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THE POWER OF SILENCE
The Freeman
|September 21, 2025
I recently met with a former co-professor at Cebu State College (now Cebu Normal University) who shared an “incident” with a former classmate of hers — one which could’ve been better had they been more mindful of their words.
They had not seen each other for years, and they just randomly came by each other in the uptown area. Her classmate, seeing her, said “Oh my God, you are so fat! What happened?”
In a blink of an eye, my friend responded, “How are you? You're so thin and pale... like you just got out of a coffin!”
There was some spite there, indeed.
Naturally, the meetup did not exactly end well, and they parted ways with heavy hearts instead of happy thoughts. As rare as their meet up was, it could’ve been better.
She told me, “I should have not responded in that manner. I should have just been silent. I regret by my actions.”
A life coach has this to say on the matter: When someone says unwelcome and ill-comments, there’s no need to respond in the same manner.
This story is from the September 21, 2025 edition of The Freeman.
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