Choice and Consequence: Your Malicious Discontent

Here’s the thing about idle gossip – It’s childish. Never mind the fact that the “holy book” tells you not to do it, it just makes you look bad. When you partake in spreading gossip, you lend proof to the dissatisfaction of your life. You’re telling the world that your life and your ideas are of little worth to you or anyone else, and you’ve got nothing better to do than talk about something that is none of your concern.

A few things happen the moment you decide to open your mouth and share the juice, so to speak. First, you give everyone a reason not to trust you. Why would anyone tell you their secrets when they know you’re the kind of person who is going to turn around and tell everyone else you know? You instantly become the one everyone looks over his or her shoulders for. All conversation grinds to a halt when you enter the room. Second, you lose all your creditability. Have you ever played the “Telephone Game?” It’s a child’s game, where one person whispers one thing in someone else’s ear, then that person whispers what they heard into another’s ear, and so on and so forth. By the time the last person gets the message, it’s so morphed from its original form that everyone laughs and wonders how they got it so wrong. The same thing happens with gossip, but it’s not as funny. It’s a crueler version of the game that we play, and the person about whom we’re discussing ends up hurt. So now, not only do you, the gossiper, look like a lying fool, but you look like an ass too. Lastly, when you talk, your good name dies and you shrink. Forget walking tall. You’re the kind of person who’s got nothing to be proud of, unless you’re okay looking like an imbecile.

Eleanor Roosevelt once quoted, "Great mind discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.” So the next time you decide to open your mouth and spread that juicy, malicious gossip, consider this: you are the image you create of yourself. Talk, and give everyone a reason to skirt around you like you’re a poisonous plant. What goes around comes around. And the next time you need a shoulder to lean on (because that time will one day come), you’ll have two choices. You can hope and pray that the person you confide in will not take your story to the papers. You can hope and pray that your misfortunes will not the next topic on everyone’s lips. You can hope and pray, in vain, that you will be pitied and not preyed upon. Or, you can suffer. Alone.