My friends and I were playing an awesome game on motzei shabbos. It's called Loaded Questions, and the object is to see how well you know each other. So you take a group like the five of us, where we all know each other really well, and you have a great time. Basically, the game goes like this: one person asks a question, and the others answer. Then the person who was 'it' hears someone read all the answers and has to guess which one was written by who(m?). It was really funny, and had all of us laughing really hard at times. There was one question, that was actually totally serious, that really got me thinking.
"What is the most hurtful thing you can say to a person?"
After we established that SD had not been the one who wrote "there is a booger hanging out of your nose", we came to the definitive conclusion that SD's answer was the best. (No, I'm not bragging. Just need to report the facts as they are.)
My answer: "The (hurtful) truth"
This is a theory I have; the truth hurts. If you want to insult someone, don't tell them they look like a frog. They don't and it won't hurt them. Tell them that the only reason people are friends with them is because they pity them. Or tell them that they shouldn't bother trying to dress up so much, that she's ugly anyway. Or tell them that all the makeup in the world can't cover up those awful pimples. Or whatever other dart you can find to throw and pierce them in the most painful part of their heart.
We can also turn this around, use it the other way. If someone tells you something, makes a comment, and it hurts, you can learn something about yourself. That comment, at the very least grazed the truth. "You're fat!" did that hurt? Maybe because you wish you were skinnier but can't seem to figure out how to get there. If someone tells you that you sing really badly, and that hurts, wouldn't it stand to reason that you feel a truth in this? That you really wish you could sing better than you do?
So when someone makes a hurtful comment to you, look yourself in the eye, take a serious look, and ask yourself why that hurts so much.
Chances are, you have a lot to learn.
7 comments:
oh boy, oh boy, oh boy...
SD, thanks for another great post! you're really smart in the way you can analyze something and be so on the mark about it!!
just one comment: though you're right when you say that if a person is hurt by a comment someone makes to them, then that means that they a doubt already about that thing... i think a comment itself or an insult could cause a person to doubt themselves in that area, even if they didn't beforehand.
do you think so?
LS- um? good? bad? I'm confused.....
TB- Awww thanks. I am totally blushing now....
Yes and no. If someone tells me I look like a frog (to use my old example) I won't say "hey! I better go look in the mirror and see. Maybe I do look like a frog."
On the other hand, if someone tells me repeatedly, it might make me start to wonder. Even more so, if more than one person would tell me that I look like a frog, you are right. It could make me start to wonder....
Great post... ahem, sorry about that heres the truth. this post sucked, really could you think of anything better than come to a realization that the truth hurts and can be learned from.
So I was joking there, but can you really tell everyone "dont be embarrassed learn from it"
MIM- who said anything about not being embarrassed? I just said to learn about yourself.
i used to tell people all the time "someone can't put you down unless yuo feel down about yourself in that area" believe i wrote a post m'self at one point or another..
Dreamer- Well put. :) Link?
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