A matter of silence

Image courtesy of pixabay / Predra6

As surely a number of other people, I am somewhat preoccupied with the question of how to ensure quality in what one expresses in daily life; how to ensure quality in communication, so to speak - basically, how do I ensure that I express something that people are at all interested in listening to? For I do not hesitate to draw the conclusion that if I just occasionally end up in the situation where I'm not worth listening to, it will be all too easy for people to generalize that I am not worth listening to at all.
And then it struck me in its simplicity; one of these every day revelations which I sometimes experience: this is most likely obvious to the world, but I still feel a need to disclose it, as I find it so universally valid: when communicating, one should confine oneself to expressing things that can stand a very simple test: would I find this interesting if the roles were reversed, and someone else said it to me?
I think that if in general, we use this - let's call it a mirror principle, eventhough I know that Peter Drucker proposed such one has long ago - silence would be much more prevalent in the world, and what was said would be of a higher quality.
Paradoxically - it's probably so obvious to everyone that merely by discussing the principle, I myself violate it.
(Translated from En formel for stilhed, originally published September 9, 2013)