I trust that we can all find ourselves somewhere on the Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover. Good for Rockwell back in 1948 including both men and women, although the gossip starts and ends with a woman. (I think he did another cover with a man starting the rumor but I haven't found it yet.)
Little know fact: the woman starting the gossip is Rockwell's wife, Mary; the man chastising her at the end is Rockwell.
Well known fact: Rockwell and Mary were kind, compassionate people.
We may all know about the kind of gossip depicted in this cover, but what about the gossip that remains only with us? We tell no one; we talk with no one about it. Instead it gnaws away in our mind, taking up huge amounts of space and time; we go over and over whatever it is we don't like about a person. Projection becomes rampant. I'm finding that the best way to get rid of this mental negativity is stop being part of Rockwell's cover.