What Susie says ...

Susie :   You know, Sally told me she enrolled her son in the private school near her house. 

Friend : Good for her. 

Susie :   But the school in not very good ... I sent my son to XYZ international school. It cost a bit more but it has better facilities and my daughter will go to the same school next year.  

Friend : Then good for you too. 

Susie :   And Sally’s husband just changed job. He now travels to work in KL everyday. 

Friend : I know, Sally told me. 

Susie :   Don’t know why Sally’s husband wants to change his job. My husband joined of ABC Bank for almost 30 years now. He started as an executive and now he is a senior manager and it never crossed his mind to change job. He will stay with the bank until he retires in 3 years’ time. 

Friend : He likes his job a lot. 

Susie :   You know what, I saw Sally’s husband driving a new car. I think it must be the company’s car. 

Friend : That is good, his company provided him a car. 

Susie :   Ya, but I think it is better to own a car yourself. We own both our cars. I bought my SUV two years ago and my husband’s MPV is less than a year old. We also tendered for special registration numbers so both our cars have the same numeral digits. 

Friend : Wow, that’s very nice.

OK, quite obvious one can see the above short conversation is exaggerated and fictitious. I am just creating the whole conversation to illustrate a point which I would like to emphasize.

As you can see, the fictitious conversation is about Susie talking to a friend about Sally. This happens every day ... people talked about people ... gossips, tattlers, rumors and hearsays.

Now, many people are affected by what others say about them ... they get agitated, some insulted while there are those who felt offended. My advice is ... take it with a pinch of salt. We can’t stop people from gossiping, rumor mongering and bad mouthing others ... some even worse, even though they did not see it with their eyes, they invent it with their mouths. Put it this way ... if people want to talk behind our backs, that is exactly where they will be ... behind us.

Though the above is a fictitious conversation I created ... more often than not, the notion is quite similar in many everyday situations. So, Susie was talking about Sally but from the whole conversation we don’t really know much about Sally ... do we? Instead, we know which school Susie’s kids goes to, which bank Susie’s husband works in, what post Susie’s husband holds, how old Susie’s husband is and what type of cars Susie and her husband drives ... right? And more or less we have an idea what kind of person Susie is.

So, my point is ... what Susie says about Sally says more of Susie than Sally.