I have no respect for justice
I maim without killing
I break hearts and ruin lives
I am cruel and malicious
and gather strength with age
The more I am quoted
the more I am believed
I flourish at every level of society
My victims are helpless
They cannot protect themselves
against me because
I have no name and no face
To track me down is impossible
The harder you try
the more elusive I become
I'm nobody's friend
Once I tarnish a reputation
it is never the same
I topple governments
and ruin marriages
I ruin careers and
cause sleepless nights
Heartache and indigestion
I spawn suspicion
and generate grief
I make innocent people
cry in their pillows
Even my name hisses
I, AM GOSSIP
The Gossiper
A woman repeated a bit of gossip about a neighbor.
Within a
few days the whole community
knew the story.
The person it
concerned was
deeply hurt and offended.
Later the woman
responsible for spreading the rumor
learned that it was
completely untrue.
She was very sorry and went to a wise old
sage
to find out what she could do to repair the damage.
Go to the marketplace, he said,
and purchase a chicken,
and
have it killed. Then on your way home,
pluck its feathers
and
drop them one by one along the road.
Although surprised by
this advice,
the woman did what she was told.
The next day the wise man said,
Now go and collect all those
feathers you dropped
yesterday and bring them back to me.
The woman followed the same road,
but to her dismay,
the
wind had blown the feathers all away.
After searching for hours,
she returned with only three in her hand.
You see, said the old
sage, it's easy to drop them,
but it's impossible to get them
back.
So it is with gossip.
It doesn't take much to spread a
rumor,
but once you do, you can never
completely undo the
wrong.
Author Unknown
Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul
Editor: Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Kimberly
Kirberger
