In ancient Greece, Socrates was held in high esteem for his wisdom and teaching others how to live a good life. One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher on a street in Athens Greece and said, “Do you know what I just heard about your friend?”
“Hold on a minute,” Socrates replied. “Before you tell me what you heard about my friend, it might be good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”
“Well, no,” the man said, “actually I just heard about it and…”
“All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now, let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?”
“Umm, no, on the contrary…”
“So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about my friend, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left—the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?”
“No, not really.”
“Well, then,” Socrates said, “If what you want to say is neither true, nor good or kind, nor useful or necessary, please don’t say anything at all.” He then turned and walked away.
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Michael Michalko. Internationally acclaimed creative thinking expert and author of several books and articles about creative thinking http://creativethinking.net/#sthash.SXV5T2cu.dpbs
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