Give Me Some Tea!

At first it was simply joking around because I thought gossip was silly. I’d come into the neighborhood bar and ask my favorite bartender, “Give me some tea.” Then we would pass on whatever was happening with the fellow patrons: who was in jail… who was in the hospital… who was fooling around… what someone else did last night in the bar and so on.

What was innocent banter at first became a habit and this habit had to be squelched when I began working on spiritual development. What seemed to me to be genuine concern really was nothing more than idle curiosity about some juicy or damaging tid-bit. When hearing such things I now see to be a serious character defect as these occasions arise along with the temptation to pass it on. Luckily for me I have been able to pass on opportunities to gossip when others attempt to extract some useless information about someone else by simply saying, “You’ll have to ask him/her if you want to know first hand.”

I will pass on who is in jail or hospitalized and in similar situations if such information will be used to be helpful. I really don't need to know anything about anyone second hand. It is always distorted information and is generally damaging to all concerned.

---

geo, 4,636