A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit. When the other frogs saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead.

The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump out of the pit with all their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell and died.

The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out.

When he got out, the other frogs said, “Did you not hear us?” 

The frog, with some difficulty, conveyed to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.

This story teaches two lessons:

1) There is the power of life and death in the tongue. An encouraging word to someone who is down can lift him and help him make it through the day.

2) A destructive word to someone who is down can be what it takes to kill him.

Words are very powerful. According to the texture and quality of words used, they have the ability to inspire or demoralize. Words can encourage and motivate a person to perform good, positive actions. At the same time words can also discourage and demotivate a person into inaction or worst, can incite a person into performing bad, negative actions, which can be disastrous to the person and the society at large.

Words have no teeth, but when they bite, it causes a lot of pain, and sometimes the wound is so deep, that the life ends but the wound never heals.  

One word can work like medicine and another can inflict a hundred wounds.

God also doesn’t like hardness in speech; hence he has not given any bone in the tongue.

Tongue is there since birth and remains till death and it is soft. Teeth manifest after birth and may not last till death and they are hard. 

“The tongue, like a sharp knife, kills without drawing blood.” — Lord Buddha

The tongue has the power to hurt and also to heal. So, we should be very careful of every word we speak. It can affect many lives, including our own! Therefore, endeavor to speak politely, softly with sweet words. We need to be careful of what we say. We should speak words of encouragement and inspiration to motivate, inspire and encourage, those who cross our path, to be always positive. 

The power of words — it is sometimes hard to understand that an encouraging word can go such a long way. Anyone can speak words that tend to rob another of the spirit to continue in difficult times. Special is the individual who goes out of the way to encourage and inspire another.

“When you face your fear, most of the time you will discover that it was not really such a big threat after all. We all need some form of deeply rooted, powerful motivation — it empowers us to overcome obstacles so we can live our dreams.” — Les Brown  

Don’t ever take away someone’s hope — it may be all they have.