Can You Keep a Secret?
I’m sitting
here at my desk wanting to write about something that I can’t. I’ve signed a
confidentiality agreement and so I won’t.
But there are times in all of our
lives when someone tells us something that is so good we want to tell the
world. There are others when the thing is so bad that we want to tell the
world.
Fortunately,
my news is the former. But it got me to wondering about the whole telling and
sharing of secrets and gossip.
For the most
part, I’m one of those folks you can tell a secret to and never hear it again;
that’s because I forget it. Still, I wonder why folks ask you to hold onto something
that they themselves could not.
I understand
the confidentiality of work; it is necessary. Whenever I’m working on a project
that requires it, I ask that folks not divulge the details or information we
have shared. When it’s so good that we can’t stand it, we simply talk to each
other.
Gossip
though is another matter; when someone starts to tell me something that they
can’t keep of the negative sort, I ask them to just keep on holding it. I used
to ask them to dump their trash somewhere else, but I don’t even want them to
do that.
We gossip in
an attempt to make our own self feel better. We think that by putting someone
else down, we are elevated. Life does not work that way. Making someone else more sinful or ugly or stupid will not make you a
beautiful and brilliant saint. It makes you a gossip.
When you
carry trash, you will smell of it. (Wow, I’m going to remember that line and
use it again.)
Stay true to
your own life.
Stay in your
lane.
Hold on to
the joy of confidential news. If you have to talk about it; do so with the
person who told you.
Don’t dump
or pick up trash.
Good news
will make you smile and stand taller. Gossip will bring you down.
Ask yourself how you
want to feel and let your heart do the talking.
Be you, be well, be wonderful.
Bertice Berry, PhD.
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