These are days when the desirability of being soft-spoken is considered highly over-rated. So, the very idea that you need to put in effort in order to become soft-spoken is...risible. AND yet...consider who you would want to surround yourself with? A bunch of loudmouths OR...Therein lies the quandary. You think of yourself as the chap who decides who will be in your company and assess the qualities that you want in yourself. Think of yourself as the contender for being in someone else's company and THEN you see that the qualities you need to possess are totally different.
So, Tiru says this...
Nunangiya kelviya rallaar vanangiya vaayina raadhal aridhu - Tirukkural
He who is not a good listener is unlikely to be soft-spoken - Loose Translation
There are times when a pithy saying lends itself to multiple interpretations. First, one needs to understand that 'good listener' of itself is capable of interpretation. It is not enough that you hear people out without interruption. You need to be open-minded about what you are hearing and engage with the person without bias or confrontation. It would appear, then, that the qualities of good listening would incorporate elements of soft-spokenness else how would you engage without being confrontationist?
The fact that you listen to multiple people would mean that you are exposed to nuances of thought. Anything you read gets interpreted by you in some manner; to listen openly allows you to see that the same thing is open to other interpretations with varying degrees of correctness even by your own standards. If you think further on why that other person could see things that way, you will understand how differing lived experiences would lead to differing interpretations. THAT teaches you to assess what you are hearing instead of jumping to judging the people who are saying it. So, then, you tend to speak more politely than if you were unused to the practise of listening to people.
AND, of course, when listening has made you understand that what you think is not the only way to think, you automatically expect to learn something different from anyone you speak to...even, if at the end you totally disagree with him, you'll at least learn that there are those who can interpret this subject this way. THAT idea, that the other guy may have something to teach you, will keep you polite and soft-spoken.
At the end of it all, the chap who thinks that he and only he is right IS the guy who is most likely not to listen; and the guy most likely to be rude as well. So there!
