Gossip in the City

Copyright (c) 2009 Willie Horton

A client asked me recently “What would you have left to talk about if you took gossip out of the conversation?” A very good question, because most of us spend a large part of our time gossiping. It might be about little “harmless” things, like the neighbours’ behaviour, how someone down the road was caught with someone else’s wife, how the guy next door was caught drink-driving. Or how one of our children’s friends got drunk (and sick on the school bus). Most of us, to a greater or lesser extent, delight in gossip – particularly if it involves someone else falling on their face.

Of course, if you stop to think about it for a moment, none of this stuff is harmless. In fact, it’s actually harmful. First of all, it directs our energy towards the negative. But, more importantly, it reduces the amount of energy we have available to do what we’re supposed to be doing – right here, right now.

We’re all familiar with the saying that what goes around comes around – step onto that particular “sorry-go-round” at your peril! We’re all familiar with the concept that you reap what you sow – same thing. These are old adages proved correct by modern science – quantum physics. You get out what you put in. Invest your energy in nonsense – and your life will be little more than a nonsense itself. Take delight in other’s misfortune and you’re setting yourself up for misfortune yourself. Buddhists might call it the wheel of karma – a physicist might simply describe it as energy responding to energy.

And, in fact, that’s the most important aspect of just how negatively negative gossip can affect the gossiper. If you’re “investing” your energy in talking crap, you have immediately reduced the time and energy available to you to do the really important things that you have to do today. You don’t need to be a mathematician to calculate that time wasted on crap reduces the amount of time for the things you have to do. And, yet, many people complain that they simply don’t have enough hours in the day to do all the things on their “To Do” list!

If you’re investing your energy in the negative you’re perpetuating a well-proven fact that the normal mind tends towards negativity. This is seriously bad for you because it is your own state of mind that creates your life. Energy in : energy out – by pouring your energy into the negative you’re not just wasting your time, diverting yourself from the important stuff of the day, you’re actively watering the seeds that you’ve been sowing all your adult life that create a normal life that’s, at best, not too bad.

Cut out negative gossip. Stop diverting your energy away from creating the effortless happiness and success that you can have you only directed your energy into that instead. Stop wasting your time delighting in bad news – news that only confirms that it’s alright to be not too bad. Stop reading the crap in newspapers. Don’t get me wrong, we all have to keep up with what’s happening in the world, but we don’t have to wallow in the “news” about rape, assault, murder and so-called normal people generally behaving badly. Stop channel-hopping – immersing yourself in the “reality TV” that brings road accidents, car chases, and real crime to our screens. That’s not reality, it’s just further evidence of normal people gone made and further comfort for you in living a not-too-bad life. Real reality is to be found in the wonder of this here and now. That’s simply more examples of “normal” people’s inappropriate behaviour and it’s certainly not entertainment.

Control yourself, you’re a responsible adult, aren’t you? Take responsibility for the only thing in this life for which you can by wholly and absolutely responsible, your own state of mind and where you direct your attention. Why not start talking about good things, talking about how good people are, swapping nice stories instead of competing with each other at the coffee break or water cooler for who can tell the most depressing story – about someone being mugged, cars being stolen, people with serious illness. Seriously, all you have to do is earwig the conversations that are going on around you all the time (some of which you get involved in) to realise what’s going on. Negative gossip is sapping your energy, diverting your towards the negative. The result – your negative energy is actively contributing to a negative world – to stress, worry, anxiety, violence and war. Every drop of “negative” adds to the sea of negativity.

Stop it. Grow up. Focus on the good in all our lives. Not only will you feel better – not only will a few people around you feel better for it too – you’ll be more upbeat and focused to wholeheartedly do what really needs to be done today. But, better than that and more importantly, you’ll set yourself off on the merry-go-round of karma – by putting positive in, you’ll get positive out. Now, that makes more sense, doesn’t it?

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