Is it better to speak or to die? Now, ideally, we would all rather speak than die. But, in reality, it’s not as easy of a situation. It’s not as simple as opening your mouth and uttering words, or falling into death’s traipse, because nothing in life is as simple as we wish it were.
When we choose death, we are choosing to put other people’s feelings first. We are consciously ignoring our thoughts and opinions. By deciding on death, we have irreversibly chosen to put aside our self-respect in order to make others feel better. Death means pleasing other people, rather than pleasing ourselves. However, death saves people from heartbreak. Though, in my opinion, no heartbreak could ever equal the internal sadness that my soul would feel if I decided to forget who I was, and disrespect myself, by preventing someone else’s heartache.
Choosing to speak also comes with its countless problems, as it will mean that no matter how we try to phrase it, or try to say it, words are words, and they will always mean what you intended for them to mean. So, while you’ll be telling people (in the nicest way possible, I hope) what you truly feel and think, sorrow and pain can’t be prevented. What one person decides to communicate may hurt, and sting, or it could make you laugh and smile, but that’s what happens when you decide to speak. It’s sort of like playing Russian roulette, as you don’t know what the outcome will be.
Now, I’ve taken an actual long time to analyze that question, and it has come with some self-reflection on my part. Keeping my emotions within, in order to prevent my feelings and thoughts from hurting someone’s, isn’t worth it, not one bit. By shushing my mouth, it feels like I am not letting myself be who I truly am, and that, is so incredibly grim. I’ve thought about it, and I couldn’t even entertain the idea that I could leave this world with everything that I ever wanted to say but never did, on my chest. To even know that this is some people’s situation, and that it could be mine if I wanted it to be, made me feel faint.
Nothing has made me feel more utterly broken, then pushing my feelings down my throat into the farthest and darkest crevices of myself, and not communicating truthfully. I don’t want to live my life thinking, “what if”. What if I had told that person how much they hurt me? What if I had given my friend that compliment? What if I had asked for help? What if I had told that person how much I loved them? Lost opportunities will only come back to bite us.
Life isn’t supposed to be experienced through silence, or lies, or manipulation. Mayhem is inevitable, in whichever way we see it. Paying the price for someone else, by silencing myself, is not worth it.
I choose to speak. No matter the chaos, pain, or havoc it will cause in its turn, I choose to speak, every single damn time.
And yes, it sounds narcissistic and selfish to ignore everything I said above, but I’m not. I’m acknowledging it, and deciding to put myself first, since, at the end of the day, all we can ever truly count on is ourselves.
So, I’d rather die than not speak my mind.
