“If the wife and I are fussin’, brother that’s our right/’Cause me and that sweet woman’s got a license to fight/Why don’t you mind your own business/Mind your own business/’Cause if you mind your business, then you won’t be mindin’ mine.”

Mind Your Own Business – Hank Williams, Sr.

It’s been said that good fences make for good neighbors. I think regardless of fences Hank Williams was on the mark, mind your own business. And when you live in a small town, my business seems to become your business and her business and his business.

A little while ago, a friend of mine was in a pretty horrible accident. They’re fine now and working back to full recovery, but you should have heard some of the more wild accusations surrounding the accident. It was straight up unbelievable. Obviously those trading in some of the more wild rumors had never met this person or they would have known the falsehood of their statements.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a beef with anyone in particular and if I did, I wouldn’t be airing it here, I’d take it to them. But every one of us knows that someone who just lives to pass on the daily dish.

It doesn’t matter to that person how tenuous the information they have may be, they don’t care what damage they do to that person’s character nor do they even care if the information they have is made up, they live to pass it on and looking like they’re in “the know.” I don’t know about you, but I figure I got enough going on in my own life that just keeping up with my business is a full time job. So is that the problem? Do those who play in the rumor mill have nothing better to do? Are they so bored that their life is made entertaining by the idle banter of other peoples lives? Our worse, are they so devoid of anything that they must fill up their life through the lives of others? The Germans have a word for such a thing –schadenfreude it means taking pleasure in the pain, suffering and misery of others. Our maybe they’re jealous that those they’re talking about are actually doing something while they sit back and do nothing. I don’t know but I do know this – if you mind your own business then you won’t be minding mine.