Rusty Rudders and Broken Bits Syndrome

Helpful Vocabularly

rusty	生锈
rudder	舵
bit	爵环
self-fulfilling prophecy	自我应验预言
self-deprecation	自我贬低的，过分谦虚的
viz. (abbr. for videlicet)	那就是
reinforce	强化
to elicit	引出；诱出
verbal creature	平时运用语言来跟自己、他人沟通
phenomenon	现象
utterance	言辞;言论;话语
Here I go again!	我不得不重蹈覆辙
subconscious	下意识的
to evoke	唤起(记忆等);引起
specious validity	似是而非
to perpetuate	使永久存在
manipulation	操控别人的感情
asset	宝贵的人材
to deflect	使偏斜;使转向
downfall	垮台(或没落)的原因
verbal diarrhea	嘴巴的拉肚子。说出话来像拉肚子时拉出屎来一样块、流利、难以控制
demeaning	贬低人的
contritely	懊悔地,痛悔地
body-to-body	身体与身体中间没有空间
furious	狂怒的
ungrateful	忘恩负义的
antidote	对抗手段,矫正方法
leak out	泄漏
to trigger irrational anger	引起不合理的愤怒
curtly	唐突草率地
to fume	怒气冲冲

Introduction

Let's look at this photo of a ship. The name of the ship is the "Gerd Knutsen", and its gross weight is 79,244 tons. Now look at this photo of the rudder of the same ship. It weighs 5.5 tons. This means that a rudder that weighs 0.007% of ship determines the direction of the ship.

Now look this photo of a horse. Compare that to this photo of a horse bit. Using this tiny piece of metal, the rider can control the direction of the horse.

For boats and horses, really small things control their direction. Now, my question today is this: For us humans, do our bodies possess any member that exercises as a great a control on the direction of our life? I submit that we, in fact, do possess such a member, viz., our tongue. Let's look at this quote:

For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. James 3:2-5

原来我们在许多事上都有过失；若有人在话语上没有过失，他就是完全人，也能勒住自己的全身。我们若把嚼环放在马嘴里，叫它顺服，就能调动它的全身。看哪，船只虽然甚大，又被大风催逼，只用小小的舵，就随著掌舵的意思转动。这样，舌头在百体里也是最小的，却能说大话。雅各书 3:2-5

This quote has two main points:

1. The way we use our tongue directly influences the direction of our life just like rudders and bits directly influence the direction of boats and horses, respectively.
2. By implication, if we learn how to control our tongue, it will drastically improve the quality of our life.

On the other hand, some of us (including myself) might feel like our life is not going where we want it to go. It might be because we have not yet learned to use our tongue wisely. You might say that we have Rusty Rudder and Broken Bit Syndrome, and today I want to share with you in my own life and experience where I have noticed that my tongue has taken the direction of my life where I did not want it to go. My outline is as follows:

1. Unhealthy communication with self
1. Reinforcing lies that control us
2. Self-fulfilling prophecies
2. Unhealthy communication with other people
1. Unhealthy motives
1. Eliciting pity
2. Eliciting praise
3. Buying attention
2. Unhealthy content
1. Complaining
2. Criticizing
3. Toward a definition of a healthy tongue

Unhealthy Communication With Self

This first point is related to my last training on Stinkin Thinkin. Last time I shared this quote:

Sow a thought, reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.

播下一种思想，收获一种行为；播下一种行为，收获一种习惯；播下一种习惯，收获一种性格；播下一种性格，收获一种命运。

However, after thinking about it, I don't think that this quote is quite complete. The chain is missing a link, so I want to change the quote a little bit:

Sow a thought, reap an utterance. Sow an utterance, reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.

播下一种思想，收获一种话语；播下一种话语，收获一种行为；播下一种行为，收获一种习惯；播下一种习惯，收获一种性格；播下一种性格，收获一种命运。

We are all verbal creatures, and when we have a thought, it very naturally comes out our lips. Even if it is embarrassing to admit, we all talk to ourselves. It is a natural way to interact with our environments. Sitting in this office, it is easy to witness this phenomenon. A lot of the sounds I hear are not a person speaking to his pair, but a person speaking to himself. Some of us speak to ourselves more than others. I don't know how many times I heard a sound coming from Daniel, I said, "What?", and he responded, "没事，没事，" because I was not the intended audience for that utterance. He was his own intended audience.

Reinforcing Lies That Control Us

Even though self-talk is normal, not all content of self-talk is healthy. Let's look at some of the things that I have heard coming out of my own mouth:

• I'm so stupid!
• Here I go again!
• I'll never solve this problem!
• There is nothing I can do here!

When we first look at these sentences, we might not realize how unhealthy they are. But if we turn the "I" into a "you" and think about what would happen if we said it to someone else, we can imagine the effect more easily. If I said to you, "You are so stupid," what type of effect would it have on you? If you are a person with little self-confidence, it will reduce your self-confidence. If you are a person with a lot of self-confidence, it will make you angry. When we say these types of negative statements to ourselves, it has the same effect in our own lives, but at the subconscious level.

Last time I talked about how the lies we believe produce in us "Stinkin' Thinkin'", which leads to all the negative behaviors in our life. When through self-talk we speak these lies to ourselves, we actually are reinforcing the lies, we are giving these lies more power to control us.

Self-fulfilling Prophecy

A related idea is a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is defined as follows:

The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original false conception come 'true'. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning. (Robert K. Merton)

So it is a really good idea to stop and listen to what we say to ourselves. When we say to ourselves negative statements about ourselves, this is unhealthy and will take our life in a direction that we did not intend.

Discuss: What are some things that you say to yourself that you would like to stop saying?

Here is a prayer that I like using to ask God for help in this process:

Set a guard, O Yahweh, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips! Psalm 141:3

耶和华啊，求你禁止我的口，把守我的嘴。诗篇141：3

Unhealthy Communication With Other People

I notice that the way I talk to people is unhealthy in two ways: motive and content. Let's look at these in order.

Unhealthy Motives

When I use my words to try to take advantage of people's emotion to get them to do what I want, it is called manipulation. This is an unhealthy motive for communication. Unfortunately, I see it present in my life a lot. Let me give two examples.

Eliciting Pity

A lot of times, when I say things about myself, my secret motive is cause the listener to respond with words of pity or comfort. For example, I frequently get up earlier than other people. But I have noticed that sometimes I might say something like this: "I am so tired. I did not finish deploying until 10 p.m.". And then I look at the person expecting him to say something like, "Oh, Philip, you work so hard. You are an invaluable asset to our company. You don't have to work so late next time." Now, there is nothing wrong with acknowledging to someone how tired I am or referring to a late night deployment. The problem was that my motive was to elicit pith, and I would have been disappointed if the person did not say what I expected. Eliciting pity is a form of manipulation and unhealthy. People generally realize when they have been manipulated and feel used. Then they will try to avoid the manipulator in the future. Thus, in the end my tongue took me in a direction I do not want to go.

Discuss: When is a time where you used your words for the purpose of eliciting pity?

Eliciting Praise

There is a phenomenon that I have observed in Chinese culture. I personally do not do this, but I wanted at least to point it out and ask about it. The phenomenon is called self-deprecation, which means this:

Self-deprecation … refers to making negative statements regarding one's own appearance or abilities, such as saying "I'm so fat" or "I'm such an idiot", often with the intended result that their friends will tell them that they really aren't.

Let me illustrate this. In America, if someone compliments me and says, "Wow, you really sing well!", I are expected to accept the compliment and say, "Thank you." In China, I am expected to deflect the compliment and say, "哪里，哪里，我唱得不好听，我的声音很差，等等。"And then the first person should say something like, "不是，不是，别谦虚，你真的唱的很好。" And then I should deflect it again, etc. This feels really strange. I sometimes do it in Chinese because it is culturally correct. But if I were to do it in English, it would have a different meaning: that I am desperate to hear the compliment so I repeatedly deny it in order to manipulate the other person into saying it over and over. I am really curious about this practice.

Discuss: Can someone explain to me what goes on in the mind of a Chinese person when he does this?

Buying Other's Attention

This next one might be hard to understand, but it is actually one of my biggest downfalls, so I want to share it. Let me tell you a little bit about myself. From a young child, I was very insecure in my ability to make friends. My older brother noticed that I was having trouble and gave me a book called How to Win Friends and Influence People. I don't remember anything the book said, but I do remember what my brother said when he gave it to me: "Make the other person have verbal diarrhea." In other words, encourage the other person to speak to the degree that words flow out of his mouth as fast as diarrhea flows about of your anus. I understood his statement to mean: Ask a lot of questions.

Being the impressionable child that I was, this is exactly what I did. I was terrified that if I made any statement, people would become bored and no longer want to be my friend. So I asked and asked and asked questions. I could have three hour "conversations" in which I never said anything except to ask questions. Other people praised me that I was such a good listener. But the truth was that I hated this behavior. It felt so unfair and demeaning. Unfair because I never had the opportunity to speak; demeaning because my actions were saying that my thoughts and words were unimportant. I was consistently like this until I was two years out of college, and I still struggle with this.

Just last week, I arranged to have dinner with a friend. While we were eating, I suddenly felt insecure that I could contribute anything interesting to the conversation. I am not talking about a little bit of insecurity here. I panicked and felt that the stake of the whole friendship rested upon my ability to make interesting conversation during the next block of time. As a result, I entered my natural "question mode." I asked and asked, and he shared and shared. Eventually, he got a phone call and needed to leave immediately. As he left, I thought to myself, "I did it again." I was angry at myself because I had again allowed fear to control me; I was angry at him because he did not see through my behavior. But my anger toward him was not just. The fact is that I was actually manipulating him. Through asking questions, I made him feel important to the point that he temporarily suspended his expectation that I would say anything.

I call this "buying attention" because I am "buying" the other person's attention/friendship at the price of my own right to speak, individuality, etc. This is an unhealthy way that I use my tongue. Every time I do this, I feel angry afterward, and it takes my life in a direction that I don't want to go.

Discuss: When have you tried to manipulate someone with your speech?

Unhealthy Content

In addition to unhealthy motives, I also struggle with unhealthy content. Practically speaking, this means that a lot of complaining and criticism comes out of my mouth. Lipu is to be pitied on this point: Since he lives with me, this unhealthy content usually gets directed toward him. I contritely share two examples.

Complaining

One time Lipu, Doreen, and I went to 中山路 for supper. Afterward, Lipu and I needed to start the long trip back to 前埔. It was already late, and the 503 bus is usually body-to-body with no seats. He asked whether we should take a taxi or bus. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it must have been very negative and complaintful. Lipu became furious, said, "你为什么老是抱怨？", and would not talk to me again for the next 12 hours. I have to assume that this is a pretty common part of my speech since he frequently comments on how much I complain. What I have realized is that I am a very ungrateful person, and so complaints flow out of my mouth almost unconsciously. This is a very unhealthy use of the tongue. No one likes to be around a complainer, and I have repeatedly created distance between me and other people because of this trait.

The obvious antidote to this problem is to become a thankful person, which I want to do. The following quote encourages me in this pursuit:

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

要常常喜乐，不住地祷告，凡事谢恩，因为这是神在基督耶稣里向你们所定的旨意。（帖撒罗尼迦前书 5：16－18）

Criticising

This next one is also very, very hard for me. I get so angry when people do not live up to my expectations. For a while I try to pretend that everything is alright, but in the end my true feelings always leak out my lips. During the time that we have lived together, I can count neither the number of hours that I secretly held anger toward Lipu nor the number of critical statements that have come out of my mouth. The one below is just one that happened recently.

Last week there was one time when Lipu forgot to turn off the light in the bathroom when he left it. The previous week he had just corrected someone-I think Jimmy-for not shutting off the light when leaving the bathroom. When I saw this, it triggered irrational anger in me, and I curtly asked him, "你为什么老是忘记把洗手间的灯关掉？"What followed was a typical exchange between us where each of us became increasingly self-defensive with each sentence. Doreen was there, so I had to pretend not to be angry, and I just stopped talking. We headed out to each lunch while I fumed in silence. As we ate lunch, I reflected on my behavior and how my tongue had again brought distance between me and my friend. So I suddenly interrupted the conversation and said, "I was wrong back there when I judged you for forgetting to shut off the light. Would you please forgive me?" Lipu forgave me, and our friendship was restored.

As I said, this is just one of many examples. I really, really struggle with judging people in anger. There are two quotes that really help me as I try to overcome this weakness of mine:

Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven … For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you … Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye. (Luke 6:37-42)

你们不要论断人，就不被论断；你们不要定人的罪，就不被定罪；你们要饶恕人，就必蒙饶恕 … 因为你们用甚么量器量给人，也必用甚么量器量给你们 … 为甚么看见你弟兄眼中有刺，却不想自己眼中有梁木呢？你不见自己眼中有梁木，怎能对你弟兄说'容我去掉你眼中的刺'呢？你这假冒为善的人！先去掉自己眼中的梁木，然后才能看得清楚，去掉你弟兄眼中的刺。（路加福音6：37)

Discuss: Share a time when the content of your words took you down a path you did not want to go. Maybe it was complaining, criticizing, lying, flattering, gossiping, or something else?

Toward a Definition of a Healthy Tongue

So far I have mainly shared how I have used my tongue in an unhealthy way and it turned my life in a direction I did not want to go. I did not talk much about healthy communication because I could think of so few examples from my life to share. But there are some principles that I am trying to learn to follow. And even though I cannot illustrate them from my current life, I still wanted to share these three principles with you briefly:

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. (James 1:19-20)

我亲爱的弟兄们，这是你们所知道的。但你们各人要快快的听，慢慢的说，慢慢的动怒，因为人的怒气并不成就　神的义。（雅各书1：19－20)

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:6)

你们的言语要常常带著和气，好像用盐调和，就可知道该怎样回答各人。（歌罗西书4：6 ）

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (Ephesians 4:29)

污秽的言语，一句不可出口，只要随事说造就人的好话，叫听见的人得益处。（以弗所书4：29