It could happen, right? Despite your very best efforts, you could find yourself in the baffling predicament of having nothing to say.
Maybe you’re facing an awkward situation, where it’s not easy to come up with the right thing to say. Perhaps you’re out for a walk with your dog on a local trail. You’re in the act of gathering up your dog’s droppings into a handy plastic bag, tying up the top, and dropping the malodorous packet on the side of the trail, when someone walks up to you and says, “Did you forget something?” Busted! You’ve got nothing to say.
Or maybe you’re trying to be generous by buying donuts for the whole gang. You burst into the room with a big smile on your face. Before you can pull out the box with a flourish, you notice that the group is discussing their hard-fought efforts at dieting. There is a general consensus that donuts are the worst food imaginable — that even just looking at a delectable glazed donut will instantly doom the viewer to another 10 pounds. At that exact moment, someone turns to you and says, “What have you got hidden behind your back?” You mumble, “Nothing,” and slink out of the room. You’ve got nothing to say.
Or maybe you have an essay due tomorrow and no creative ideas in the well. You’ve run through a number of options in your mind, but none of them seem particularly witty or insightful. In truth, you’ve got nothing to say.
There are some situations where having nothing to say can be a virtue. Social media comes to mind. Kudos to you if you have the fortitude to scroll through the comments on social media and refrain from chiming in. You’re doing everyone a favor by not sending negativity out into the universe.
But what if your job is to speak out on social media? What if you’re an influencer with millions of followers who wake up every morning wondering what wise or outrageous thing you are going to say in the next ten minutes, before they even have time to brew their coffee? Can you disappoint those eager fans by telling them that you have nothing to say? Or, is saying that you have nothing to say actually having something to say? The resulting philosophical discussion should get them through their morning coffee.
If you make your living by speaking and imparting wisdom, like a minister or teacher, being speechless could be the worst thing to happen to you. There you are, standing in the pulpit, gazing out at a sea of people in the pews, and you have nothing to say to them. The best you can hope for is a squealing microphone that covers up the awkward silence.
What can you do when you have nothing to say?
• Quote song lyrics. Forget about studying Biblical texts or quadratic equations, just spend your free time listening to classic songs and storing up the lyrics in your brain, ready to pull out at a moment’s notice. Your anxiety about appearing speechless will disappear. “Don’t worry, be happy,” along with Bobby McFerrin.
• Quote movie lines. Some movies, like “The Princess Bride” or “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” have lines that are so iconic and applicable that you can slip them into any conversation. You have to be mindful about word choice, however, or someone might come up to you and say, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
• When all else fails, you could fall back on the magic word that gives you “something to say when you don’t know what to say,” according to Jane Banks. It takes courage to go this route, however. Are you really prepared to come right out in your sermon and proclaim, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?” Preach it, Pastor!
In the end, it’s not a sin to truly have nothing to say. Say nothing. Your fans, parishioners, or students will forgive you — they might even join you in a rollicking song and dance from “Mary Poppins.” Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
• Peggy McKee Barnhill is a wife, mother, and author who writes cozy mysteries under the pen name “Greta McKennan.” She likes to look at the bright side of life.
