"Simplicity is the key note of My kingdom. Choose simple things always.
Love and reverence the humble and the simple.
Have only simple things here. Your standard must never be the world's standard."
A WALK IN DRY PLACES - Popular Gossip
Higher Thinking
The newsstands are full of publications that seem to delight in exposing the sins and foibles of celebrities and prominent officials...
While some of these disclosures may be true, we don't help ourselves by reveling in them or reading them. We may even harm ourselves if we get secret enjoyment over the fall of a celebrity. It's never beneficial to find ourselves thinking, "It serves him right!"
Reading such trash, even in the daily newspapers, is a form of gossip. We can use our time in better ways if we wish to enhance our sobriety.
If this sounds a little too stringent, we should remind ourselves that growth in sobriety calls for better management of our thinking and attitudes. Nobody ever got drunk simply because he or she read gossipy trash. But neither did that person make progress over the general problem of gossip.
I'll have no interest in the weaknesses or shortcomings of those who might be in the news. Popular gossip can be just as harmful as personal gossip.
-- Edited by gladlee on Saturday 12th of March 2011 08:34:46 AM
