If we are to reach our dreams, or just live in peace and harmony while we’re trying to get there, it is essential to know how to deal with negative people.
I’m not talking about mean people, but about the negative creatures in our life.
There is a difference.
Mean people suck! While negative people, mean well, but suck the life out of you.
There is a subtle difference, and it’s important because if we’re not careful, we will suffer greatly for it.
Mean people are simply that; nasty, callous, cold, cruel, and vile.
They plain don’t like you. Their goal in life is for you to writhe in pain, or wallow in your own miserable sense of failure. They are firm in their resolve to deliver their best blow, in the fastest possible time frame, and with maximum amount of force.
They are after all mean, and you happen to be their target.
Unlike mean people, negative people seem to like us, or at least they pretend to like us, and some of them, deep down, actually do. Negative people are everywhere. They are members of our immediate and extended families. They are our friends and our coworkers. They are the people we do business with.
Deep down they don’t like themselves.
They hate their life and they evaluate their happiness based on a fragmented sum total of their personal failures.
They don’t know what to do with themselves, especially when presented with even a hint of optimism or a glimmer of hope.
When a happy person enters their midst, they either run away to gossip, or stay to save us from ourselves.
They are everywhere, and they cannot be avoided. They cannot be ignored either.
Sadly, if you look in the mirror, you may even lay your eyes on one of them, or at the very least discover that you spend a big part of your day living as one.
Negative people hate waking up in the morning and ultimately, with the weight of the world on their chest, have trouble falling asleep.
They haven’t kissed their wife in over three years, but want to shoot the man who dares to try.
Negative people are depressed when it’s raining, and hide from cancer when the sun is shining.
They want to get rich, by picking six lowly numbers on a lotto ticket.
They want to get slim, by sucking on magical veggie shakes.
I could go on, but I think you get the idea.
The key to our own happiness and the realization of our dreams is to avoid these soul sucking creatures as much as we humanly can. That seems to be the best solution.
At the same time, while we cut them out of our lives, we must replace them with friends and neighbours who truly encourage us, or at the very least embody a spirit of hope and joy.
Sometimes our little negative rodent friends cannot be avoided, because they will ultimately gather at our house for the next family function, but at the very least, we must learn not to give them too much time, or listen to their tales of woe.
We cannot change negative people and we shouldn’t argue with them either. Any argument with a scum sucking pig (inside joke), will simply spin us into a vortex of emptiness and nonsense.
So stay hopeful. Grasp tight to your faith. Love your neighbour.
Repeat.
