Test for Gossip: When people come to me with Gossip about you.. this is how I will deal with it.

if someone comes to me and says, “Do you know what I just heard about your friend?”

“Hold on a minute,” I will say. “Before telling me anything I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test.”

“Triple filter?”

“That’s right,” I will continued. “Before you talk to me about m
y friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. That’s why I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”

“No,” is the most likely answer I will get, “Actually I just heard about it and …”

“All right,” I will say. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?”

“No, on the contrary…”

“So,” I will continue, “you want to tell me something bad about him/her, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left: the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?”

“No, not really …”

“Well,” I will conclude, “if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me in the first place?”

I hope you will do the same for me my friend …