Libra
One day," you said to me, "I saw the sunset forty-four times!"And a little later you added:"You know-- one loves the sunet, when one is so sad...""Were you so sad, then?" I asked, "on the day of the forty-four sunsets?"But the little prince made no reply.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Words that cannot be taken back do not become less true because they hurt someone. You know this even as you replay the conversation, looking for the kinder version you could have chosen, the softer way you could have landed the same point. The problem is not that you spoke poorly but that you spoke accurately at a moment when accuracy was not what the room needed. What you said will stay said, and what it revealed about the situation will stay revealed. The question now is not whether you should have held your tongue but whether the truth was worth the cost of saying it.