positive attitude

Self Improvement: Cut Out Negative Gossip

A client asked me last week “What would you have left to talk about if you took gossip out of the conversation?” A very good question, because we all 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. Most of us, to some extent, delight in gossip – particularly if it involves someone else messing up.

Of course, if you stop to think about it for a moment, none of this stuff is harmless. In fact, it’s harmful. Firstly, it directs our energy towards the negative. More importantly, it deprives us of the energy that we need to do what we’re supposed to be doing – right here, right now. It messes up your own personal effectiveness.

I think everyone knows the saying that what goes around comes around – step onto that particular “sorry-go-round” at your peril! We also have a fair understand that you reap what you sow – same thing. These are eternal truths 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 the scene for misfortune yourself. Buddhists might call it the wheel of karma – a scientist might simply describe it as energy responding to energy.

Actually, that’s the most important aspect of just how badly negative gossip can affect the gossiper. If you’re wasting 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 gossip reduces the amount of time for the things you have to do. And, yet, many people complain that they just don’t have enough hours in the day to do all the things on their “To Do” list!

Cut out the nonsense – stop wasting your time delighting in bad news. Stop reading the bed news 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 – wasting time on so-called “reality TV” that brings road accidents, car chases, and real crime into your living room. That’s got nothing to do with reality – reality is to be found in the wonder of the present moment. Focus your mind – why not start talking about all the good stuff, talking about how good people are, swapping nice stories instead of competing with each other at the 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 to get a feel for what I’m talking about. Negative energy creates a negative world – stress, worry, anxiety, violence and war. Every drop of “negative” deepens the sea of negativity.

Stop it. Grow up. Focus on the good in all our lives. You’ll not only feel better – not only will a few people around you feel better for it too – you’ll be more upbeat and focused to do your very best at what really needs to be done today. You might just change your life.