Endoh’s Dungeon

Honestly, how many of you guys have faced issues in life which you had kept silent about… but yet, you feel the intense urge or desire to blurb it out? I’m curious, seriously. It’s a wish that you could do just that, but somehow you can’t for one reason or another. Let me guess, you have had that experience in your own family, perhaps at your workplace or even your own friends.

We know this saying, don’t we? That, if it doesn’t really matter then no respond is required. Every other person on Earth has muttered these words at some point, and once in a while I do question the validity of such statements. Is it something that we truly mean? Or will that be just a piece of comforting literature?

I can’t say for sure when is a good time or bad time to sound out a certain ideal, or displeasure. What I do know though, that sometimes keeping silent is not the best option as we may think. Looking at hundreds of conflicts in my entire life (which is relatively short still), there are occasions which I felt saying nothing is better than saying anything at all. On the other hand, there are also events when saying nothing is absolutely disastrous.

It’s human nature I supposed, for all of us to hide something inside our hearts. Most of us assess the choices of keeping silent or sounding out based on what we feel, and not how the reaction will bring about subsequent changes in a given set of issue. True, most of the times we are seriously better off not saying anything. How does that helps the situation at hand? If such a move prevents further conflict or violence, and giving enough space and time for both parties to think through their next moves, why not?

What about times when you know something is miserably wrong? I feel at times like these, keeping silent is like allowing an avalanche to continue rolling. Some may choose to use the term “snowballing” but it doesn’t matter. Sure, it will stop some day. I prefer using avalanche as my choice of analogy because in most cases of avalanche where humans are involved, lives are lost and families are devastated. It doesn’t stop, until some serious damages are accomplished. Hence, keeping silent sometimes may end up like an avalanche causing more damages than we hope for.

Personally, I have had occasions where I blasted out in a friend’s face… for something that I have endured for YEARS by keeping silent. I am sure some of you are also having this problem maybe at a given time in your lives, and somehow, all of us decided that enough is enough. Surprisingly, it worked better than being “tolerant” sometimes.

I think this is why many relationship gurus or counselors always encourage communication. Keeping silent is seriously not an option until a problem is fixed, as much as most of us casually preach it. Take for example, incidents like domestic abuse or child pornography… just imagine how much more damage will be done and how many more lives will be destroyed? Or on a smaller scale, that you have been maligned with something so untruthful and drastic, it affects your reputation and integrity?

What do you think? Is keeping silent really such an effective tool?