Mellow

mel·low (mĕl′ō, ˈmɛləʊ)
adjective.

su·a·ve

Is being mellow good or bad?

Every time I hear the song “Row, row, row your boat” the word mellow crosses my mind, and it’s a good thing. Every time I sing the same song and hear my voice, the same word crosses my mind, and it’s a bad thing.

Confusing, isn’t it? I thought the same.

So I decided to look up the different meanings of the word in the dictionary, to see if there was something negative about it. At least apparently, and disregarding number 5 up there, there’s not.

There is nothing wrong about being soft, being calm, being gentle, being made sweet by maturity. The problem is when we must go fast and life slows us down. The problem is when we need to be rough and all we know is being soft.

The problem is when there’s no sourness to contrast with our sweetness.

That’s when mellow becomes “too mellow” and this sort of “mellow drama” sets in – I’ve got the feeling the word melodrama comes from here – with exaggerated softness.

There is nothing bad in being mellow if there’s contrast. And it’s on harsh days like these we’re living in that we really need to keep soft.