Being generous in conversation

Around the beginning of this year, my mum told me something about being generous in my conversation. I looked at her quite in the "What on Earth are you talking about?" manner and waited for her to explain. A lot of people like to talk, talk about themselves, about their accomplishments, and sometimes, like you and me, they like to exaggerate. I love exaggeration. I have this whole blog to prove that. I realised, that while I am given the privilege of exaggeration in my writing, many times, I'm cut off or corrected while speaking. Especially when narrating a story. And the story is funny. It's so annoying. Or when you get excited over something like your crush paying you a compliment and then suddenly someone tells you that they like someone else, or they're just being complimentary and it means nothing. So what if your crush likes someone else, it's just nice to soak in that moment and feel excited about it. It would be nicer if that person let you have your moment.

Well, one thing I realised after my mum and I had that conversation is that people like to shut others down as soon as possible, and that I was also one of those people. As much as I hated it being done to me, I was also equally being a part of the shut down crew. I was quite appalled at my behaviour and more so of the fact that I hadn't noticed! Sure, there are some people who need to be shut up, but there are so many of us who just like telling a story, gushing over a boy, meeting a celebrity, going to a concert or whatever else. Enough of this one-up thing that people do, that I sometimes do. It's not fun competition, its exhausting and so self involved. 

I'm trying to be generous, to let others speak and let them have their moments. It's so hard when you've been so conditioned to compete for attention, to make yourself as "cool" as the person speaking and unfortunately, almost conditioned to climb up by bringing the other person down. It sucks that we're a part of a society that is like this. I'm not palming off the blame, I think I'm smart enough to know the difference and make my own decisions.

The other day, I read a tweet about someone being so excited because they spotted a Lynx in their backyard, and then someone else saying "Oh, I see them all the time." Isn't that sad? Like why don't people reply with "OMG That's so cool" or "Did you get a picture?" or something that makes the other person feel good about themselves? I'm also kicking myself because I didn't reply. 

I thought I was getting quite good at being conscious of my reactions and reacting positively, but a couple months ago when my cousin visited, he managed to pick up my cat, who was famous for being unfriendly. When he told my mum this excitedly, I chimed in saying "Oh yeah, only for a few seconds." Now what was the need for this, why did I have to say something like that, why couldn't I just let my cousin be happy, because it WAS a huge deal to have picked Cinnamon up! I later realised what I had done and dear lord hindsight is really 20/20!

Celebrities like Taryn Manning and Sophia Bush have said things like this, people ahve liked it and wholeheartedly agreed with them on their instagrams. But honestly, are people really understanding the value of being nice, of being supportive?

I know I still have a long way to go, but I think it's important that people are generous in their conversation, Let people have their moments and encourage positivity. I'm hoping that if you, whoever you are, do read this post, you at least think about how you react, be honest with yourself and either change or continue with the positivity :)