When I was at my Cancer check up a few weeks ago, I picked up a magazine and began to thumb through it. I won't mention the magazine but it is popular and supposedly credible. I was shocked at one of the articles in there and thought this was a great example that you can't always believe what you read.
The article was about Gossip, here are some of the comments from it!
"Admit it, you love a good piece of gossip, Here's why it's not as bad of a habit as you might think....
*Gossip keeps us in line, according to a study done in 2004 at a university, they found out that gossip is good for you because it helps you release good brain chemicals.
*We also gossip to let other's know who we are. Say we pass on a juicy nugget about our neighbors infidelity offering our opinion about it, that let's you showoff your moral fiber.
*By gossiping, you can be reaffirming your values.
* I am sure in some ways we hurt productivity at the work place, but ultimately people are bonded by it.
*Since we don't know what other people are thinking, collecting information from and about them in effect, playing amateur detective is as close as we can get to being inside their heads.
*We can't help ourselves Gossiping is part of our DNA. Think of it as survival instinct: in order to stay alive and thrive we gossip. We gossip to help us figure out whom to trust. It's a way to navigate our complicated social network.
Here is someone else's opinion on Gossiping. Check it out for yourself and see how feel. I personally couldn't believe the first article or half the things they said. But like the article below tells us ...there is an appetite out there in the world for it and so it will continue. My point tonight is to just compare the two and think about it!
"Gossip - blurred truth - is a popular sport all over the world. We find it everywhere - on television, in newspapers, in magazines and on the Internet. So big is the business that there are professional Rumormongers whose work it is to discover and tell all. No matter how hurtful and destructive, there seem to be no limits to our appetite for public scandal. In spite of its popularity, I think we all know, on some level, that gossip is dishonest, destroys our integrity and compromises our personal authenticity. In the end it is our self-esteem that suffers the biggest loss. Regardless, we seem to love to talk about each other and often disguise it by saying, "This is not really gossip, I am just sharing information."
"Let us establish some clear standards. How do I know if I am gossiping? In my opinion, if you are passing information others need to know, you probably are not gossiping. If by all reasonable standards, others do not need to know the information you have, than you are gossiping. Second, you need to look at your intention. Why do you need/want to share the information you have about this person? Look within and if you see that your intentions are not good, hold your tongue. Third are you helping to create the scandal by blurring the Truth? When in doubt, apply the Triple Filter Test. This is a test that comes to us from the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates."
Here is the story:
One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said,
"Socrates, do you know what I just heard about your friend?"
"Hold on a minute," Socrates replied. "Before telling me anything, I would
like you to pass a little test. It is called the Triple Filter Test."
"Triple Filter?"
"That is right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my
friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you are
going to say. The first filter is truth. Have you made absolutely
sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"
"No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and..."
"All right," said Socrates. "So you do not really know if it is true or
not. Now let us try the second filter, the filter of goodness. Is what
you are about to tell me about my friend something good?"
"No, on the contrary..."
"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him,
but you are not certain it is true. You may still pass the test though,
because there is one filter left: The filter of usefulness. Is what you
want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?"
"No, not really."
"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither true
nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?"
To do:
~Avoid all gossip for 10 days.
~If you need to pass along information try using Socrates' Triple Filter test.
~If you are in conversation with someone and they start to gossip, figure out a way to excuse yourself.
~If you find yourself in circumstances where others are gossiping, try to move the discussion to another topic
~What does it mean to blur the truth?
~Think about how you feel when you gossip? Afterward?
~Why do you think people love to gossip?
http://ezinearticles.com/?Gossip-Hurts&id=4599470
"What you don't see with your eyes, don't witness with your mouth." ~Jewish Proverb
"What is told in the ear of a man is often heard 100 miles away." ~Chinese Proverb
"No one gossips about other people's secret virtues." ~Bertrand Arthur William Russell
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