People who know me nowadays wonder if I ever shut up. People who know me from high school wonder when I learned to talk. You think I’m kidding, but I’ve talked more with them on Facebook than I did in three years of high school. No, I’m not an introvert – I just act like one.

Point being is past performance is not destiny. You can change things you don’t like – that can be changed, of course. You may be stuck with your height and age, but not that foul mouth you picked up in college or the way you cling to the wall at parties or whatever bad habit you’ve developed.

What does this have to do with freedom of speech? Everything. We’ve spent the last sixty – seventy years convincing people that polite people don’t discuss religion or politics. In fact, never discuss religion or politics because it will cost you! You never know who you might make mad, what business you might lose, how you might have people yell at you on social media – it’s not worth the risk!

Nonsense. You lose more by being afraid to talk about your beliefs, your opinions, your thoughts, your hopes and your dreams than you will ever gain by just sitting quietly and letting the rude people rule the world. You lose your right to be heard. You lose your right to your own voice. You lose the chance to find like minded people. You lose the chance to learn from those of differing opinions. You lose all the things you might have had a say in because you remained silent.

Silence is how we lose the freedom to speak. Not by choosing silence – sometimes you learn more if you just shut up and listen – but by being bullied into silence. One of these things is not like the other.

As a kid, I was afraid to talk. I was that kid, the one that always got picked on. I figured – being seven and ever so not smart – that if I didn’t bother other kids, they wouldn’t bother me. FYI: that absolutely does not work in grade school, middle school or high school. Turns out other kids make up their own ideas about why you never talk to them, mostly by thinking your stuck up or something. And you can guess where things go from there. I was in ninth grade when a counselor finally figured it out and made me promise to talk to seven people every day.

I thought he was nuts.

I was in crash band so I figured I could just talk to everyone in that small class and be done for the day. Talking as in saying ‘hi’. Don’t laugh – it took all the guts I had to do that seven times every day, even in just one class.

It changed my life.

It took another ten years to get half way good at it but I did learn to make friends and to talk to people. If I can, you can.

I was literally afraid of being hit. I had reason to be – I got hit fairly often. Bullied, remember? What are you so afraid of? Not being liked – by someone who is so fragile or mean spirited that they dislike you for having a different opinion about the guy who represents you? Um, why, exactly, do you want friends like that?

Or business partners? Clients? Hairdressers? Okay, maybe dog catchers since no one likes them, but really, isn’t life a bit too short to juggle fragile people?

I’ve been fragile. I don’t recommend it. I didn’t get mad at people because they voted for the other guy – I just cried when they called me names. Understandable at seven, it’s nothing but a burden by twelve and just goes downhill from there. Catering to that fragility just let’s fragile people keep being fragile. It’s not a kindness. It only perpetuates the curse.

No mentally stable adult should be so fragile that they allow themselves to hate others based on political preference, ice cream preference or any other preference. Nor should they be afraid to tell you – tactfully – that the perfume you are wearing is not for you (remember not to mention the part about it smelling like a gorilla walked in as that isn’t tactful). This works both ways.

Being free to talk to others is not license to harass, harangue, annoy or sell Reader’s Digest subscriptions to others. You’re not three – you can read this so I’m on solid ground with that assumption – and you know how to act like a grown up. No one needs to be a jerk.

And no one needs to be scared, either. Seriously, do you want jerks for friends? Then why do you let them bully you into silence? What is that but a jerk?

Know what? As you start talking to people, you’re going to find that some of those fragile people aren’t so fragile. People defend themselves in a variety of ways, most of which are counter-productive. I blame learning social skills in a kiddie warehouse – I might be a bit biased, however. Point is, that person you were on eggshells around may actually want to be free to talk to other people – even ones they disagree with – without being so scared.

Be not afraid, God tells us. It was not the easiest advice I ever followed, all those years ago, but it was the best.

We cannot govern ourselves if we cannot even talk to each other. Make America a better place. Start small, just one person, and talk about what you think is really important, just for a moment or two.

Next week, try for seven!