All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard.
Interpretation
Sometimes, silence is more powerful than speaking, even if it makes you feel foolish.
In this quote, Margaret Atwood suggests that there are moments in life where remaining silent and observing is wiser than speaking out, even if it might make one feel foolish or uncomfortable. It highlights the importance of reflection and the strength found in restraint, implying that sometimes the most prudent course of action is to listen and absorb rather than to respond impulsively.
In practice
During a meeting where tempers flared, I reminded my colleagues of Atwood's quote to encourage listening rather than arguing.
If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go; but it’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.
I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.
What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it. Nobody in any other game would be crazy enough to hire me. I wouldn't even make a good ditch-digger, I'd start tearing apart the sewer-system, trying to pick-axe and unearth all those chthonic symbols - pipes, valves, cloacal conduits... No, no. I'll have to be a slave in the paper-mines for all time.
We love each other, that’s true whatever it means, but we aren’t good at it; for some it’s a talent, for others only an addiction.
I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.
Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.
Stunned and still not suffering. Swollen with care and anxiety and still not suffering. Useless, old and full of grief, but still not suffering.
We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots?
All emanates from Source! ...You're not this body and its accomplishments. You are the observer. Notice it all; and be grateful for the abilities you've been given, the motivation to achieve, and the stuff you've accumulated. But give all the credit to the power of intention, which brought you into existence.
The feeling of being valuable is a cornerstone of self-discipline because when you consider yourself valuable you will take care of yourself- including things like using your time well. In this way, self-discipline is self-caring.
Wash the dust from your SOUl and HEART with wisdom's WATER.
There is something magical about putting a problem in writing. It is almost as though by writing about what is wrong, you start to discover new ways of making it right.
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