The sad thing is that often- this is the case. Our society is OBSESSED with everyone else’s lives. We’re always so interested in who did what and who went where with who and blah blah blah... We have websites, magazines and even television channels solely devoted to digging up dirt in peoples’ lives.
On the other hand, you know that saying, ‘I feel judged’. I think sometimes that comes from us putting judgement on ourselves. We start to believe that people are judging us for our actions, when in reality, they aren’t - it’s all been in our heads!
How do we get out of this bottomless mud-filled chasm of gossip, judgment and mind-games that we find ourselves in? Are you ready for some ‘1-year-out-of-school-wisdom’??? ( ha- that was a joke)
kill it before it grows
I believe that is the solution- Don’t give these issues (and any issue for that matter) space to grow. its like a flame. without oxygen, it dies. You give a fire oxygen, it turns into a raging fire. Give it more oxygen and the next thing you know, half of Australia is in Ashes. (sorry Australians, it seemed appropriate, you always seem to get forest fires. and you play in the ashes)
You see, the small flame will always be there! We can try out best to ‘not judge’- but we’ll always mess up because our minds are sinful. We can also try to ‘not care what others think’ but again, our mind does it for us! So rather than pretend we’re perfect, lets just confront stuff head-on, straight to the person before a small birthday candle turns into a raging veldfire with the berg-winds of gossip. (you see that analogy? brilliant)
A friend of mine once said in a sermon that unforgiveness is one of satan’s greatest weapons. - If we don’t sort out our issues with people early, that hurt grows on us and never stops (even if we’re in denial about it's affect on us). We end up with lost relationships, and insane hurt, and later on have to pick up the pieces.
Just kill it before it grows!
I leave you with a quote... ‘Unforgiveness is like drinking poison, and hoping the other guy dies’
Well done, Jordan. Once again, an excellent, thought provoking blog.
ReplyDeleteA thought ... I wonder if we worked harder at "looking for green" (the good in people) there would be less flames to extinguish. Of course, it's not easy (due to the sinful nature that you speak of), but perhaps something to work towards.
Our negative head space, the strange delight that is sometimes evident when people "have stuff" on others as it provides a new topic for conversation, could perhaps be lessoned if we focussed on looking for the good. Imagine if we only said positive things ... about people(I challenge myself here).
I find it interesting that this "problem" stretches across the age groups. A friend of mine became the subject of gossip, rather "juicy gossip" (her words, not mine). After a few weeks, she finally decided that her only hope was if someone else "messed up", that way people would move on to a new subject. I cried with her during this time, and put out many fires (somewhat fiercely as my patience grew thin).
A while back, while I was speaking on the topic of gossip, a lady said, "If we didn't talk about people what would we talk about?" My thought, "If we're going to talk about people, let's say lovely things", as there is so much good to talk about.
And so today, I will talk to people about you and about your blog. And about a young man, who is brave enough to "put himself out there", a chap who says important things that need to be said and who is brave enough to grow. You are so above "average".
Thanks so much for that comment! Wow thats so true! We really could stop a lot of what goes on if we just look for good! Although we can only control ourselves unfortunately, so when others start the gossip, we need to be the bigger person and kill it :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment! Even your comments are eloquently written;) WAY above average :)