An Old Adage

If only I had managed to check my email before the weekend...

I subscribe to this "Thought for the day" message from the Napoleon Hill Foundation. It reminds me to have focus on goals and results and positivity in life, and not get dragged down into the little trenches of everyday. Now, I don't subscribe to the message because I don't have this in my daily life, but because I think it is important to have this constant reminder. It's easy to be driving in the car and feel a random fit of range about the VW Bug in front of you refusing to pull up while she waits for her parking space, and you only want to get out of the parking lot! But oh want a lot of wasted energy. Ask my boyfriend, Matt; I will constantly be the one reminding, "don't shoot off all that negative energy into my space" if he's having a particularly angsty moment about an employer, co-worker or customer. I worked in Customer Service for years, believe me I know what a pain they can be, and all that angst can really leave you drained for the whole day, and all on something you are not able to control: somebody else's actions.

So, I was bitterly reminded of breaking my own code over the weekend, when my email from the Napoleon Hill Foundation reminded me, "IT IS ALWAYS SAFE TO TALK ABOUT OTHERS AS LONG AS YOU SPEAK OF THEIR GOOD QUALITIES", i.e. the good old saying, "if you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all."


Damn, escapes my lips. I have already been feeling guilty, and here is my own email reminding me of the shame!


Over the weekend Matt's brother had a party for to celebrate our Independence, but the party was on the 5th (not the 4th). Anyway, it was good times with lots of his family and their friends and I was there mingling and trying to meet and get to know all these people I haven't met or I don't know... I met his Aunt, spoke more with his mother, met friends of his brother's that were visiting from St. Louis just for the event--people that had been in the guy's wedding. It was a party: there was lots of beer, fireworks, juicy pork ribs, more beer, which as the evening went on late, turned into shots. As the night moves along, a couple of people there (really us ladies, being oh so catty) start mentioning to me, "What is up with his wife?" referring to Matt's sister in-law, who he swears has just that day spoken to him like a real person.


Now, she is generally viewed as having a bit of a chilly shoulder to her, but over the past several months I have really tried to get her to engage in conversation, get comfortable, after all, she may be my family one day! But I was so bitter with myself when I realized that quite a long part of the evening was spent in a bitch fest about her "cooler" qualities and analysis about why she is the way she is.

Much of it was spurned on my side by her addressing Matt with a cold tone saying, "So, are you and Rachel going to spend the night?" as a means of saying, when are you leaving? I guess in my head two ideas exploded: 1.it's a party with friends from out of town and it's not yet midnight, 2. she isn't asking because she is actually asking us if we need a place to crash, considering the drinking that's been involved--and if anything, she could at least offer her brother-in-law a safe place to crash!


So, I admit it. I'm guilty. I caved in to the ugly world of talking bad about someone. Not wishing them dead or gone or anything, just exploiting whatever stories I had and manipulating them into a slush pile of details that could only be called mean. And I did this with other people. Nothing like a group of woman and a few too many beers to get them to talk trash.