CHARLENE FARRELL
When people sit, and discuss others, whose lives have nothing to do with them, all they are doing is igniting a negativity that need not be there. This ignition leads the fire to spread, sometimes so rapidly and recklessly, that before you know it, an entire new story is formed.
Life takes its turns and we move forward to various new beginnings. As we move, we leave behind those parts of us that are no longer productive. We walk towards change and yes, change is the only constant. There is not a being on the face of this planet that remains stagnant. In this process of evolution, there is much to be thankful for. There is, however, this little part of us that looks outside on a constant basis to find flaws and faults so that the environment within is held in high esteem. There are some people who are constantly seeking gratification in the blemishes of others, irrespective of how successful they themselves are.
This piece is something that occurred to me off the bat at a recent get-together. At said function, there were individuals of different backgrounds. Most of their success stories were things out of which movies are made of. Still, a lot of their chatter revolved around other persons. Even if the other person’s life had absolutely no bearing on them, tongues still continued to wag.
This is not something new in any way. This is a scene we all come across too often. Be it at a social gathering, a family function, at work or even sometimes when we are just lounging about the house speaking to our family members. The mentality of speaking about others seems to be so strongly engrained in our DNA that breaking away seems like an impossible task. More accurately, denying that we are indulging in this behaviour at all is second nature. There are plenty of stereotypes that have made us define this behaviour. For some reason, as a society, we have convinced ourselves that this behaviour is purely feminine in its execution. This notion is a fallacy. In fact, it is this very stereotype that propagates this behaviour on two levels. Firstly, women continue to do so because society expects this behaviour from them, and as we all know, the more you say something, the more it happens. Secondly, men are oblivious to the fact that they are indulging in this behaviour simply because they think they don’t. The fact is, man, woman and in some instances even children, are happily indulging in a vortex of indulgence.
There was a time when sayings like ‘do not throw stones if you live in a glass house’ etc. made sense to us. We often made it a point to live by the advice passed down through generations. Today, to get ahead, we tend to rely on nasty trickery and unnecessary gossip to make ourselves seem superior. This habit which we find in ourselves is one of the main reasons why we have failed to move forward faster as a country. Even our political debates are riddled with passing the buck and playing the blame game. It is sad that we have been unable after all these years to live and let live. Another aspect to this very same problem is the fake attitude with which we face the people whom we try to bring down from their backs.
When people sit, and discuss others, whose lives have nothing to do with them, all they are doing is igniting a negativity that need not be there. This ignition leads the fire to spread, sometimes so rapidly and recklessly, that before you know it, an entire new story is formed. Pulling people down for a reason is bad enough, but doing it for no apparent reason is worse. Just because we are blessed with the gifts of language and speech, does not give us the right to be so careless, insensitive and vile. As adults, we need to understand what and where our responsibilities and loyalties lie. Pointing our fingers at others and magnifying their pitfalls, eventually does come back. Karma is that thing which always tends to boomerang back at some point or the other. We need to start being a bit stingier with our words. It is high time we learn that, a moment on our lips will lead only to personal slips.
