My local post office in DC offers a rather helpful decision point that I only just noticed today. Below the slot where you place your mail is a convenient receptacle for trash. I’m fairly confident they didn’t design this as a cognitive prompt. But I’m going to take it as one, anyway.
Every moment we say something, mail something, or send something by email or social or other media, has a moment just before it where we make this choice: Send it, trash it, or pause to recraft it to make it worthy to send? It struck me this morning how often I squander that “moment just before.”
The folk wisdom about that moment is captured in this pithy sentence:
If you propose to speak, always ask yourself, is it true, is it necessary, is it kind?
That quote is commonly attributed to the Buddha, although the helpful researcher at Fake Buddha Quotes suggests otherwise. The Buddha offered five indicators of “right speech” in a similar vein:
It is spoken at the right time. It is spoken in truth. It is spoken affectionately. It is spoken beneficially. It is spoken with a mind of goodwill.
Now, I’m no Buddhist, but I’m gleeful about co-opting smart people from the past. So, I’m adapting both checklists to create one of my own:
Is it true? Is it useful? Is it kind? Is it necessary?
I probably can’t ask the U.S. Post Office to display this checklist next to their “send or trash” decision station. But I can certainly place it on a post-it note on my computer screen, and ask myself (truthfully, usefully, and kindly, of course) whether the thing I’m about to send or say is worth the sending.
I wonder if some savvy developer could make a Thunderbird extension or Gmail Lab that would require you to tick the boxes before the “Send” button would light up. I’d support that.
For those of who are long-time Rotarians (read: community arts managers infiltrating a service organization), we recite the Four-Way Test every week:
1) Is it the truth?
2) Is it fair to all concerned?
3) Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
4) Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
My local club has added a fifth question, “Is it fun?!” which I recommend adding to your list, Andrew. Anyhow, thanks for coming up with your own pithier version of the 4-Way Test and applying it to something as ubiquitous as “trash, send. rework.”
Thanks Sally! I hadn’t yet infiltrated the Rotary culture enough to know about this four-way test. Fantastic! And yes, of course fun! Except for those moments when fun isn’t the best frame for the message.
Andrew,
another aspect of or way to focus this, which I came upon through Quakers is “speak only when you can improve upon the silence.” I have heard that attributed to Gandhi, Buddha, and several others, as well, though.