Why is gossip bad?

“A gossip is a person who will never tell a lie if the truth will do as much damage”. “But it’s the truth!” You often hear that as the defense. It starts innocently enough with people sharing information. Then all of the sudden it gravitates to, “Did you know that …” and then it goes. Actually, the sharing part is good, but sharing information about another who is not present to explain his or her side is gossip. Gossip is such common things around us. Even, some of us don’t want to miss out on hearing it. We’ve all indulged in it. And regretfully, we relish it. But, what does bible say about gossip? Gossip or slander has an interesting origin. It comes from the word “devil”. According to The Merriam-Webster-Dictionary, it means malicious talk. In 630 BC, Nabi Muhammad SAW. forbade his men to talk bad about their brothers’ disgrace. So, even gossip is a prevalent thing, it is such a terrible thing.

I’ll elaborate the reason why we should stop this bad behavior even though it indulges people very much.

The most common reason is the influence. This is where we slip most of the time. It only takes one person to start and then gossip grows.  Sometimes, we pretend to say that we only share our story to others, but deep down we want to slip someone disgrace into our conversation in order to brighten the conversation.

The next reason is voyeurism. Voyeurism refers to someone who habitually observes others without their knowledge. We sometimes find ourselves drawn into the web of someone else’s misery without ever having to step foot in it, and admit it, enjoying every minute of it. Silently groaning, “Thanks God that did not happen to me!” This mumble grows the satisfaction about someone’s disgrace and the worst is we actually enjoy feeling like that.

The worst reason is self righteousness. The truth is it only to hide our low self esteem. We envy about someone’s properties that doesn’t belong to us. So, to cover that feeling we often lie and make a fool of someone whom we envy to. “He’s really bad at this. I’m better than him.” “She’s incapable about this. She does this all wrong.”  and so on. Think about it. If we feel good about how our life is, we will tend to make that a measure of how others should live like us. Just enjoy our own life and respect their way about doing life.

As the previous reason, it is about the enviousness. Sometimes we squirm about how life going is. We always complain about everything that goes not as what we expect it should be. In times of distress we lament, “Why does it always happen to me?” It is very humanly to feel that, but  the-not-humanly thing is our arrogance that makes us feel “the worst” comparing with others. The only thing that can cure that feeling is recalling our happiness. If we fail to ask ourselves, “Why do I deserve this blessing?” we will be haunted with the question, “Why do I deserve this pain?” In the end, nothing we get but sorrow deep down our heart.

So, not every “sharing” thing is good. We may talk about others but only to measure our skill comparing with them in good terms. Bible also says that talking someone else is bad, whereas God suggests us to cover our brothers’ disgrace and protect them, not to spill it out to others. Every conversation we have should adore others, we can talk the good side about other people, just avoid the bad talking or if the influence from environment annoys you a lot, you can set your boundaries early when someone starts gossiping, and say something clear that, you don't really want to get involved in someone else's business' and suggest an alternative topic of conversation.  That way can prevent us from gossip and also lighten our mood because believe it or not, gossip damages your soul.