The elephant in the room

The elephant in the room is usually related to the obvious truth that everyone chooses to ignore. Reason for avoiding the obvious would be that risk for mentioning it could result in a bigger blow out, thus it’s easier to just ignore and avoid the subject completely.

I’m sure everyone has been subjected to various “elephant in the room” situations, from the sound of someone farting at that one silent moment in a classroom. When you find a friend walk out the bathroom at a party and she’s got vomit on her hair yet no one say’s anything. Or going to a friend’s birthday party with your current girlfriend only to find your recent “ex” sitting at the same table as you and you politely speak around them.

And these are just your usual day to day elephants, elephants situations vary. You get your political, social and corporate elephants.

And the end of the day is the silence really worth it? It could start with something small like avoiding the “ex” at a party, to political corruption being ignored for the fear of a negative outcome. Is it really worth holding back “open secrets” because you may not like the next reaction? Or does this go much deeper, does it push the obvious further away and the lies become easier to believe because you can tweak it to avoid what no one wants to say? And then allowing you to deny what is right before your eyes.

So you could rather avoid “the elephant in the room” which could possibly cause more tension, more drama, more lies and the worst of all prolonging something can be resolved immediately and then keep quiet and hope it’ll go away?