Much, or perhaps most conversation you hear or speak about concerns a future or past. However, conversations about the future or past are valueless: the past is dead and gone; and the future is nonexistent, potential at best. I refer to these conversations as trash talking, because like trash, they have no beneficial value to us or to others. Trash talk often involves sharing trash feelings. For example, anxiety, worry, fear concern the future, while guilt, shame, depression, and anger deal with the past. In both cases, speakers are ignoring the present moment – the only place that exists for us to make change and engage in life.
The Master of Christianity said that what comes out of our mouths defiles us more than what we take in. He was telling us that much of what we talk about is unsanitary, unhealthy, and insane (which actually means not clean). In this way, trash talking can be as destructive and toxic to ourselves and others as physical made-man environmental disasters. So next time you speak, stop a moment, and ask yourself am I trash talking?
