Now, I suppose if you had gotten blitheringly drunk and danced naked in the church hall; or got pregnant from having a rather public affair with your best friend's husband; or were arrested for some awful crime, you might expect that to happen.
But, what about when you haven't done anything...? What happens when you see the signs that someone is talking about you, but you can't imagine what they would be saying. What would you do? What if you don't even know who would have started the gossip, you are just seeing the effects. Or for that matter why anyone would want to start rumors about you? (personally speaking - I am a boring subject matter)
What then? Do you walk away? Do you dive in and start searching for answers? Do you let time take care of it?
Do you spend a lot of time wondering why nobody in your circle of friends and acquaintances would have the integrity to tell you or question you with what is being said?
Or do you just chalk it up to paranoia? Assume folks are talking about someone else? Not sharing with you because they know you would call them out on being a nasty rumor spreading twits?
That leads me to another 'what if?'. What if you see something that is scandalous - could ruin lives, marriages, careers? Do you confront, tell, gossip, go to the grave with it? What would you do?
Here are some 'what if's to get your brain going...
What if you see an upstanding member of your
What if you hear a phone conversation at work where the coworker is asking some other coworker if the money they received is really ok? Then they go on to ask how to make it look ok on their taxes? and then they are laughing in disbelief at how much money it was?
What if you know of a person's serious addictive behavior (gambling, drugs, illicit sex) that their family hasn't got a clue about, and they are talking to you about how deep they are in trouble?(loan sharks, missing work to go do drugs, having unprotected sex with anonymous partners) You see that they are close to 'losing it all' and likely taking loved ones with them.
What do you do?
2 comments:
If I applied "what if" based on my own ceaselessly speculative nature rather than on empirical facts, I'd have sucked car exhaust in a cold garage a long time ago. Sometimes you just have to chill out and stop trying to anticipate the often unanticipatable. Admittedly, I've had a hard time over the years practicing what I preach ... but I have mostly gotten there. And I sleep a LOT better these days.
What if some of these things are real - merely couched in 'what if' terms, and I am slyly asking for advice with some really hard situations?
Are you saying I should suck car exhaust? (bad advice)
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