Have someone negative around you and want to kick him away?
This year, a lot of people will be feeling the heat from the recession especially those who have lost their jobs or have their salary reduced. Due to this, it’s very normal to be feeling down and demotivated.
What does this mean for us? It means that there are a lot of people around us who are feeling negative and we will more or less be affected by these individuals. It’s really difficult to stay positive when people keep telling you that the world is going to end soon (imagine people saying that for every single hour….isn’t that very demotivating?).
What should we do then? The best solution, as recommended by many motivational gurus, is to chase them away. Isolate them. Make them disappear from your life, or vice versa. This way, their negativity will not reach you and you can continue your quest to be more positive-minded.
But, how applicable is this advice? To be honest, I don’t think it is applicable. If these individuals are our hi-bye friends, colleagues or other people who are not very close with us, we can give them this “isolation treatment”. But what if these individuals are our family members, close friends, pets, or those who play an important role in our life? We can’t just say “Let’s ignore them and their negativity. I want to be positive and I will only take in positive stuff!”
No, we can’t, because they do matter a lot to us.
What we can do, however, is to try and change them to become more positive. This is a very difficult thing to do, but it is worthwhile for both you and the people you care about. Try to make them think more positively. I know there are some people who are very negative, and stubborn – this kind of people, I will still try for few times before giving up. If they are not willing to change, I will not isolate them, but I will filter out those negative elements whenever they talk to me. Accepting them for who they are is the best I can do. 
Also, it does help if you force yourselves to be positive even when surrounded by negative people. If you do it often enough, people will see the difference in you and they will change for the better. My parents are now more positive minded because of that approach (they’re quite stubborn, so the first approach didn’t work on them).
Last but not least, do take note that this process is pretty tedious and not easy. But for me, it is still a lot better than just isolating the people you really care and love just because they are negative-minded.
Hope it helps.
What a genuine article about dealing with negative people, whilst maintaining the relationship. You see, I have to deal with a very negative person recently and all I wanted to do is to get ‘rid’ of the person but unfortunately I can’t. i have always been told (or should I say read in motivational books) that we can’t change a person (into how we want them to be) but we can change how we view that person. But then again, it is also our job to inspire one another. We can remind that person to be a better/positive person, but that person should also self-realize to make some necessary changes.
Here’s a famous tale. One man prays, “Dear God, please don’t let this misfortune hit me.” Another man prays, “Dear God, please give me the strength to face whatever misfortune that comes my way.” Guess which prayer is more likely to be answered.
Hint: The problem is not the bad news. Its our attitude towards bad news. The problem is not the source. Its the receiving end.
@ Syafique
The best thing we can do is to try and motivate them…in other words, make them more positive. But again, we cannot change the person. It’s not that we should or should not. It’s more like the person needs to change himself. There is only so much that we can do.
If they don’t want to change, then there’s really nothing we can do. I know sometimes it’s very frustrating and we just feel like getting rid of them… but we can’t, not to some important people anyway. So the next thing we can do is……well, just try to motivate…and if it’s really useless, just have to live with it and make sure that we ourselves are strong enough to stay motivated.
@ Damien
The second wish?
I believe there are people who are pretty optimistic even though the whole world seems to be crashing down on them. In the end, it’s really the receiving end that matters, not the news.
Sometimes negative energy is good if we know how to make use of it and make it the useful one, transform it to something that maybe positive or other things that as long as it bring usefulness to yourself.
So, negative not necessary a bad thing.
ChampDogs last blog post..Dollar Cost Averaging is Stupid?
@ ChampDog
Negative is not a bad thing if that person is upbeat n optimistic. But if you are like most people in this world, long term negativity can actually bring more harm than good.