I heard a phrase in a movie the other day that has always fascinated me. You know how when you sit down to talk to somebody about something important, and you are about to lay things on the line—either you are about to say something that he or she doesn’t want to hear, or you are about to say something and you aren’t sure how he or she is going to react, but you know that you must speak, so you work your way up to what you want to say, and then you preface it by saying, “The thing is…”?
Setting the mood is important. Not jumping too quickly is too. But the conversation really starts when you say “The thing is…” Those three words can be terrifying to utter because you know that the next sentence or two could change everything. And if everything doesn’t change, then something is probably wrong. But the thing is…life isn’t supposed to be a steady constant that is void of change—as much as we’d like it to be.
We all live in a private world in which our emotions are undisguised and our motivations are generally pretty clear, but when we choose to reveal a little of ourselves, this one little phrase changes all of that. That’s why it intrigues me so much.
