How do you deal with people who speak ill of you behind your back?

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(Hurricanes here, 5 days no power or water, internet off and on and very slow. But how could I not post an entry?)

An envious person is like a snake. They can strike for no real reason. If they see you exist they can just strike because.... striking is what they do. If someone is "bad-mouthing" me it is because they are envious. But to tell you the truth, if they are "bad-mouthing" me I don't know about it.

I rather doubt anyone is taking the time to focus on me for their "striking". For one thing, I'm very reclusive. Hardly anyone knows I even exist. I have a few good friends who I consider to have very high integrity and they are really way too busy in their lives to spend any time to focus on talking ill of anyone let alone me. On my social media sites I have a restricted friends list. We all have the same mind set. Communication is open and there is no sign of envy in anyone.

But there was an incident a few years ago. I had befriended a very eccentric man. Gordon. He lived in the woods with nothing. He was the first person to receive an artificial heart. It was an experiment. He had been a criminal. The police were chasing him, Gordon shot at them and they returned fire. One bullet pierced his heart and he died.

His parents consented to the experiment for the betterment of mankind. Gordon was dead for 54 hours, if you can picture that. They did not expect he would revive. They were just curious to see how such a device could be implanted. But he did revive. Shocked everyone. Including himself. He awoke a changed man. God had spoken to him that he wanted him to be His messenger. Tell everyone his story and that God is real.

Gordon was my friend and would come to the house almost everyday and talk for hours and hours about just about everything. He had also befriended a young man who was like a son. He became envious that Gordon was spending so much time with me. He began to spread lies and rumors. That I was naked with Gordon. That we were having sex. etc. Which is ridiculous. I was an old woman. Old enough to be Gordon's grandmother.

So it was due to envy. I had no dealings with the young man. But he was envious of the attention I was giving Gordon. The way I dealt with it was I posted something in the online classifieds that everyone here reads explaining the situation. That was it. It stopped.

I suppose if I were a very active public figure I would have to deal with a lot of enviousness and competition. In that case it might be a good idea to address the complaints and back-biting issues openly. If not they could fester into something very destructive.

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