I have no idea what I was thinking when I agreed to not talk for a day. I thought it would be a funny, a joke to all my friends and my mother who could never get me to shut up. I had no clue it would actually be a real challenge for me. I knew I liked to talk but never realized to what extent.

Every time I opened my mouth to utter anything, I had to catch myself. Remembering I’d made this commitment to keep silent put me immediately on edge. Instead of being a participant in all the conversations I loved, I was now just simply an observer. I felt like I was watching life go on without me. My opinion, my voice and my ideas were left unheard.

I couldn’t help but think of all the words that I wanted to contribute to conversations that were left unsaid or all of the jokes I was mentally laughing at in my head that I was dying to crack. I felt passive and detached from everything going on around me.

There would be questions I knew the answers to and I was forced to just sit back and watch people scramble around like chickens with their heads cut off.  Then there would be discussions where I’d be knowledgeable on the subject and I would bite my tongue.

Little things people would say would aggravate me to no end. I’d wonder to myself, “Wow, did they even bother thinking before they opened their mouth?”

I’d be stuck scratching my head, trying to wrap my mind around some of the ignorance coming out of their mouth. While I was thinking and quite frankly judging, I had to stop and ponder something.

Was I just as guilty of diarrhea of the mouth? I thought back on all the times I was flying off loosely at the mouth, screaming out random thoughts and not caring the affect my words were having on anyone.

In my own egotistical, overweening brain, I viewed all my words as perfect and a great contribution to any discussion when in reality, they were not.

I’d think something, let it swim around in my head for a little while then dismiss it. I didn’t really need to say that, I’d think and soon, I found myself shrugging off all the little, pointless things I wanted to say.

I was forced to mostly people watch and realized how much inordinate attention I gave to talking instead of listening. I noticed little characteristics about people that I never would have considered worthwhile if I had been talking.

The words coming out of others mouths suddenly mattered more because the words coming out my mouth were non-existent. I realized how much of a blessing it was to be able to voice my opinion but also, to be able to hear others.

I would sit and listen to someone talk about something that mattered to them and instead of waiting and readying myself to respond, I was just simply listening and finally, truly hearing them out.

People had more to offer than I ever imagined. Listening to a group of girls side conversation about a Walt Whitman book I had never heard of or zoning in on a discussion a bunch of jocks were having about the NHL lockout I had no clue was even going on were two clear examples of how never bothering to listening to others had hurt my general knowledge on the world around me.

I also realized just how important it is to exercise your right to voice your opinion and how when people remain silent, the world really does lose out on something. We were not given a mouth and vocal cords to simply be bystanders and silent observers. We were given these tools in order to stand up, speak out and be counted.

I thought of all the people who were too shy or maybe too embarrassed to ever voice their opinions and I became frustrated. Everything important they had to say and all the ways they could make positive change with their words was simply being wasted.

Suddenly, I was valuing others opinions more and more. People’s thoughts were precious and ultimately worth more. For once, I was considering others greater than myself.

I felt like even though I wasn’t verbally agreeing with some of the opinions being said, my silence made me an  enabler.

I began to wonder, “What would happen if today was the day were I really needed to speak up but couldn’t?”

I realized that finding a happy medium between listening and talking was the only way to solve these problems. I didn’t want to be someone who could never learn because I was constantly running my mouth but I also didn’t want to be a person who allowed the world and life to pass them by, never posing a question or uttering a word.

I decided that I wanted to be someone who could listen well and also speak well. Through this experience, I have figured out that in order to do one exceptionally well, you must have a good grasp on the other.

Your words and thoughts are considerably better when they are tried and tested against someone else’s. The only way it is possible to do this is to listen with the intent to learn.

In order to be a good listener, you must know what is worth being heard and what is not. You need a discerning ear that is able to take in what’s important and cut out what is not.

Listening and talking are both necessitates to being an educated, intelligent individual. In today’s society, it is easy to let one of these tools fall by the way side but people who have learned how to master both, are considerably better off.