Never repeat a rumour before you have verified it. And if it is true, hold your tongue all the more.
Selma Lagerlöf
If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all, and when you have uncovered a mistake someone has made keep your mouth shut. This is done for their sake, but most importantly for yours.
We are not talking about remaining silent or being a witness to an immoral and evil act. If you see people hurting other people, it is important to step in, or to make a call to make sure someone steps in and makes things right. What we are talking about here are the millions of strings of gossip that wrap this beautiful earth and suffocate it from being happy. Truth sometimes doesn’t make things better. Knowing things doesn’t change who we are or the situation and if we pass on that information, verified or not, nothing good can possibly come of it.
No one hears shouting from very far away. No one sees colour when they are surrounded by darkness, so what possible use can gossip serve? None. It offers no solution, it doesn’t extend a hand to help, it simply points, stares and judges with the intent of hurting the person.
Gossip is one of the more horrific epidemics of our time. Technology has made it possible for putrid thoughts to spread quicker and farther than before. They linger to sting us years after we have said or done something. The internet never forgets. People can access all our mistakes and transgrataions at any time and for an infinite time.
We have to hold our tongue, and for our sake we have to find ways not to listen. We have to use technology and not let it use us. We have to find meaningful work, and not just work because we need to pay for things. The more time we spend dreaming and busy ourselves with purposeful work, the less time we will have to care what other people think and write about us, or to fall into the temptation to write back and spread some rumours about other people.
In life you are either active or passive, you create or you watch, you’re fully alive, or you’re quietly dead. Being active is infinitely better. Creating is far more rewarding. A fully lived life is never tragic when it comes to an end, because it’s not about the time you’ve been given, or the things you have, but what you did with that time, and what things you’ve managed to bring together that count.
There is never a good reason to gossip and our culture calls for periodic sabbaticals from social media. Our time calls for silence and purposefully ignoring the news, or certain people.
It is so easy to be negative. It is so easy to fall pray to how horrible life is and how desperate everything seems. Those are lies. Life is beautiful, because after all you are beautiful and life is what you choose to make it.
