Resist the urge
What Would Happen If We All Quit Gossiping?
Experimenting with refusal to badmouth others leads to astonishing rewards. Coincidence? Probably not.
Rumor has it…
Have you ever heard a surprising or personal detail about someone “through the grapevine?” Were you ever the unfortunate topic or target of such a rumor? It hurts when people talk behind your back. In fact, It doesn’t matter if what people are saying is true or false — because in any case it still feels awful.
Gossip is defined by Google as follows: Casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.
It seems that the very act of talking about others in a toxic way is itself a potent character toxin. It is like spitting venom on top of more venom and we all just keep the poison alive by continuing to participate as a form of bonding. People are so calloused to the harm this social habit is causing that it becomes routine to sit around and babble about the lives and details of everyone who isn’t in the room.
It is an addiction and it is difficult not to feed it.
Gossip is nearly unavoidable because let’s face it. The planet is a buzzing sphere covered in careless people who can’t figure out what kindness is.
I heard the quote by the famously funny and blunt Phyliss Diller that contained a profound argument against worrying when you are the potential target of gossip. She said, “What others think about you is none of your business.”
Phyliss explained many times over her long career as a stand-up comedian that she followed two rules to avoid the pain caused by gossip.
- Don’t participate in gossip about others.
- Don’t worry about what others are saying about you.
Such a simple idea right? I mean, it really is only one behavioral change we are talking about. So I tried it. I tried to quit participating in gossip. I did not immediately succeed.
When I first tried to put this no-gossiping concept into action I found it disturbingly difficult to do. I never realized how often my conversations defaulted to mindless and sometimes hurtful banter. It was a habit to discuss private details of everyone. We are taught that this is normal. I casually insulted people on a regular basis. The crazy thing is — almost everyone I had conversations with did it too.
I did not want to make anyone feel awkward while I was experimenting with my personal struggle to shut up. Even so, as the days passed I found myself saying abruptly to close friends stuff like this: “Stop! I do not think that we should waste any more time talking about others. If we keep circling back to drama talk I will have to just exit the conversation.”
It frustrated me that my friends and I had all been so deeply hypnotized that we did not even see how ugly our interactions had become with each other. Some days I feel the longing for more companionship, but people mistake my perspective as a personal insult — which is absurd.
I felt lonesome because girls often bond over mindless whispers and giggles.
I noticed that my overall mood was notably lonesome at first. My motivation is genuinely wanting to stop contributing to the deteriorating mental health of others and myself. It is not healthy to rely on the negative happenings of others to sustain personal satisfaction. In fact, it is disgusting and I knew I NEEDED to change.
People end conversations pretty quickly when you refuse to comment on the juicy news about a co-worker or peer. Ironically I have been accused of being fake for trying to refrain from the back-room-banter routine. People are so jaded that they cannot believe their eyes when a lady doesn’t want to add to the hurtful whispers.
We should not need to supplement the meaning of our lives by salting others. Strangely, people do take offense when I state clearly that I do not find the topic of other people’s personal lives useful or positive in a chat without them present. As I removed gossip from my social activities I watched as my circle of friends shrank. I became worried that all my friendships were held together by the bond of gossip. Shameful, right?
Gossip is a long term cruelty and it begins and ends with you.
It is a total life change. And it takes maintenance or it comes back to haunt.
Over the next several years I tried many times to restart my failed anti-gossip mission. I felt a revived sense of yearning for this simple change when I read The Four Agreements By Don Miguel Ruiz for the fourth time.
Side note: sure, there are only four rules in that self-help book but each of the agreements is VERY challenging to implement.
Avoiding gossip falls into one of the categories. Rule number one — To be impeccable with your word. Essentially Ruiz advises his readers to use only the language of precision. Only say just what you mean and not less and not more. This undoubtedly disqualifies all rumor-spreading and gossiping.
“Being impeccable with your word is the correct use of your energy; it means to use your energy in the direction of truth and love for yourself.”
- Don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements
The bad-mouthing experiment has evolved more into an actual personality trait now. Actually, because of the nature of this learned and unlearned behavior, I think this is a breakthrough.
Gossip is a long-term type of cruelty and it begins and ends with you. It is not easy to quit but it feels absolutely right.
There is something very special about thinking back over the actions of a day and being free from the burdens of all that brainless chatter. All that negative energy … just gone. It seems easy to not speak about others but I still am practicing this skill- and it does not come easy. I wish that I could convince more people to stop babbling about others.
Gossip is so last season.
♥ Cheers to uplifting and having some impact in a good way.
