‘If you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all.’

That’s a motto that my mother taught me growing up, and it’s only in the last 2years that I’ve really started to understand why.

We all grow up judging, when you’re in a group and one person starts commenting on the stranger’s outfit that just walked past, you all chip in. You think it’s cool, it’s funny.
Until you start to realise you’re the stranger walking past and all those people you were sat with are now commenting on your outfit. It’s not nice is it?

I’ve started doing the opposite, commenting to my friends how much I loved that stranger’s style, how cool that guys hair is. There was a little kid singing on the bus the other morning, I could tell by the tune they were singing twinkle twinkle and it put a smile on my face. However I knew in the back of my head some of the older generation would not be happy with the child purely for the fact they were singing in their own language in a largely English speaking country. This filled me with sadness and a strange realisation.

My mother taught me the moto stated above, however I found it was always the older generation saying awful, unneeded things.

‘That top does not suit her.’ 
‘Her hairs awful.’ 
‘how stupid do they look’ 

Things that you can’t change about a person you don’t know, things that might make that person very happy. And things that are just generally not necessary.
Ive been in a situation recently where people have been making comments on strangers that essentially apply to my life without them knowing. Im feeling judged and scared to do the wrong move, say the wrong thing. Because if that’s how you comment on someone you don’t know, what would you say to someone who you do know? Lie and fake a smile. Or be as blunt and honest as you were to the stranger who couldn’t hear you? Because its easier when they don’t hear what you said isn’t it.
I believe if everyone lived by the moto above, the world would be a much kinder place.