05.04.15 The 13th Driver of Negative Gossip

13. Selfishness

Selfishness is where a person has the perception that it is only him or her that matters on earth, a disposition that makes that individual obsessively concerned about his or her own interests even when it is to the disadvantage of other people. Selfishness can impel an individual to negatively gossip against victims. The mongers selfishly prioritise their gratification above the pain and tragedies that their rumours could cause. They have the view that their welfare and pleasure are the only things that matter, even when it means using whichever kind of rumour to trample on other people’s health, peace, comfort and career or business advancement. Related to that is ‘self-ambition’, where a chatterer is so engrossed in pursuing his or her achievements that she or he resorts to using negative gossip to fulfill aspirations, despite the devastating impact of those accomplishments on people or entities.

The negative gossip against us must have been rooted in deep selfishness. It was as though the official who detested our mystery shopping visit was saying, “How dare you mention my weaknesses. I will damage your profile until you feel so sorry that you ever did that”. In the same vein, the prospective partner could probably not take the rejection from a human being since everything had to gravitate around him. And to such people, it did not matter how deep a pit they threw you in if you did not comply with their wishes. Probably, they were used to being obeyed with no questions asked.

We see that Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem were also very selfish. The three men were ready to use gossip to cause Nehemiah to drop the idea of repairing the walls of Jerusalem despite the fact that the inhabitants of that city were exposed and vulnerable to attacks and other disasters that an uncontrolled living environment could attract.

A selfish employee can use gossip to frustrate a person to the point that the victim opts to leave the organisation or entity. We see that happening at JuaLink, for example. As you may recall, Lulu was so selfishly obsessed with becoming a publicity manager that she did not care whose toes she stepped on or the losses that JuaLink would incur due to the publicity officer’s lack of the required managerial competencies, so long as she got Faraja’s position. Lulu’s selfishness was behind her efforts to tempt Eliya, Neema, Obed and others to gossip against the new publicity manager, Faraja, hoping to make the manager appear incompetent during her probation such that she does not get confirmed. When the gossip failed to ‘deliver’, Lulu lied to Faraja’s husband hoping that the man would withdraw his wife from JuaLink so that the officer ‘floats’ into the publicity manager position. In all that, the publicity officer did not care whether the misrepresentations broke Faraja’s marriage or not, provided the officer got promoted.