WORDS ARE POWER – FOR GOOD OR BAD

“IT IS never my custom to use words lightly. If 27 years in prison have done anything to me, it was to use the silence of solitude to make me understand how precious words are, and how real speech is in its impact on the way people live and die.” These were the words of the late president Nelson Mandela.

A word is like a living organism: it has the ability to grow, change, spread, and influence the world in many ways. Words, when said and articulated in the right manner can change someone’s mind; they can alter someone’s belief. You have the power to bring someone from the slums of life and make a successful person out of them, or destroy someone’s happiness using only your words.

Does this seem a bit too good to be true? A simple choice of words can be the difference between someone accepting or denying your message. You can have a very beautiful thing to say, but say it with the wrong words and it’s gone.

I remember that when I was a child I got a present – a toy drill. I pressed this plastic drill against the wall with such zeal that I actually created a hole. Then my mum walked into the room and said, “Hey hey! What’s wrong with you? Don’t you ever do that again!” And guess what, I did it again. I did it again a week later. She came down and said: “Sweetie, come here don’t do that, you’re a big boy now.” And I never did it again because my pride wanted me to be a big boy.

I recently read a true story about Dev who follows the life of his friend, Nassar. Nassar idolised his father. He would do anything to make him happy, but his father was not easy to impress.

Nassar achieved straight As in his first year of university. He picked up the phone and called his father: “Dad, I got straight As. Are you proud? Please tell me you are proud, father.”

“Yeah, listen son, I’m busy. I’ll have to call you back.”

“I’m busy”, was the single sentence that broke the camel’s back. He started drinking, doing drugs, hanging out with the wrong crowd.

“Nassar, why? Why are you throwing your life away?” Dev asked. “If the one person in the world that I care about the most doesn’t care, then why should I?”

And one evening Dev got the phone call. Nassar had died in the emergency room – drug overdose. Words have power, words are power, words could be your power. – Ashraf Moosa