asma halai's blog

It made me realize that I need to be very careful with my words because they are powerful, and it is up to me to decide how to use that power. When you speak, it’s important to know that because you matter, your words matter too. Whether good or bad, how you talk to people defines you and your character, but I think how we talk about people when they aren’t in front of us is the most important test. Everything you say is a reflection of you. The comments you make about someone are a reflection of you. So anytime I make a joke about someone, it’s really important to realize that my joke says everything about me, and nothing about them. If you want to use hurtful words in your speech, that’s your discretion, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the outside, just way more about your inside. I know this because I’ve done it.

Sometimes, taking a look at the world, seeing the bigger picture, makes me reevaluate and recalibrate. Every moment matters, even when I think it doesn’t. And if that’s true, then every word I say matters too. I used to think people wouldn’t really remember what I would say or do, so it’s fine to say whatever, but today I realized that’s what the issue was. I thought my words didn’t matter, which is why I treated them like they didn’t. Why? because deep down I thought I didn’t matter. Everything I thought about myself was reflected in my speech. I think when you put others down, it just shows that you put yourself down, too. Nothing more. Things are “that deep”, whether you want them to be or not. So you can say “it’s just a joke,” but just the juxtaposition of it is that it just isn’t.

What are you really doing when you say that? The real meaning of it is that you’re trying to convince someone that what you said wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. But in convincing someone else of something, I found there’s a little part of me that is also trying to convince myself, because I know something wasn’t right. Teachers don’t try to convince you to learn; you have to do that yourself. They just present you with the information, and you gotta do the learning. I think similarly prophets were sent down, not to force or control but to reinstate a message, because we as humans forget, we’re heedless. You cannot change anyone; only Allah is the turner of hearts.

I know we can’t please everyone, which is why the environments we choose shape and mould us. When we choose environments that make harmful jokes funny, naturally, we just begin to find them funny regardless of their harm. As humans, we have a biological wiring to always weigh the pros and cons, which is why we do things like climb mountains and explore the unknown, because the pros of doing those activities outweigh the cons for the doer.

All in all, I love it when people laugh. I love the gigglers who are always laughing about something and being little beaming rays of sunshine. But there’s a difference in the laughter in which you have to hold your stomach, the rolling on the floor laughter, the laughing so hard you grew a six-pack and peed your pants a little laughter, than the 2 second scoffing laughter after a mean joke. It just feels like the cons of a mean joke exponentially exceed the pros.

In jokes, I think it’s important to be aware that if they are consistently and presently causing harm, they aren’t harmless.