Personal growth: Wasting people and wasting words April 4, 2017
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Solving Problems.Tags: Confucius, life, lifestyle, personal development, personal growth program, philosophy, self-actualization
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By Dennis Mellersh
Knowing when we should share advice and when we should withhold it can be an important skill or aptitude to develop in our personal development and self-actualization learning program.
Sometimes we don’t share when our input is needed by someone and other times we share when the recipient is not open to receiving it.
The ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius sums up the predicament this way:
“When a person is capable of understanding your words and you refuse to speak, you’re wasting a person. When a person isn’t capable of understanding your words and you speak anyway, you’re wasting words. The wise waste neither words nor people.” (1)
Not always easy however to determine which of the two divergent scenarios we are dealing with.
That’s why it’s a skill; and it takes some time and work to learn.
(1) Quoted in The Analects as translated by David Hinton in his book The Four Chinese Classics
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