iExamen 2

Nicole Freemyer

10/23/13

iExamen 2

Kind Words

            Today I tried my best to only use words that were kind, useful, and true.  Before the iExamen, I thought that by the end of the day I would have had to stop myself from saying negative or unkind statements multiple times.  But as the day continued, I did not find myself struggling to retain any unkind words.  I noticed that overall, I use positive and kind language on a daily basis because this is what I have been taught and what I am used to.  That afternoon I had to tutor a girl in Spanish and during this time I had to be overly-conscious of my words because I did not want to use any unkind language that would discourage her or any untrue words that would give her false information. 

            Although I did not notice any drastic differences in the way I communicated today, I did notice some small problems.  It is my friend’s birthday today and as a joke I was planning on posting an embarrassing but funny picture of her on Instagram as my way of saying happy birthday.  But I though this would be an unkind form of communication so instead, I just posted a happy birthday message on her Facebook wall.  Also, today I was having lunch with another friend and she was telling a story while I was texting on my phone.  When she was done with the story I realized I had no idea what she said and so I made a random remark that was neither useful nor true.  I would not call myself a liar and I don’t think I make random remarks like this very often but now I am more aware and will try not to make useless and untrue comments like this in the future.        

            I told a couple of friends about this assignment and their initial reaction was the same as mine; “that’s really hard.”  But after completing the iExamen, I realized it was not as hard as I thought it would be.  Using kind words all of the time is easy and rewarding because you never know when a few simple, kind words could brighten someone’s mood or even their whole day.  Always using truthful and useful words is a little more challenging because sometimes people say things simply for the sake of keeping up a conversation and these words might not always be true or helpful.  For example, if someone says that they thought an exam was difficult and you respond by saying that you thought the same exam was extremely easy, that would make the person feel bad and maybe even dumb.  Sometimes it is better to agree and say that you thought it was difficult too in order to avoid an awkward and potentially hurtful situation. 

            Overall, I thought this iExamen helped me realize that I do use kind words very often and I think this relates to my generally good-natured personality.  However, this exercise has taught me to be more conscious of the degree to which my words are useful and true.  From now on I will try to be more honest and I will try not to say things simply for the sake of conversation.