The Gossiper

I heard this saying, “once you start defending or explaining your side of the story, you have already lost the argument.” You are already on the defense and that is not a great place to be. At that point, most people have already judged the situation and no matter what you say, their mind is made up.

As I have shared in previous blogs, my past year has been somewhat tumultuous. It has not been an easy year. Many of us have been through different crises in our lifetimes. What helps us get through these times is the people in our bubble; our family and friends. People who are there for us without judgment or criticism. I have been blessed with the most amazing people who have been there for me and have loved and supported me. We all need that in our life.

Then, there are the “other people” in our life. People who decide that although they are not in the situation, they feel it is ok to make judgments. This is what I have been struggling with.

I have had someone in my life who has taken it upon themselves to not only gossip about my situation but to share it with others. To add insult to injury the people he has told have also decided to be judge and jury and make judgments on my situation. Even worse they have disguised their judgment by “caring” about me. They clearly don’t, they just want to be in the “know” so they can gossip about me.

I have been struggling with how to handle this. Do I defend? Do I justify? Do I explain? This has been eating me up for weeks every time it pops up. I am not sure what to do. Again, these are not people in my inner circle. It has been consuming my thoughts and I get mad at myself for allowing it to take up so much space in my head.

So where do I go from here? Absolutely nowhere! I want to scream at the top of my lungs my side of the story. I want to explain the details they have no place learning about. They don’t matter. As I said earlier, once you start justifying or explaining your side of the story, you have already lost. It is really hard to let people assume they know everything about you but it’s better than explaining your side over and over again. People want to believe the version of your life they have put together in their minds or the version others have put in their minds. It is just not worth it.

The bottom line is that my silence is not a sign of weakness and their loudness is not a sign of strength. My strength is in knowing my truth and no amount of gossip can take that away.

The best thing we can do is ignore the gossip of people who think they know more about our lives than we do.

Learn to be okay with people not knowing your side of the story. You have nothing to prove to anyone. – Anonymous