Posts Tagged ‘abuse’

Six Habits of a So-Called Positive Person

written by Drew | 2010.16 Sun 17 Jan

Before I started writing this post, I had to think of a convenient name, or acronym, for what I call “so-called positive people”, or “delusional negative people”. Wayne Dyer once used the acronym NLP for what he called a “no limit person”, and women have the convenient term “weirdo” or “freak” for anyone who has a personality they don’t agree with. (Men have all kinds of terms for certain kinds of women.) So to clarify who I am talking about, I have to have some kind of definitive term.

In the end, I opted for the slightly longer acronym SCPP, for so-called positive person. It doesn’t do as good a job as getting across what these people really are, but it’s a little easier on the eyes and ears than something like DNP (delusional negative person).

So-called positive people, or SCPPs, are poisonous and toxic people: they are actually negative people in disguise. They are basically people who go around labelling others as either “positive” or “negative”, and usually claim to be “positive” people – while saying and doing arguably “negative” things. They differ from vanilla negative people (and negative thinkers) in that they have an unhealthily high regard for themselves, and a generally low regard for at least certain kinds of other people, if not everybody else.

SCPPs share exactly the same traits as negative people, but from my experience with being around these kinds of people, here are some common traits that I’ve identified as being common among SCPPs.

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Negative People

written by Drew | 2008.352 Thu 18 Dec

I haven’t ranted in quite a while, so let’s go!

I’ve been thinking about the term “negative” just now: particularly as a lot of people label me a negative person (implying that they’re positive people).

I’ll admit, I’m not the biggest optimist you’ll ever meet. If you’ve seen what I’ve seen, experienced what I’ve experienced and have had the misfortune of meeting some of the most ruthless, evil people alive today [outside of Government and the media], you’d be mad not to understand why. There have been times when I’ve said and written cringingly negative things.

But let’s hold on a minute here, because I want to address a few issues.

What is negative, anyway?

I’ve really had to think about it, but I realise that my image of a negative person is probably different to the mainstream’s perception.

What most people seem to believe is that a negative person is someone who makes you feel bad, lowers your mood, or – in the most extreme case – simply disagrees with you.

You hear motivational speakers poking fun at these people, saying they whine and complain all the time, and blatantly suggesting that everybody else is better than those people. “Stay away from negative people,” we’re told, “they’ll bring you down.”

My personal belief is that a negative person is anyone who:

  • finds joy in bringing people down, or seeing people suffer;
  • sees anything outside their sphere of acceptance as “not okay”;
  • has to cheat, or manipulate people, to win.

Note that I didn’t mention anything about them lowering people’s moods, which can be a symptom of hanging around someone who is down all the time. In my book there are negative people who don’t always make you feel bad about yourself, but usually these people put other people down to make themselves (and people around them) happy.

So what does that make you? Positive?

I think about every single person who has labelled me as negative, and I take a look at those people themselves.

Most of those people are your generic, cog-in-the-machine types who work all week and get wasted every weekend, go on holidays to the same places every year and only believe what someone else tells them, yet they spend most of their time convincing themselves that they’re better than everybody else – including people just like them.

These people describe themselves as “bubbly”, “outgoing”, “friendly” and a whole bunch of adjectives that people like to hear. But put them in a room with someone completely opposite to them in personality, opinion or physical appearance, and they’ll run a mile.

I know this, because people run from me all the time: thankfully only one of those times was literal. :)

There’s also the argument about the media pumping negative stuff into our brains 24 hours a day.

Travelling to work every morning, I’m always amazed at what lengths people will go to get their daily – sometimes, thrice daily – fix of the free London papers, or as I call them, “rat poison” (as in the rat race). You should see some of the negative bullshit people put in these things, from the front page headlines to the reader’s letters in the middle: it’s like a huge war to see who can force their opinions in the most rude, arrogant, self-centred way possible.

Then there’s television, and the main reason why I decided to stop watching it almost completely, save for the occasional film. Television – in particular – is always trying to convince us that we are not okay as ourselves, and that we need X product, Y looks and Z personality to be accepted. And we have to be doing A, B and C to be famous. Let’s not forget, you have to have done D and E by a certain age.

I’ve talked about Hell’s Kitchen in a previous post, and the warped portrayal of winning and losing.
One thing I’ve noticed in the US version – and something that seems to happen in a lot of “reality” shows – is that some people feel they have to cheat and manipulate to win, right from the start. Even in the first aired episodes, they’re already thinking: “if I could somehow play things to my advantage, I can win the prize.”

Just talking about Hell’s Kitchen, people have tried to use their bodies to get what they want. I could go into more detail on that one, but personally, I don’t think that’s the hallmark of a truly positive person.

But okay, I’ve digressed into new age territory a bit with the television talk. But this is my point:

These people are usually the ones spouting the mantra, “be more positive“. At the same time, they’re criticising, gossiping and sometimes bullying people who don’t fit in the same mould as them. They’re also the ones going around calling people “negative”.

Are we supposed to believe that these people are “positive“?

My view is that a negative person is anyone who tries to raise themselves by bringing other people down. This is where my idea of a negative person and the mainstream idea agree, however my image doesn’t have anything to do with the person’s personality or beliefs.

Negative People vs. Negativity

I’ve calmed down a little bit, so I’m going to end my rant with a few final words.

First of all, I’m convinced there’s a huge difference between someone who is negative and someone who thinks negatively. (That basically sums up most of what I’ve been trying to say.)

A negative thinker, in my opinion, is someone who doesn’t feel good about themselves, and usually wants someone else to cheer them up or help them feel better. They’re people who want things to be better, and usually want to be part of the solution, but instead feel powerless to change things.

If a negative thinker brings somebody else down, it’s usually not intentionally – they just feel so badly about a situation that they’re unable to feel optimistic about anything.

A negative person, on the other hand, is out to make themselves feel good by making other people feel bad. I’m convinced that it’s always done through some form of abuse: emotional, physical, verbal, sexual or otherwise.

A negative person can only feel good about themselves by ridiculing other people, to draw attention away from the fact that they’re human (and consequently imperfect) themselves.

Secondly, though it’s not easy to see why, I don’t believe that being negative is always a bad thing. Most people have a polarised view, not really helped by fairy tales or reality TV: “positive good, negative bad.”

Likewise, bad isn’t always negative. There are times when being negative is important; for example, when leaving an abusive job, or changing an old but destructive habit.

Just because someone is pessimistic about something – or even a lot of things – it doesn’t make them bad people. (After all, we call over-optimism – or blind optimism – “delusional”.)

That’s all I have to say about the subject for now.

Manipulative Language: “Need”

written by Drew | 2008.30 Thu 31 Jan

Today I’ve added a new category for my posts here on DREWspective: language. I think it’s important enough to warrant having its own category.

Language—here in the UK at least—is something that people either piss on or use as a manipulative tool. Some people either deliberately misspell words they don’t even know the meaning of, or they use words to control people. Maybe even both.

Nowhere is it more abused than in schools and educational establishments, which is unforgivable in my book as you’re dealing with kids. But you’ve also got to watch out for it at work. I’ve been in my current job for just under two months, and already I’ve heard a series of disturbing, common language themes. (You may have heard me mention it before.)

We’ll start today with one that recently cropped up, and one of my all-time most hated pet hates:

Need.

When someone tells you they need something.

When someone tells you they need you to do something.

When someone tells you that you need to do something.

When someone tells you that something needs to be done.

Some of you reading this will probably say, "do you really need to talk about this?" I rather stupidly asked about it on Yahoo! Answers once, and got a very similar answer. To those people: I’m talking.

Wayne Dyer said in one of his audiobooks that a need is something that – if you don’t have it – will immobilise you.

I’ve certainly had times where I felt I really "needed" something: the foam shapes from the US, for example, is something I "need" to continue making the chibiModels, so until them I "can’t" continue work on them. I put can’t in quotes, because there are other things (such as painting the heads) that I could do.

You’ve probably heard people talk about how some people feel they "need" a particular thing to be happy, to be rich, or to progress to the next level. Without this thing, they feel like they can’t change. It’s like when you have a craving for lamb chops, and you can eat as much of any other kind of food as you want, but you won’t be satisfied unless you have lamb chops.

There are times when the need is genuine. The only basic needs for people are oxygen and water (in my opinion), but some people could have a few more for themselved. I’d argue that having faith in something is also a need, even if it’s having faith in not having faith. :)

My beef is with people who use the word need as a controlling force. These are people who throw it around, like a sadistic master goes around whipping their slaves, or someone who feels the need to put a curse—or "lol"—in every single sentence. These people are only interested in manipulating others, and the word "need" is usually synonymous with "getting people to do" something.

There are much more relevant alternatives: is required; must be; I would like; I want; is supposed to; and many more. There’s no excuse.

Just remember that you have a right to define for yourself what you "need" from yourself; don’t let anyone define your "needs" for you. As Brian Tracy once said, just wave one finger at them and move on.