Speech is a Weapon | Greater Jihad Ep. 5 | Ramadan Tarbiyyah

Well, you know, the events kind of derailed or interrupted our the series, doing the series. I know that there's gonna be people who want me to talk right now about Iran. But I will say I have already talked about Iran pretty extensively on the channel, and I talked about it even more extensively or elaborated more upon what I have already said about Iran. Elaborated on the Middle Asian discussion group on Telegram. But I made a commitment to this topic, to doing this series, the topic of tarbiyah, the topic of practical morality, of discipline, and so forth.

And that niyah shouldn't be easily abandoned. And that's even a sort of a lesson in tarbiyah by itself inshaAllah. That you don't abandon your niyah once you have committed to do something. And I think anyway, what what I wanted to talk about today sort of relates to talking about Iran. Or really talking about anything.

Talking about anything, particularly when it's something that you feel compelled to talk about, when you feel pressured to talk about it. Whether you feel pressured by others or you feel pressured by your own emotions and so forth. You know, because I wanted to talk about practical discipline, I wanted to talk about practical measures that you can take, practical modifications of behavior, actual intentional steps that you can take, practices that you can implement to change your behavior to for the better, InshaAllah. Because the truth is that a great deal of what we do is just reflexive, it's just reactive. Like I said, you just make yourself or you let yourself become just a cluster of urges and a cluster of reflexes that can get activated by others, that can get activated by emotions, activated by feelings and compulsions and so forth.

By your nefs, basically. There's not a lot of intention behind a great deal of what we say and what we do on a daily basis. We're on autopilot, most of us. You take a very laissez faire hands off approach to your own existence, to your own life. You just let the program run with no real conscious management.

I think there's a lot to say about that by itself, just in and of itself, that as a topic. You know, how we're how you're almost you're almost not even present in your own life, you know? Even if you have main character syndrome. Even if you have main character syndrome, you're barely even there. You're barely even there consciously, intentionally, deliberately.

You're barely even there. You're like a lead actor who has no director. But that's not really that specifically isn't what I wanted to talk about. I wanna talk more about a specific manifestation of this. Again, practically.

Because the the, as we talked about before, the internal affects the external and the external affects the internal. What you do, how you act, how you speak, all of this has an internal impact. These outward actions have internal impact, impact upon you as a person. You understand? Behavior modification, whether you're talking about improvement, improved behavior or deterioration, this causes internal modification to yourself, internal modification to your heart.

Like I said, look, you're innocent. You're pure. Like I've said, your your fitra has an orientation towards goodness, has an orientation towards decency and dignity and so forth. That's what it wants. That's what your fitra wants, but it's your hostage at the end of the day.

You understand? Your nature, yourself, your physical body, those are your hostages. They're all hostages and you're completely in charge of that. You can make it do this or that. You can make it do things that it might even silently grieve being made to do.

That's And why it's very important. It's very it's very important to understand or to know as Allah told us that every single part of your body is gonna testify about how you used it. Your hands, your feet, your legs, your eyes, your your your tongue, your brain, your private parts. They're all gonna tell on you. On your they're all gonna tell on you, and they are all completely subject to your control.

Allah, he or she made me do this and that. They made me do this. They made me do that. They they they did not use me as you intended. You understand?

He or she took me to places that I never wanted to be. Do you wanna hear that testimony? They made they they made me do things that I never wanted to do. Yes. You can abuse yourself.

You do abuse yourself this way. You oppress yourself this way because you are the caretaker of your being. You're the caretaker of your body, yourself, and you're either a good caretaker or a bad caretaker. You understand? You're either good or bad.

You're either negligent, selfish, coercive, abusive, or you're responsible or you're irresponsible. You understand? You protect or you deprive your being. You protect or you deprive your soul, your body of its rights. It's right to be honorable.

It's right to be decent. It's right to be dignified and clean. It's right to be utilized as intended or otherwise. But, obviously, if you are mostly absent, if you're mostly consciously absent, if you don't proactively manage things and you just let reflexes and urges and emotions and your become the overseer of your being, well, the testimony of yourself, the testimony of your own body on the day of judgment is gonna be against you. It's not gonna be for you.

It's gonna be against you. You're gonna be blamed. You'll be blamed for not preserving the beautiful pristine gift of your being. Your eyes, your hands, your tongue, your brain, your private parts are gonna complain about how you treated them and how you used them and what you made them do. What you made them do.

Because no one else is making them do anything but you. They're gonna testify as victims, your victims. And that is tremendously serious. On an individual level, I don't know what's more serious than this, to be honest. We're talking about literally the first and the primary thing, that you are responsible for as a human being and what you have control over as a human being.

The one thing that you have absolute control over. The immediate realm of your authority. You're talking about your, physical self, your limbs and so on. Your eyes, your hands and whatnot. These are all under your control.

Then you have to think about whether or not you manage those, those things that are under your control, if you manage them in a disciplined way and in a responsible manner. You know, I was gonna begin talking about these specific things by talking about lowering the gaze, about not subjecting your eyes, not subjecting your vision to seeing what they should not see. Seeing what causes turbulence to your heart and so on, what causes fitna for you. Because obviously, you know, especially now in the in the age of the in Internet and smartphones online and social media and whatnot, your eyes are subjected to a continuous deluge of scenes and of images and so forth that they should be protected from. Things that you you don't need to have in your eyes all day every day.

I think it's safe to say that that's more than ever before in human history. I'm not just talking about the obvious. I'm not just talking about your eyes being subjected to the obvious things they shouldn't see. I'm not just talking about seeing people's nakedness, for example, or their lewd behavior, about seeing people's that's supposed to be covered, about seeing what seeing things on people that only their spouses should see. I'm not even talking about that.

Because lowering the gaze doesn't only refer to that. You know, brothers always talk about lowering the gaze in relation to women, but it's about far more than that. Lowering the gaze is about far more than that. Seeing what you should not see doesn't only mean girls in revealing clothing. It doesn't only mean, pornography.

I mean, that's the most basic level of it. That's the most basic level. That's the obvious level. Of course, you're not supposed to be looking at that. Obviously.

Of course, you're not supposed to look at that. And of course, looking at those things harms you. It damages you. It damages your heart. It hurts your purity, obviously.

But it's also a lot more than that. It's much more complex than that. That's like beginning tier of understanding with regards to lowering the gaze. That's the beginning tier. That's the lowest tier.

Really getting it right is a lot more challenging. It's a lot more difficult to really get it right. So that's not what I wanted to talk about this time. Inshallah, next time or another time. Because I don't think it makes sense to actually begin with the more difficult things.

The more difficult behavior modifications. So talk about that right at the beginning. So let's talk about something that's easier. Something that is objectively easier than protecting your eyes from, passively consuming sites that they should not see because that is difficult. And that is guarding your tongue.

Guarding your tongue, controlling your speech. You know, I said in the in the Middle Nation Telegram group the other day that you should understand that when you do not control your tongue or when you cannot control your speech, you actually expose a lot more about yourself than the thing that you're saying. And more than what you think you are telling people about yourself when you say something because you can't control your tongue. Because not only is there the thing that you're saying, the uncontrolled, reflexive, undisciplined thing that you're saying, which reveals a general lack of seriousness in you, a lack of discipline, lack of self control. But the truth is that you are also revealing that you are very likely very likely, you're also not controlling your eyes and lowering your gaze because that's a much more difficult thing.

You understand me? So if you're not even controlling what's easier if you're not even controlling what's easier to control, then it's there's very little likelihood that you are controlling what's more difficult to control. I mean, like I said, your eyes are just passively viewing things. Your eyes passively view things. But speech is something that you do actively.

You have to actively do it. Silence requires no effort whatsoever. You know, moving your tongue, typing on a keyboard, or what have you, this is some kind of an effort. You know, the passive state of speech is silence and breaking silence is an act. You see the difference?

In order to not misuse your eyes in order to not misuse your eyes, you have to make an effort to lower your gaze. You understand? The disciplining act requires some effort on your part, but not speaking requires no effort. Miss speaking, saying things that you shouldn't say is already secured just by the passive default state of silence. So that's easy to avoid.

So if you're not controlling your tongue, then I already know that you're probably not controlling your gaze. You understand me? You know, if you can't lift a 100 kilos, I already know that you can't lift 200. If you can't do the easier thing, then I already know that you can't do the harder thing. And I say that controlling your speech is easier.

I'm not saying it's easy. It's easier. Control your speech is easier than what is more difficult. But on its own, no, it's not that easy. And it's not that simple.

A lot of people think it might be simple. Right? Speak good or remain silent. This is what told Speak good or remain silent. So that's the basic level.

That's the basic guidance that you should follow. And that's similar to the hadith about the halal is clear and the haram is clear. And then between the halal and the haram, there are doubtful matters. So the safest thing for a believer to do is to avoid what causes you to doubt and and and prefer that which does not cause you to doubt. So leave what causes you to doubt in favor of what does not cause you to doubt.

This is good speech and silence. The two clear things. This is the simplest and the most comprehensive guidance. The most, the simplest and the most comprehensive instruction on how to avoid harming yourself by your own actions. Avoid what is doubtful.

Speak good or remain silent. So what is good speech? Speak good or remain silent. So what's good speech? Well, obviously, the best speech is the speech of Allah, the Quran.

But in the context of normal interaction, what are we talking about here? What is good? Good speech. Speech that is guided by the Quran. Meaning speech that does not conflict with the Quran.

Speech that does not violate what has been stipulated by the Quran and so forth. Speech that conforms with it. That conforms with the Quran in letter and in spirit. Speech that is helpful. Speech that reminds you about Allah.

That reminds you about accountability. Speech that enjoins good and forbids evil and so forth. This is all very clear. All of this should be obvious. That this this is how you can define good speech.

Speech that reconciles people, speech that mediates disputes, speech that guides people and encourages people to be better, to do right, to be upright, speech that calls people to virtues and so forth. Again, all of this should be obvious in terms of defining what is good speech. Not speech that's hurtful or hateful, Not speech that promotes cynicism or despair or hopelessness. You know? Not speech that humiliates and degrades people.

Not speech that has a a negative impact, suspicion, envy, malice. Okay? Again, all of this should be obvious about speech that's not good. These are very basic guidelines. Very basic guidelines.

But you can see even now just with the basic guidelines how difficult that is to even comply with on a daily basis. But again, there is more complexity. There's even more complexity to it. I mean, to comply with these basic guidelines, if you wanna comply with these basic guidelines of good speech or silence, then you have to have some understanding of how this actually manifests in your speech, in the real world, in your in the way you really interact. You have to understand the impact of words, the impact of language, the ramification of your words and so forth.

You understand me? Because as we know, you may say something that you think is very small. You may say something that you think is insignificant. But it could be massive in the sight of Allah In fact, if you start to think about it, if you really think about it, a great deal of the religion is related to speech. I mean, the word Quran itself means recitation, means speech.

The word hadith is narration or even conversation. Speech, we're literally talking about words, spoken words. Spoken words that changed the world. Words that changed lives that brought billions upon billions of people to Islam over the last fourteen hundred years through speech, through words, through spoken words. And the prophet emphasized over and over and over again how crucial your speech is to your own uprightness, to your own goodness, and to your own salvation or to your own ruin.

So begin with respecting this. That's where you begin, respecting speech. The tongue is subhanallah. The tongue is the most powerful muscle in the body. That's both, physically true and you can say metaphysically true.

You understand? Because as I say, you are affected by what you say and by how what you say affects others. All of this affects you. It affects your soul, affects your account. Being casual and being careless about speech is more dangerous.

Truly, it's more dangerous than being careless with a lethal weapon. I mean, how many sins? How many serious sins are related to speech? Lying, backbiting, slander, gossip, cursing, expressions of kufr, verbally, mocking people unjustly, accusing people unjustly, speaking without knowledge, over praising people, over criticizing people, subhanAllah, making false promises, giving false testimony. You understand?

Verbally denigrating people or belittling people, being argumentative, exposing secrets, private matters, and so on. I mean, on and on. SubhanAllah. Allah subhanahu ta'ala said that the want to extinguish the light of Allah with what? With their mouths.

Means with their speech. To mislead, to misrepresent, to misinterpret, to misguide, to misconstrue. So like I said to begin with, you need to begin with respect on this issue. Because, you know, in the West, if you're in the West or if the West is in you, then respect for speech has been completely disintegrated, has been completely degraded. It's not taken seriously at all.

Lying is easy. Maligning is easy. Backbiting is easy. Slander, gossip, false promises, revealing secrets, speaking without knowledge, mocking people, cursing people, baselessly accusing people, arguing for no reason, insulting people, profanity. This is basically social media.

This is basically popular culture in the West. They literally train you to be cynical, to be irreverent, to be sarcastic, to be glib, to be flippant, to be hyperbolic, to be sensationalistic, to be provocative. Okay? This is not responsible. This is not responsible.

You're trained to argue. You're trained to complain and to be bombastic and to be over the top. You're literally taught the opposite of controlling your tongue. You're taught the opposite of controlling your tongue. Discipline in speech is punished in the West.

Refraining from opining about this or that or the other thing is discouraged. You're supposed to have an opinion. You must have an opinion about anything and everything. Even when being informed about matters is not an accompanying requirement. No need.

You don't have to be you don't have to know what you're talking about. This This is why I say the first thing that you have to do is try to restore your appreciation. Try to restore your respect for speech. Because subhanallah, you live in a culture that devalues speech very badly. That's the real meaning of free speech in the West.

That's the real meaning. Talk is cheap. It's so cheap that it's free. That's what they mean. Without worth, without value.

That's the free speech that they're talking about. And of course, you know, the whole tempo, the whole momentum, you know, as well as the the the the nature and the character of discourse in the West, especially online, especially on social media. The tempo, the momentum demands that you speak quickly, that you speak first, and that you speak continuously. You reply, you react, you refute, you know, tit for tat, you try to get a good zinger in or two, you know, spam the comment section, troll people and whatnot. The whole thing is an algorithmic is an algorithmic laxative to promote verbal diarrhea.

So now let's talk about what you can say is the the most fundamental aspect of good speech. The most fundamental, easiest to understand aspect of good speech in terms of saying what's good or remaining silent. What's good? That's honesty. Truthfulness.

Truthfulness and honesty. That's the foundation of good speech. It has to be true. I've spoken many, many times about the West and about Western dishonesty and their their incapacity for honesty. That dishonesty includes far more than just deliberately lying.

And if you wanna practice good speech, speaking good or remaining silent, good speech, honest speech, then you have to try to understand as much as possible. You have to try to really understand as much as possible the complexities of what constitutes dishonesty. And this is where what I'm talking about ties into the whole Iran situation, the whole discourse around Iran. Because exactly what I'm talking about here is playing out in real time right now across the Internet. Everybody's talking about Iran.

Everybody having their opinions about Iran even though they just learned about Iran the other day. This urgency to speak even without information, even without knowledge. You know? Emotionally driven. Driven by the demands of social media momentum.

You have to keep up with the algorithm. You have to keep up with the trends. So you get arguments. You get accusations. You get propaganda.

You get deflection. You get hateful, hurtful remarks. You get suspicion, speculation, conjecture, mocking, blaming, defending. Anything that you can think of. Just a a a a torrent of speech that is completely untethered to any kind of discipline, to any kind of concept that words actually have weight, and that you will be accountable for everything that you say.

As if, you know, if there's no external censorship, I e free speech, if there's free speech, then that means that you as an individual are relieved of all responsibility, for constraining yourself. You don't have to self edit. You don't have to verify. You don't have to consider the ramifications of what you say. You don't have to confirm anything.

You don't have to assess the value of what you're saying and whether you're contributing anything useful or not. So I'll say something that I've said many times. If you say something if you say something without knowledge or you spread something without verification, you are a liar. You're the same as a liar. Because fundamentally, what is a liar?

Aside from the fact that they tell a lie, a liar does not respect the truth and neither do you. This is the same fundamental characteristic, a lack of respect for the truth, a lack of regard for the truth. You don't care enough about what is true to even learn what's true before you before you start talking. You just say whatever you feel. What you say whatever you believe or whatever you want to believe.

And you spread whatever you agree with without even caring even slightly about trying to confirm whether it's accurate or not, whether it's true or not. Okay. This is dishonesty. This is lying. This is disrespect for the truth.

This is subordinating your tongue to your nuffs. You understand me? This is misusing the incredibly powerful gift. The powerful gift and the potentially powerful weapon of speech. You're using a lethal weapon like a toy.

Speech. And you know, statistically, people who possess weapons but don't have weapons training. You possess a weapon but you don't possess weapons training, those people always end up hurting themselves with that same weapon. And that's the case with speech. Because like I said, when you are undisciplined with your tongue, if you're undisciplined with your words, if you're undisciplined with your speech, it reveals a lot about you.

It reveals a lot about your character, about your failings, about your shortcomings, about your ignorance, about your lack of maturity, about your lack of wisdom, about your, lack of self control, about your lack of seriousness, and this harms you. To reveal all of that, it harms you. It renders your speech irrelevant. You you understand? You disarm your own self of the weapon of speech because your words become like shooting blanks.

You understand? If you don't take yourself seriously enough, if you don't take yourself seriously enough, if you don't take your speech seriously enough to try to make sure that what you say is actually true, then no one else is gonna take you seriously either. They're not gonna take you seriously. They're not gonna take your speech seriously. And therefore, you have rendered yourself irrelevant by your own tongue because you spoke based on your feelings, because you spoke based on your biases, your sense of urgency to try to pair it and regurgitate opinions, that you didn't even research yourself just so that you could be heard and compete on the algorithm.

And all this does, like I say, all this does is make you part of the truth obfuscation mechanism. You understand? Because truth truth does not actually need to be censored. It just has to be drowned out by people like you. You understand me?

The tune of honest discourse just has to be completely overwhelmed by the cacophony of a ranting and reactionary emotional unthinking chatter. Then no one can see the truth. You don't even have to censor it, and you're participating in that. You might think that you're, you know, speaking truth to power and what have you, but all you're actually doing is doing power's bidding, doing the bidding of power by obscuring the truth with all of your uninformed, ignorant, undisciplined noise And your whole free speech narrative does nothing whatsoever except make sure that ignorance is never silenced. Ignorance is never punished with exclusion.

Ignorance is never disciplined. Ignorance is never corrected. Look, your first thinking reaction to when you feel emotional about something, when you wanna vent about something, when you wanna opine about something or what have you, your first move should be to hold your tongue. That very tension and that very pressure and that very drive that makes you want to speak should be exactly what makes you control yourself. You understand me?

The stronger you feel it, the more you should pause and reflect. It's just like when you feel yourself get angry. Just like when you feel yourself get angry and the prophet told us, if you're standing, you should sit down. And if you're sitting, you should lie down. You should have wudu or something like this.

Take steps to try to interrupt the momentum of your emotions. Cut your nefs off at the pass. Calm down. Breathe. Think.

And take your words seriously. Even if taking your words seriously means not saying anything at all. If it means being silent. Because you've been miseducated into thinking that when you feel something strongly, you're supposed to act on that. Immediately.

Okay? This is literally the opposite of what you're supposed to do. This is the opposite of what you're supposed to do. There's really there's so much to actually say on this topic. Controlling your tongue could be a series all by itself.

The the just this topic could be a series all by itself. Look, it is dishonest to speak without knowledge. And no, your gut instinct, your gut feelings is not knowledge. It's not the same as knowledge. Neither is your passion, neither is your anger, neither is your outrage, neither is your admiration, neither is your adoration, neither is your love or what have you.

None of these things are sources of information. If you express an opinion, if you express an opinion about something or about someone and literally your only source for that opinion is because I just think so. Well, that doesn't even rise to the level of being an opinion. That's just an expression of ignorance. That's all that is.

That's just an expression of ignorance. This is what someone who does not know anything about the topic thinks about the topic. Completely irrelevant and complete self humiliation. That's what that is. It's self humiliation.

See, I don't make a distinction. Personally, I don't make a distinction between so called educated opinion and uneducated opinion because I don't even recognize that latter category. That's not even a valid category. An uneducated opinion isn't an opinion. It's an expression of lack of education, lack of knowledge, lack of experience, lack of wisdom, lack of information.

It has no pertinence whatsoever to the topic about which you are expressing your so called opinion. You're just wanting for whatever reason. This is the way I see it. You're just wanting for whatever reason. You're wanting to let people know that you do not know anything about it and that you have no control over your tongue because that's that's the only message that I receive.

Okay? You're telling me I know nothing about this topic and I do not know how to control my tongue. Okay. Noted. Thank you for that.

That's the only information that I got from you. Like I said before, there's a lot more to say about this. There's a lot more to say about the ramifications of your speech, ramifications of how you speak, even the ramifications of how you are silent and when and why. But for the basic purposes of let me just reiterate that you need to respect speech. You need to respect speech.

You need to respect yourself enough to use your speech properly, honestly, and for good purposes. And that you should respect speech and respect yourself enough to exercise discipline. Exercise discipline and mature responsible silence. Mature responsible silence when you have no honest, proper, or good thing to say. You understand?

It's dishonest to use someone else's talking points. Okay? It's dishonest to ask chat GPT or Google to validate your opinion, the opinion that you reached without any prior research. It's dishonest to regurgitate other people's narratives. It's dishonest to enter into a discussion with the aim of derailing that discussion.

It's dishonest to pretend to have knowledge that you do not have. It is dishonest, to act offended when someone corrects you who has knowledge. It's dishonest to claim that your uninformed emotional or even, even anecdotally supported opinions, That those are of equal value and equal validity to the opinions of people who have more information than you, more knowledge than you, more education than you, and more experience than you. In fact, it's even dishonest. I will go so far as to say dishonest to even involve yourself in discussions about matters that you have nothing to do with, that have nothing to do with you.

If you don't if if you're not directly affected by it or, indirectly affected by it or you study it or you're involved in it in one way or another, if you're not any of those things, I don't even know why you're participating in the discussion. The only way that you could rationally or responsibly participate in a discussion like that is not as a participant, but as a spectator and as an as an observer and as a student. Not as a speaker because you have nothing to say. You have nothing to offer. So the moment you open your mouth, you're dishonest.

Unless whatever you say has a question mark at the end of it. I'm telling you about all the different ways, all the different things that constitute dishonesty. It's dishonest to pretend that you cannot understand the complexities of issues that you just discovered yesterday, but you do it anyway. It's dishonest to act like you can Google for five minutes and have a comprehensive a comprehensive grasp of a topic that you never even knew about before, but you do it anyway. It's dishonest to ignore context, and you do it all the time.

It's dishonest to ignore history, to ignore power dynamics, to to ignore historical relationships and so forth, but you do it anyway. It's dishonest to cherry pick, to deflect, but you do it anyway. There are whole frameworks of discourse that are dishonest, parameters of discourse that are dishonest, definitions of terms in the discussion that are dishonest, which makes the entire discussion dishonest to even participate in. Simple oversimplification is dishonest. To enter into a discussion just because you wanna show off or because you want a virtue signal or you wanna talk you talk to a signal is dishonest.

It's dishonest to hijack an issue just to push your own agenda and you do it anyway. It's dishonest to try to rephrase something that someone said, rephrase it incorrectly just so that you can support your position. Straw man, this is dishonest. It's dishonest to misrepresent people. It's dishonest to even interrupt people.

Yes. Is dishonest to act like your emotions or your volume count as arguments or count as proof or count as evidence of your arguments? Do you understand? All of these things all of these things are forms of dishonesty. All of these things are forms of disregard and disrespect for the truth and I can go on and on.

Because this is mostly what discourse looks like among the westerners. Looks like among westerners and westernized people. A a discourse in the West is dishonest on multiple layers. You can't even find a layer that isn't dishonest. And, yes, respect for speech includes, by the way, not engaging with those who do not have that respect for speech.

Don't engage with people who demonstrate that they have no respect for speech, no respect for truth. They don't care about truth. They don't care about honesty. They don't control what they say or how they say it. Don't, engage with people who do not respect knowledge, who don't respect honesty.

Especially if you're yourself, you personally are trying to make tarbiyah, trying to fortify your own seriousness and the value that you give to speech. So, yes, control your tongue. Control your speech. Respect it like a weapon. Respect it for the tremendous power that it has.

The value that it has. The weight that it has. The importance that it has, and marshal your words very carefully. You understand me? Anything that causes you to lose your composure, to lose your self control, to lose your self discipline, to lose that deliberateness and considered intentionality behind what you say and what you do.

This is a loss in your dignity. It's a loss in your seriousness. It's a loss in your own intellectual sovereignty, and it's a loss in your power. And it can make you say things that you didn't mean, that you didn't wanna say. You say things that you don't mean.

You'll say things that aren't true. You say things that aren't honest. You'll say things for the wrong reasons. You'll say things that are ignorant. You'll you'll you'll say things so flippantly, so thoughtlessly that you won't even remember having said them when you're asked about them by Allah on your on the last day.

So clean up your language. Clean up your language. Clean up your speech. Tighten it up. Master it.

Don't waste it. Don't waste it. And don't waste yourself by using it unwisely.