Negativity

What do you do when you are surrounded by negativity, and it is draining the life's blood out of you? How do you deal with people who are motivated by anger and look for only the negative and never the positive? We have all had to deal with that at some point in our lives, and it can wreak havoc on our confidence and sense of self-worth. And it has sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy effect -- the harder you try to do something right, the more you know you are going to do it wrong. More negativity, more lack of confidence, and around and around it goes. Oh, you can do something good such as teach people a new skill, or volunteer to take on some project that no one else wants to do -- or whatever. Those are positive things, but it's not as much fun to point out the positives. The negatives are so much more exciting.

I think there are people who tend to look for the negatives in other people, in order to make themselves feel better. It's true. German people even have a name for it -- schadenfreude -- meaning "delight at the misfortune of others". I see it all the time, I watch people doing it to each other -- perfectly nice people -- and I think it may be human nature.

"Oh my goodness, will you look at that. I'm glad it's him and not me."

Or perhaps it's to detract from the what they may perceive as their own shortcomings. I think the flip side of negativity may be fear. In my opinion, the best we can do is to try to be kind to each other. You never know what is going on in someone else's life, and in such cases, a little positivity goes a very long way. We're all only human, and none of us gets out of here alive.