August 9 | In Defense of Keeping Your Mouth Open

There are a lot of great reasons to keep your mouth shut.

Here are several reasons to keep it open

No one else gets the privilege and horror of living in your head. Self expression of every kind is a risk—first, the risk that you won’t be understood, and second, the risk that you’ll be understood and rejected anyway.

Mark Twain can talk all he wants about how it is “better to be thought of as a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt” but Mark Twain is dead and doesn’t read email so screw Mark Twain.

Keeping your mouth shut is great for listening and absorbing information. But ultimately, you’re going to have to do something with all that information—you have to enter the fray like everyone else.

No one ever said “I love you” with their mouth closed… Read the rest