Healing the harm of gossip

“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 off 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, sometimes with relish! 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 people are so indulged with gossip even though they hate being gossiped.

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 gloating, “Thank goodness that did not happen to me!” This mumble grows the satisfaction about someone’s disgrace and the worst is we actually enjoy looking at 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 does this all wrong.” “They did not raise their kids as I raised mine!”  and so on. Think about it. If we feel good about how our life is we tend to make that a measure of how others should live theirs. Just enjoy and respect our 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 soreness deep down our heart.