"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me."
That's a phrase that we were taught as a kid and often found ourselves saying it when someone tried bullying us; but the thing that no one taught us is that, that phrase is definitely not true when the words are coming from someone we care about or someone we deeply love. Words leave a deep impression, A single word can make the difference between liking a person and disliking that person. Let's say you are about to meet a person whom you have never met before, and a friend of yours tells you that they are untrustworthy, so everything that they do or say will make you think they are untrustworthy.
We tend to look at everything through filters, these filters are created by our friends, family, and even the media; and that is exactly how the media controls us. If a politician or the news introduce a bias into a story, the readers or listeners tend to view the situation through the biased filters created by the politician(s) or the media until they are exposed to the other side of the story as well; however, that is unlikely to occur because people generally do not consult multiple news sources. If you are a reputable person, who's a role model, a person to whom an entire country looks up to, or if you are just a piece of paper through which people tend to get their information, anything you say is going to be believed, literally anything you say can be taken as truth.
Words when said in the right way can change someone's mind, our words have power to bring someone up from the brink of suicide and we have the power to destroy someone's happiness so much that they just take their own life. When we tell someone that they are ugly, or fat, or useless, or stupid, or whatever you think is wrong with them in your opinion is just that; your opinion.
Not gonna lie, I am guilty of this too, I might have hurt more people than most of you, I do it thinking I am doing it for the betterment of them while in reality it is only to feed my ego, and it is only so I can feel better, without caring at all how the other person is feeling until they actually show they are hurt, which most of the time they don't. In return, I started losing good friends, friends who I actually care about, so, I decided to change, to be better than I am, not gonna lie, I still unconsciously hurt a lot of people, but I am trying to change, I am.
As, someone said once, the tongue has no bones, but is strong enough to break a heart. So be careful with your words. So, let's just promise ourselves that we will be more careful with our words, for once they are said, they can only be forgiven but never forgotten.