Conventional Cassette : A side and B side.

As what I understood after reading a book by David Schwartz , "The Magic of Thinking Big", people who "Think Big" do not get themselves involve in small talk about others bad behaviours. .You can find these kind of people everywhere, anytime and when you start to learn about them,  you'll meet more of their kind along the way. People who live in mediocrity, will then start to think and behave stereotypically mediocrity. Their presence may sometime seem like dragging you into the path of rat racing in their own interests of bad mouthing, slandering and sarcastic remarks. I call these people as B side of a cassette.

Recently, I had spent an evening with people who seem to be so nice to be with,  cheerful and full of jokes (they do actually) ,  but then the badmouthing chapters started to drip through their mouth, one drop at a moment and than slowly, "woosh.." , I was wet and soaked. In my opinion, badmouthing is a product of being mediocre. If you are not careful or sharp enought to sense its presence, you may as well indulge in the "mediocritism",   and non-value add information and discussion started to jam into your brain inbox.

On  the other hand, sometime these people are also good people that kind enough to assist you voluntarily. I call it, the A side of the cassette. I wonder why. I have dilemma in that mode of role transition. Probably that's the way things are engineered in this universe. A radioactive can be a useful element in medical science, and it could also be a destructive weapon of mass destruction. By chance or not, most of the people that I met whom like to  tell under the skirt stories are very helpful people. In other word, you can depend on them for help when you are in need, provided you become a good listener to what they wanted to tell.

Most of the time, I just couldn't avoid hearing negative stuffs as I had to be around these people for some valid reason. Most of the time , I would made my own way, doing my own activities or thinking, just to avoid or distract an influence from these people. People always like when you listen to them, hearing all the nasty stories,  but honestly, I don't always like what I listen. Some may think that I am choosy about friendship or relationship, and yes, they are most probably right, because I dont have the capacity to listen to the unnecesary fairy tales.

One thing I learn in order to stop or temporary skip this kind of behaviour is to ask these B side people about  great truth about themselves or perhaps the person that they adored (like their kids or good friends), good things that they had experienced, good people that they met, and yes...they do have good story too, and there you go, grab the juice out of it, keep the bad stories in the fridge.

Having said this, it is not to say that you should totally prohibit yourself from talking about others, but you have to think about the intention of having that conversation. If the intention is to avoid the same mistake, learn from that mistake or to tell save the audience from getting into trouble, than it would be a considerable bad mouthing. For example, you got a very bad service from a shop that cause you to lose money, it is ok to share this with your friends so that they do not get into the same problem.

On contrary, if the B side stories are intended just to past time , just to fill the conversation , just to get influence so that people support you or just to let go your feeling, I think this is not ethical. Some people may enjoy, but honestly I don't. Sorry for not being a good listener.

- UnspokenSpirit.