to think about if we want to be considerate all of the time, it is very difficult.
I’d even add one more that I heard recently,
Is it necessary?
The way that my mind works, I think about both sides of everything fairly quickly. So, when I think about things being true, kind, and about the person that I am talking to, I think about the flipside fairly quickly too.
As I went into on Sunday, there are often not many positive things that result from someone being not nice or unkind. And, obviously, not everyone is nice, and certainly not all the time, and most definitely not always in the way that we would like them to be.
So what happens when someone shares something that is not true? Well, we may believe it.
I remember quoting John Maxwell a few weeks ago, “the worst excuse is a good excuse, because then you believe it.”
