A 24-hour challenge

Can you go for 24 hours without saying anything unkind about or to anyone?

I often challenge workshop audiences to try to do so. Always, some people laugh nervously. They’re sure they can’t go a whole day without making an unkind reference about another person.

“Then you have a serious problem,” I tell them. “Because if I were to ask you whether you can go for 24 hours without drinking any alcohol and you said that you can’t, that means you’re an alcoholic. And if you can’t go for 24 hours without smoking a cigarette, that means you’re addicted to nicotine. And if you can’t go for 24 hours without speaking unkindly about or to another, that means you’ve lost control over your mouth.”

If you are willing to carry out this experiment, check your watch. Resolve that until this time tomorrow, you won’t say anything negative about another person. (The only exception will be the very rare instance where it’s necessary to transmit such information: You learn, for example, that a friend of yours is about to date a man who beat his ex-wife.)

Throughout the day, you will constantly monitor how you speak. If you need to criticize, you will restrict your criticism to the incident that provoked your ire and not engage in a generalized attack on the person who angered you. If you enter into an argument, you will argue fairly, without allowing your disagreement to degenerate into name-calling or other forms of verbal abuse. Throughout the day, you will not disseminate negative rumors. You will refrain from defaming groups as well as individuals.

In other words, for a full 24 hours you will follow the Golden Rule, speaking about and to others with the same kindness and fairness you wish them to exercise when speaking about and to you. You will act as a person of good character, focused on helping people with your deeds and healing them with your words. At the least, you will not hurt people with your words.

– Joseph Telushkin

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