Journey mercies

There's been some level of discomfort (to put it mildly) over certain things which relates to one of my closest colleagues leaving the company. There has been mixed emotions of disappointment, indignation, anger, outrage, sadness, resentment.

The other night I was reading 2 Timothy and found 2 Tim 2:16 striking me; "Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly."

I've been guilty of this, because of godless chatter, it has inevitably caused the situation above. Some people call it spreading negativity, some call it honesty. Whatever it is to different people, it was me getting too involved with unimportant matters that distracted me.

I don't know why, but I somehow always attract people who know too much of the current affairs in the office. They end up telling me so much things that it's hard for me to resist from being pulled into it. I guess the lure of knowing more feeds into my tendency of wanting to be in control and in power of my situation. Not knowing what happens in the office makes me feel somehow lacking in some way.

What really gave me a wake up call to me indulging in godless chatter was when I was minding my own business in the office today when someone pinged me on Sametime. It was a colleague I only interacted with once or twice and never met before. He started by asking me about something, and then moved on to complaining about another colleague.

A little surprised, but ok, I could understand his frustration. Then he started complaining about a third party involved with the situation that led to the frustration. And then he started telling me about how this third party treated his colleague and how he had an affair with his colleague's wife! He had put it a little more crudely than that though.

At that point I lifted my head. This was waaaaaayyyy too much information. And very weird that he should spend 20 minutes gossiping about people who I knew by reputation but never met before. Like whaddup man!?

Previously, when information like that was given to me, it was in small and discreet doses, like someone feeding a subtle poison. But this dude was like splashing a bucketfull of it at me causing me to taste its bitter foulness in its entirety.

Thank goodness he ended the conversation as abruptly as he did starting it. I really didn't want to hear anymore of his gossips. I think it's time for me to start being deaf and dumb to these kind of things.

Labels: Random things