05.04.18 The 16th Driver of Negative Gossip

16. Unforgiveness or Bitterness

Unforgiveness is a condition where a person finds himself or herself emotionally or mentally distressed as a result of failing to ‘release' an offender. Related to that is ‘bitterness’, which is about hoarding or storing intense hostility, antagonism, anger and disappointment towards a person, people or even entities; to the extent that the embittered individual feels shackled by those feelings. Many negative gossipers suffer from ‘unforgiveness’ or bitterness’, a weakness which causes them to use ‘negative rumours’ as a way of avenging themselves, punishing offenders or settling a grudge.

In our case, the officer who resented the mystery shopping visit could have become so unforgivingly bitter and determined to punish us for discovering the service disconnects that the visit unearthed. Likewise, an embittered prospective partner could have manufactured a rumour hoping to make us regret our decision.

When you look at Nehemiah’s narrative and the antagonistic negative gossip that brewed between his team and Sanballat's, unforgiveness and bitterness must have had a major hand in it. Some writers claim that Samaritans were a mix of spiritually corrupted Israelites and pagan foreigners who had created their own religion. Apparently, the Samaritans had their own scriptures and had actually rejected some prophetic writings and Jewish tradition. To add salt to injury, they considered the Levitical priesthood and the Jewish temple illegitimate. So, such a divided background must have fueled the negative gossip from Sanballat’s team.

In the case of JuaLink, unforgiveness was one of the conditions that caused Obed to harbour so much bitterness against Neema and her new publicity manager, Faraja, to the extent that Neema was the first employee to be retrenched as soon as a window for revenge presented itself through the downsizing exercise at JuaLink. Further, it was bitterness that compelled Obed to avenge himself against Faraja albeit using a more calculated and subtle approach, since he could not confront the publicity manager directly, being Faraja’s junior. In order to overstep the chain of command, Obed chose to ‘repay’ Faraja by escalating the fabricated story straight to the board chairman; aiming at provoking the chairman to question Faraja’s integrity. And, of course, coming from the board chairman, not only did the instigations that she was corrupt hurt Faraja more deeply, but they were embarrassing for the new manager, to say the least.