This sucks. What sucks? Everything. Why? Because it’s just shitty.
Too often we hear and engage in conversations that spend a lot of time discussing how shitty something is. It could be a circumstance, a situation issue or a person that we’re dealing with. They suck, she’s an asshole or this thing is a piece of shit. For some people it’s their fuel and it’s how they make their presence known. Without these people pointing out various issues and flaws their significance would drop dramatically. Their very existence is built on complaining and bitching to others in an attempt to make them see how badly things are.
Misery loves company. Without reinforcement, it gets suffocated and cannot survive. Complaints without the solutions deduct any sense of progress and in fact, bring us backward. We all know these people – chronic complainers. Whether it’s at home or at work or YOU are currently one of them. It’s critically important to realize that this behavior is equivalent to an aggressive form of cancer. It can take optimistic people and make them questions themselves. It can take a balanced person and pull them into darkness and it can take a person struggling and stomp out any hope they had left.
So now that we spent the better part of the opening of this chapter exposing what to be hyper-aware of and how to identify these people or situations what do you do if you find yourself in the middle of it? Develop the mentality that you do not get a free pass to bitch and complain if you do not have the solution behind it.
Awareness is the place to start. If we can be objective in our awareness and assess whether someone is a chronic complainer or just having a moment we can find a good place to start. From there you must assess whether the energy and effort are worth it for you. If this atmosphere is coming from your living environment, it’s probably worth it to address it through honesty and confrontation. If it’s coming from school or work it will all depend on how badly this person or group is effecting your progress. If it’s your friends, it’s worth having the conversation or finding new ones.
It will all depend on whether it’s worth it to you. The same way negative people drag us down, positive people lift us up. You can be the sunshine for someone else. You can spread the positivity that is lacking but understand it’s a tall order. It takes effort, you’ll be outnumbered and it gets tough to keep the light bright from time to time. Remember to surround yourself with people who keep you light shining while at the same time show you where your own darkness lies.