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contributing to the problem or to the solution? positive concern for others, can often sound like gossip an unaware third party. in fact the concern that occupied me yesterday has been addressed, and although i am not happy with what i discovered, it does explain more than a thing or two, that i was having trouble reconciling. is it something i need to pass along? well not unless i am out to destroy someone, and today, that is not what i am about, at least most of the time.
to get back to the topic at hand, gossip is part on every single human social group PERIOD. to expect anything different here, is to live in a world where unicorns are as common as horses. just because i am working a spiritual program, does not mean that suddenly i become a spiritual giant. the motives for gossip as as many as the stars in the skies as the saying goes, but when you strip away the fluff, they more than likely boil down to just a few. i know for me, when i was using, knowledge of the foibles of others was a weapon i wielded with laser-like precision, precisely to build myself up at their expense. i mentioned this yesterday, when i was sharing on a different tropic, so i need not go back into detail today. yes the traditions talk about putting principles before personalities, but that really has nothing to do with gossip, that is a prescription for how best to serve my home group and the fellowship that has given me this manner of living. picking and choosing, passages form literature and using them out of context, was once one of my favorite games, after all, any random set of words when stripped of their context can be made to say whatever i need them to say.
i get the point, gossip is destructive.
using gossip as a means to build my self-esteem does not provide anything but a temporary fix.
if i want to grow, i will need to continue to replace my lack of self-esteem with a GENUINE, POSITIVE concern for others and become the man i have always wanted to be.
so off to Denver i go, to earn my so-called daily bread, and hopefully contribute to the solution, rather than the problem.

∞ DT ∞