Do you hear how you speak to others? I had to ask that question twice to get your attention. It’s important.

Do you acknowledge that the words you speak can hurt someone’s feelings?

I hope you do.

We are not rocks.

We are not a pole.

We are human beings with brains that give us emotions and the ability to have feelings.

We are feeling beings with emotions.

Anyone who thinks that they could say whatever they want out of their mouth with no regard for anyone’s feelings is wrong. I’m not referring to being funny, being emotional, like yelling at your football team’s opponent. Sometimes that is warranted and no one gets hurt (unless you’re a fan of the other team), anyway, you know my point, don’t say things that could hurt someone. Just don’t do it.

As humans, we’ve evolved to live in a civilized society that can take into consideration other people, other than ourselves, if we want to.

 

Think about your child or children, or any child growing up today. What are we giving them? If we continue to be rude, obnoxious, or just say anything that pops into our heads with no regard for the person we are communicating with, that teaches our offspring or youth in general that they can act that way. No, it’s not socially acceptable behavior! When will we get this?

I went to Staples today to return an Amazon purchase. The only reason I elected to go to Staples (since it’s out of my way and not convenient to get to) was because Amazon listed it first as helping them keep more trucks off the road. I cared about that enough to go out of my way to return it when I could have chosen UPS, which is on a route I travel.

The customer service woman at Staples clearly displayed she had no love for her job or patience for not-so-quick phone people like me. I didn’t have the email already opened when I got to the counter, and that was a problem for her since there was one guy behind me who was filling up a box on a table and not ready to check out. I knew I was the only one. If I could’ve seen through the counter, I’d have seen her foot tapping. I am a very fast typist on the computer, but I get anxiety typing out stuff on my phone when I’m in front of someone. (I am working on not caring.)

I have to say I was pretty pissed when I walked out of the store, vowing never to go there again. I told my husband what happened, and he said that Staples is on its way out. Huh.

My point is that if that woman had heard what she said to me and how she said it, and was aware of basic human decency, she might have been different toward me and other customers.

Look, it’s not okay to be rude and an asshole. Even if you think it’s funny or cute or cool or whatever, it’s not funny or cute or cool or whatever! It’s really not.

You could have a reputation as being the life of the party, the one you always have a good time with in social situations, but then do a job you can’t stand and take out your angst on the innocent, and just don’t care because you wish to be somewhere else. What are you giving out? Sarcasm? Sass? Negativity? Apathy?

Jokesters can offend people and disguise it as light-hearted banter, and that they don’t mean anything by it, but words can still sting (and scar), so be careful how far you take busting.

I want to live in a world where people still care about one another. I want people to look one another in the eye and care about the responses to their “How are you doing today?” Do not just ask for the sake of asking.

What are we doing? Seriously. What are we doing to leave this world better than when we got here? Are we passing around kindness and love? If not, we might need to reflect on how we treat people.

I will keep on saying and writing this until it gets through to people that you cannot say whatever you want to someone without consequences. There is a cause and effect to everything we experience.

For those who believe that they have thick skin and don’t let stuff like rudeness or disrespect bother them, then good for you. That’s amazing and something to be grateful for. However, those of us who are more sensitive cannot brush it off so easily. And that’s okay! I had to learn to love myself and appreciate my sensitivity instead of seeing it as a defect (what I grew up believing).

I’m here to tell you that everyone matters. If you don’t want to be spoken to like that, then don’t say it to someone else. It’s very simple. I struggle with this, I know. I lose patience and might be snippy where it’s not necessary to be that way. I’m working on being more aware of my actions to change that.

We can be better people towards ourselves and others, and all it takes is being aware of our thoughts, words, and actions.

To hearing ourselves,

Francesca

 

 

Written by a human for humans.

© 2025 FrancescaME | All rights reserved.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.