Recently I was chatting with an old acquaintance of mine and she reminded me of some dumb comment I made in high school. Now, let me get this straight: I made lots of dumb comments in high school. Either I was tired, spacey or just wanting to get the teacher’s attention with a comment from the peanut gallery, but there was always some silly, random, or off-topic comment being uttered by moi.

You know how high school kids are, right? Laughing and giggling in class at stupid jokes made by ourselves or others was the perfect outlet for a bunch of hormonal teenagers who have had too little sleep.

Problem is when these comments that this writer has made almost 4 decades ago, are still imprinted on said writer’s classmates’ minds.

How do I know? Because whenever I get together with some of them, I get comments like, “Oh you were really funny in high school.”

Now in case you thought “funny” meant “one with a sense of humor” – according to said classmate, think again.

It seems “funny” meant “capable of making goofy and nerdy jokes that everyone remembers till this day.”

How embarrassing and humiliating, I think. I don’t want to be remembered that way by other people.

Until I think again and recall the mantra which says:

Nobody can make me feel embarrassed without my permission.

So much for sound bites of dumb comments made in high school.

Other Sound Bites:

I was thinking about sound bites and their imprint on people’s minds, when I met up with some friends from my high school at a class reunion. Some of the gals were reminding each other, “Remember when you did this? Remember when she did that? Remember this person, that teacher, this classmate and that one? Remember what she said?…..”

Problem was that not everyone recalled the same things. While Sue and Rochelle recalled a particular incident that they viewed as hysterical, Sarah claimed that incident never happened. Some of the other gals at the restaurant vaguely recalled some sort of episode or character described by Sue and Rochelle.  And others were nodding their heads hypnotically, as if the nodding would jog the neurons in their brains, causing Sue’s and Rochelle’s visions to pop up.

Each one of us holds memories of past episodes that shape our futures. Events happen, and we sift out what we deem important from the mundane, recalling only what is relevant to our frame of reference. At the end of the day, we take what we need, and throw away the rest from our long term memory. Years later, some association of it will bring up the memory, if there is relevance.

Media and Words:

Words have the power to last in people’s minds from day to day, year to year and generation to generation.

For example, nowadays, everything in the media happens in sound bites. Someone says something – a talking point, message or blurb.  Those words are published online, in print, and blasted on the radio waves.

Forever. Can’t take them back. If what was said was we intended, then great. All is well. But if what was spoken, was an error, or a misstep or a blunder, then all is not well. We may want to grab the words back, and shove them into our mouths.

But we can’t.

Depending on how interesting, or news worthy the item is, the sound bites — and some embellishment – spread like wildfire, as people post it on Facebook and other social media.

This can cause untold suffering for the person who finds that their negative words or others’ words about them have been published for all to see.

Words can influence people for the good…or for the bad. We need to choose our words carefully and wisely because they have an impact – on the world, on others, and in the media.

But most of all – they impact us. What we say defines us.