Kindness and Gossip

Let anything you hear die with you;
never fear, it will not make you burst!
― Sirach 19:10 (The Old Testament)

Sunday seems like a good day for a Bible verse and for addressing a difficult type of kindness -- not gossiping.

About four years ago, I went on a retreat and was given a Bible.  In the back of this version, there was a plan to read the Bible in a year by reading three or four passages per day.  It seemed incredible to me that I had never read the entire Bible, so I decided to do it.  How hard could it be with a few readings per day?  Well ... it actually took me more than two years to read the whole Bible.  (Among other things, reading the Harry Potter series intervened.)

I am very glad that I read the Bible.  No surprise, I learned a lot.  The Old Testament, however, is not easy reading.  There were times when I read parts out loud because I could not get through it any other way.  I was amazed by how much terrific advice there is in the Bible and how many times gossip is addressed.  Although I didn't think of myself as a gossip, the many admonitions against it in the Bible made me watch myself more closely.  And the Sirach passage that gossip "will not make you burst" always makes me chuckle, a little uncomfortably because it is so accurate -- sometimes we feel that we might just BURST if we don't share what we have heard.

In her wonderful New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin discusses the various things she did over the course of a year to boost her happiness.  During the month of June, her focus was on friendship and one of her pieces of advice is "Don't Gossip."  Rubin realized that even though she did not consider herself a mean-spirited person, she engaged in more gossip than she liked.  Admitting that gossip can be fun, she says that gossip is an example of something that brings you happiness in the short term, but that you give up for happiness in the long term.    

Rubin's words rang true with me.  Even though my children can quickly finish the adage, "If you don't have anything nice to say...",  I knew when we undertook this summer project that there was room for improvement in the gossip department.  That gossip is unkind needs no explanation.

Not indulging in gossip can be hard at first, like eating healthily or exercising, but the longer that you stay on your new path, the more you build a different habit, and the less you want to revert to the old way, especially when it is not who you want to be. 

But forget kindness for a moment:  It is actually against your self-interest to gossip.  Rubin also introduced me to "spontaneous trait transference."  Researchers have found that when someone attributes positive or negative traits to someone else, the listener will often attribute the same traits to the speaker.  So, if you say that someone is "selfish," guess what trait your listener may attribute to you?

Life being how it is, it may just be impossible to never gossip again -- just as I will probably never be able to give up chocolate chip cookies.  But when I don't want to eat something unhealthy, I tell myself that I won't care tomorrow about what I didn't eat today.  So, too, I try to remind myself that I will not "burst" if I don't repeat something that is less than kind.