My sister brought home a book from work that her boss wants her to read, and I saw it on the dining room table the other day: Words That Hurt, Words That Heal. It's by a rabbi, and it reminded me of the frou-frou books we had to read in high school religion class at Catholic School (Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, etc.). I picked it up and read the first few pages. The intro consisted of the rabbi talking about these seminars he leads and how he always asks the crowd, "Raise your hand if you think you can go a full 48 hours without saying anything negative about another person." Sometimes a few people raise their hands, but many don't. He goes on to compare negativity and gossip to alcoholism, in that if you couldn't go 48 hours without a drink, you'd be acknowledged as an addict.

Anyway, I thought that was interesting and it's been resonating with me ever since I read it a few days ago.

Do you think you could go 48 hours without saying anything negative about anyone? Would it be hard? Do you think it's a worthwhile goal or just mumbo jumbo?

I couldn't go 48 hours without saying anything negative about someone. I get daily emails from Ann Coulter. The content of said emails is full of such stupid that I doubt even the rabbi could ignore. And I'm not talking about political stuff. There was an add in one of her emails that was supposedly some doctor saying that drinking water was bad because it brought on early Alzheimer's and all sorts of other problems. Not even going after drinking too much water. No they stated that drinking water at all was bad. Stupidity like this must be brought forth and mocked for the world to see.

Though I do try to cut back from cutting people down every now and again. I like to keep a certain level of understanding. But generally I cut people down.