Use Your Inside Words

Blog post #411 of 365

I remember when people first started using the phrase use your inside voices. Meaning to talk quieter and directly to the person you are trying to address and not an entire play yard of people all at once. It is a great idea.

I have noticed lately there are several over used words. Beautiful, awesome and epic among them. These words are often used to describe women and sometimes men. It is peculiar for me to see so many attractive, pretty or even ordinary looking women describe each other as beautiful, awesome or epic. Really odd for me. I have a bunch of really attractive friends, beautiful even but I read something a not particularly close friend wrote about women. He said, "I use words like awesome, kind, generous, humble, competent and so on when describing women." Okay I found the over used awesome a little off putting and think there would be few occasions to use competent (not that the women or men I know are not completely competent at stuff is just seems like an off handed 'compliment.') But it got me thinking.

Wouldn't it be nice if the descriptive words we use to describe people were actually complimentary? They might be compliments fit for the situation or general if meant in a general way but they shouldn't they in some way at least try to be a compliment if possible. Going back to that old Thumper line, "If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all." I have known many mean vicious and even evil people in my life but honestly I can find something nice to say about even the most vile humans. Hard but not impossible.

I appreciate compliments based on my insides way more than my outsides. Looks based compliments feel a little hollow and kind of easy. Given without much thought.

Give it a try. When you give your next few compliments make them about the inside, the character, integrity, honestly, loyalty, intellect, kindness etc. Your inside words will have a much greater impact than nice smile or you're cute would.