Gossip.
Hi Folks!
I'm sure that y'all have heard that expression about how the road to the opposite of Heaven is paved and such, yes? Well, I suspect that it had a few more paving stones set down today.
Gossip is the vehicle by which those paving stones were delivered, by the way. This weekend we had a few new neighbors move in. My initial impression of them is that they're generally decent folks. It might be a little bit of an understatement to say that when I hear the rather vicious gossip that's been said about them from some of my other neighbors, I am shocked.
I can appreciate it when some one means well and desires to warn another person about a potential problem. I question, however, if it is necessary to make speculation about the activities of another person after you've already voiced what you know. Perhaps I'm just a bit too plain and simple here, but I always thought that if you start to speculate about what that other person is like, you're making a fool of yourself. How can we truly know what's in the hearts and minds of our fellow men when we have so much difficulty knowing our own hearts and minds?
Yeah, it stunned me when I heard some of the things said that were on the verge of slanderous. I did, however, do my best to keep my response non-committal and neutral. When you hear gossip said about some one, you are faced with a choice as to accept it as truth, reject it as false, or to withhold judgment pending additional information. Generally, I've found it best to withhold judgment until I know all the facts for myself. It makes it alot easier in dealing with the other people around you.
There is a second choice, which is if you are going to perpetuate the gossip or not. I've found it best not to perpetuate gossip. Nothing but pain and misery seems to have come from engaging in that act. As always, treat the other people with the respect due to them, but take what is said with a grain of salt. It's not the crowd that decides for you, but rather you yourself who makes the decisions. In the case of gossip, there is some one else attempting to take your power and your decision away from you by way of influencing you to act as they see fit.
Never surrender your power to make decisions about your life lightly. In surrendering such a thing, you lose your liberty to that other person or persons and become beholden to them every opportunity they have to rule over you. Engaging in gossip or making decisions based in gossip is an example of a group taking power that is surrendered to them by the individual who hears the gossip. Is it really worth sacrificing your self respect and ability to decide how your life is going to go just because that person on the corner is saying terrible things about the other person on the other corner?
I didn't think so either.