You’re in class, surrounded by your peers, who are eagerly discussing a controversial and culturally relevant topic. You want to participate, but every time a thought strikes you, someone else says it the second you’re about to raise your hand. You eventually decide to keep your mouth shut and listen to what everyone else has to say because they definitely know more about the subject than you do anyways. But then the teacher, who warned you at the beginning of the semester that 30% of your grade was based on participation, looks directly at you.
“Sarah, you’ve been pretty quiet. Do you have anything to say?”
All fourteen of your erudite and loquacious classmates turn towards you.
Your palms start to sweat. “Uh,” you say, and pause.
You can suddenly hear the clock on the wall behind you ticking, which is funny because it’s a digital clock.
“Uh, I agree with Emma, actually. What she said a minute ago, I was actually about to say that.” You laugh nervously.
No one else laughs, though.
You seriously consider dropping the class (but you don’t because you need it to graduate).
If you’ve attended school for more than a month, I’m sure you are familiar with this situation. Sometimes, you just don’t have anything to say. The teacher calls on you and you literally have nothing to contribute to the discussion at hand. So you sit in the corner of the classroom and feel stupid, and you hope no one from that class ever speaks to you again. Especially not the two girls behind you who are now whispering, probably about what an idiot you are.
You may think this sort of occurrence will eventually stop taking place — once you’re older, maybe, or you get to know the people around you, or you’re used to the environment. Guess what? You’re wrong. You will be dealing with That Awkward Moment In Which You Have Nothing To Say for the rest of your life. But so will everyone else (except the few perfect humans to whom this has never happened, but we don’t like them). The reality is that you won’t always have something brilliant to say. You won’t always even have something smart to add. Sometimes, you literally have nothing to say. And that is one hundred percent okay.
We all know that kid who talks non-stop and always seems to be saying something clever. But guess what? He or she messes up sometimes. When you talk a lot, you say stupid things (multiple studies have been done on this subject). Sure, you say stupid things even if you don’t talk a lot, but the chances of that happening are obviously much smaller since you just plain don’t talk as much.
So if you worry about those times when you find yourself the only person who doesn’t have anything to say, don’t. Because it happens to everyone. You’ll think of something to say. And it’s the quiet people who usually seem the smartest!
