Think Before You Speak, Read To Enrich Your Thinking
Surely more than once you would have wanted to say to someone: “Think before you speak, get informed before elaborating a thought”. Because? Perhaps you were realizing that that person was expressing a thought with great enthusiasm, but without arguments.
Maybe it has happened to you too, it’s easier to talk lightly than to build an elaborate and argued thought. In other words, it is easier to say “it is so because yes” than to justify one’s thinking.
Most writers say that in order to write, you need to read a lot first. The same goes for a conversation: always think about what you want to say, how and why. In this sense, the bottom of your cultural background is very important.
Think before you talk
Human language is special because it allows you to compose infinite sequences with a limited number of letters. Furthermore, the means we have at our disposal to express ourselves through language are many, direct or indirect.
This forces us to learn to use it in a way and, little by little, we can do it without problems, if it were not for that thing called “impulse”. Over the course of the day, half of our talk is driven by impulses.
It is difficult to be fully aware of the value of every word we speak, so we appreciate listening to those who succeed. Those who stop, think and dare to think before speaking show prudence, perspective, and good temper with others.
Read to enrich your thinking
On the other hand, words have more force than we often attribute to them. They can create harmless or painful speeches, strike a deal or strengthen relationships, motivate or demotivate to an unthinkable level, etc.
One of the most accessible and effective ways to form critical thinking that will help us adapt and grow is reading. Reading is the key to giving dignity to our thinking and to be able to transmit it intelligently to others as well.
Reading infuses us with wisdom and, as the writer and philosopher Baltasar Gracián would say, “books make us people”. Thanks to books, we exercise and train the mind, so we improve in making decisions, consolidate principles and think with our heads.
Now you can build critical thinking
The intellect, therefore, feeds on life experiences and above all on the culture that comes to us from other people and with different means. In this way, if we are able to reflect on all the information we acquire and make it a useful tool, then we will be able to develop critical thinking. A thought that perhaps will be worth more, even if there are always exceptions, than the first one that would have come to our mind if we had not informed ourselves or what we have read if we had not evaluated it.
It is useless to express an opinion just to do so or to give for certain what we read if we have no reason to do so. We are annoyed by people who do it because we have the feeling that it is not possible to discuss anything with them: they talk a lot to talk and do not value what we have built with our arguments.
If we want others to consider what we want to communicate, then experts advise us to adopt a position of prudence and caution. Few times we have the absolute reason and often the other party has some reason. It is about taking full advantage of the power of the mind and developing its potential, including those of informing us and speaking wisely.
