The Secret of Sharing Information

These days we could find information pouring from almost everywhere, be it your neighbour, your friends, your colleagues, the internet, the newspaper... you name it.

Most of the time, people are talking about something, intending to share the information that they know about. And many a times, I myself was caught not finishing my sentences/topic and cause a whole lot of 'boos' from my friends who are listening. They will go like ' why are you saying halfway and not finishing the other half?" Most of the time, I don't tell much of things unless I am pretty sure of what I am going to say.

Oh well. There is something interesting here.

The truth is: I don't know exactly the reason why I am doing that but what I know is after talking halfway, something unconcious will snap in me and say "Hey, are you sure you want to share that piece of information?" And I will argue a while within myself before I decide whether to continue or not.

I am sure there are more people who are in the same dillemma as me, or at least I have caught two person who is having the same habit as me. Haha.

I came across this short article that was passed to me in the buddhist yahoo groups and how true it was.

Have a read:

The Secret of Sharing Information

In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, " Do you know what I just heard about your friend ?" " Hold on a minute," Socrates replied. " Before telling me anything, I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."

" Triple filter ?"

" That's right," Socrates continued. " Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you're going to say. That's why I call it the Triple filter test.

The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true ?"

" No," the man said, " Actually I just heard about it and…" "All right," said Socrates. " So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good ?" " No, on the contrary…" " So," Socrates continued, " You want to tell me something bad about him, but you're not certain it's true. You may still pass the test though, because there's one filter left : the filter of usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me? " " No, not really." " Well," concluded Socrates, " If what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all ?"

Now, don't you think it's a good practice to filter our speech?

Jen