The art of shutting up

Last night was an informal block party in one of our neighborhood street celebrating the end of summer. We were invited and asked our son, daughter-in-law and grand-son to join in. The skies had been threatening all day, so few people showed up, but in spite of the limited number of participants, we all had a good time.

As we were chatting with everyone, I realized how people love to tell their own stories. They somehow have to come out, even if they sound trite or are of little interest to others. At the same time, I also realized how badly we want to tell our own things too, and what gives is the fact that we're perhaps more gracious, have done that before and chose to yield to others.

That's is good, because not only it keeps us humble but it also prevent us from talking about boring generalities and sometimes uttering the not-so-smart things we hear from others...