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The Gossiper
A woman repeated a bit of gossip about a neighbor. Within a
few days the whole community knew the story. The person it
concerned was deeply hurt and offended. Later, the woman
responsible for spreading the rumor learned that it was
completely untrue. She was very sorry and went to a wise old
sage to find out what she could do to repair the damage.
"Go
to the marketplace." he said, "and purchase a chicken, and have
it killed. Then on your way home, pluck it's feathers and
drop them one by one along the side of the road."
Although
surprised by this advice, the woman did what she was told. The
next day the wise man said,
"Now go collect all those feathers
you dropped yesterday and bring them back to me."
The woman
followed the same road, but to her dismay the wind had blown
all the feathers away. After searching for hours, she returned
with only three in her hand.
"You see," said the old sage,
"it's easy to drop them, but it's impossible to get them back.
So it is with gossip. It doesn't take much to spread a rumor,
but once you do, you can never completely undo the wrong."
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