Talking to Myself

There are a lot of things my father didn't tell me.Things he did tell me were often ambigous or wrong. Still, I am glad that he did tell me. Because it was he who told me those things, I tended to think about them. Such thinking has proved helpful to me.

When I was quite young, perhaps in responce to a question of mine about a man talking to himself on the street, he said, " Its okay to talk to yourself; its even okay to answer yourself; but if you find yourself saying 'huh?' or 'What did you say?' look out"

We do sometmes say something out-loud to ourselves. A bit more often we might whisper to ourselves or just move our lips as in silent reading. Most often we just think our words. We seldom say to ourselves, "What did you say?" Perhaps we should.

Another thing my father told me is that, "A thing worth doing is worth doing well." I think about that. I continue to learn that listening to myself well is important. Listening to myself a bit better is teaching me how important it is to talk to myself well.

My honest attempts to say to myself things that are true, is paying off in healthy reaism and happiness. I cannot tell myself the perfect truth, but honestly trying to tell myself the truth is paying. Speaking to myself with increasing honesty is helping me to more effectively cooperate with realities of man, God, cosmos. The truth is freeing me and adding to my power to use that freedom well.