negative « DREWspective

Posts Tagged ‘negative’

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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Is The Glass Half Empty/Full?

written by Drew | 2009.38 Sun 08 Feb

This is going to be a relatively quick weblog post, as I’m heading out shortly to purchase yet more art supplies. That’s a whole other issue: I’ve been spending a lot on art materials even though I’m no longer employed, even though I haven’t done artwork in a long time.

The subject is on the famous “glass half full/half empty” debate, which was something I began to think about in great depth last week. I can’t remember what it was in relation to.

During one of the LighterLife group meetings, there was a brief discussion on the theory. We were asked if a picture of a glass drawn on the whiteboard was half empty or half full. Predictably, the other guys stated that it was half full.

My answer was a little more complex, being a bit of a smart-ass: that whether the glass was half full or half empty really depended on what state the glass was in previously.

Today I’d like to extend and modify my answer a little bit. I would say: whether the glass is half full or empty depends on preceding events, and the experiences of the person looking at it.

I will explain.

First, imagine that the glass represents a meal in a restaurant, or an alcoholic drink in a bar – whichever is easier.
Take one person who has been knocking back shots all night, or is on their fourth helping, and is starting to feel full. They’re presented with another round/course, except it’s a half-measure or half-portion. Their attitude to the glass would most likely be that it’s half-full: because there’s still more to consume, even if there’s no room.
Take another person who has been waiting for hours to get a drink or meal, with no explanation. They’re also presented with a half-measure or half-portion. What do you reckon they’ll think? That their glass is half-empty. It’s bad enough that they’ve had to wait so long, but they don’t even get a full serving.

Whether the glass is half full or half empty has a lot to do with how much of the glass you’ve already had. An “empty” person wouldn’t see as much in the glass as they think they should have, while a “full” person knows that they’ve had as much as they think they should have.

Secondly, there’s the popular mentality of associating positivity and optimism with seeing the glass half full, and negativity and pessimism with half empty.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree, there’s one instance where the above doesn’t necessarily hold true… and that’s with learning and personal development.

There’s a famous, probably made up story about an expert martial artist who sought a Zen teacher for more knowledge. The expert was talking about everything he was taught, during which the teacher was pouring tea into a cup. But as the expert kept talking, the teacher kept pouring – long after the cup was full.
Once the expert noticed the overflowing cup, the teacher informed him: “You are like the cup. You are so full of what you know, that there isn’t room for anything more.”

You might not see any [de]motivational speakers admitting to it, or any fancy articles and books on the subject, but when it comes to personal growth, seeing your glass as half full can be very dangerous. Half full thinking suggests that you’re an expert: that you can’t be bothered to learn anything new, or more relevantly that you know it all.

How many people do you know like that? I’ll bet you’ve seen many of them, but it’s incredibly difficult to see it in yourself. I know there have been times when I’ve engaged in half full thinking when it comes to learning, and it’s taken great reflection and thinking to realise it.

Seeing your personal growth as a half empty glass encourages filling the rest of the glass with more: more experiences, more knowledge and more wisdom, as well as more perspectives. Ultimately, you’ll gain more confidence (more of the ability to trust yourself).

I’d like to hear your thoughts.

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.

LighterLife Diet, day 93-94

written by Drew | 2008.342 Mon 08 Dec

With the Taste of Christmas event on Saturday (day 93), I didn’t pass up the opportunity to sample some food. Fortunately or not, it wasn’t as much as I’d have liked.

According to mom, I’m starting to look “too thin”. I’m not entirely sure if it’s true, because my face still looks podgy. (I am aware, however, that skin takes a while to catch up with your body weight.) She got angry that I am still on the diet for another couple of weeks.

As with the misguided comments about the diet I’d received a while back, when you set about changing something major about yourself, you’re going to face violent opposition from other people who liked things the way they were.
As I know full well, it doesn’t mean they liked you as you were. Usually they preferred you being miserable, or generally unhappy with the thing you’re changing, so they can feel better about themselves. They’ll resort to any means to get you to stop doing what you’re doing: having a go at you, name calling, manipulation, badmouthing you to others, taking sides, etc.

I can’t tell you how many people took sides against me over the past year, when I was negative after being “left for dead” by someone I thought was a close friend. I also can’t count the number of people I’ve dropped after I’ve seen their true colours, and – while I’m no happier for it, because I’ve yet to find new people to replace them with – what a difference it’s made.

On a whole, losing weight hasn’t made me much happier in the long run, but it is opening up new opportunities. I’m currently wearing a white Adidas top that used to belong to little brother: it was too small for me before, but now it’s baggy!

LighterLife Diet, day 55-56

written by Drew | 2008.304 Fri 31 Oct

3 ¾ lbs this week.

This was after abstaining entirely from food since Friday afternoon, when – after waiting three hours in a hospital to be told “there’s not much we can do” – I had a Reggae Reggae sub from Subway.
The promotional sub sandwich itself was bullshit; despite being one of the most expensive, it was simply regular chicken with a pile of marinaded peppers put on top. I’ve tried the famous Reggae Reggae sauce (before the diet), and there was hardly any resemblance.

Anyway, losing less than 2 lbs last week made me get serious about losing more weight last week. The ketosis stick turning dark red almost immediately yesterday gave me hope, but I will admit to being disappointed to lose just 3 ¾ lbs.
It does mean, however, that I’ve broken two barriers at once: the 100kg barrier and the three stones loss barrier. Yesterday saw me coming in at 99.8kg, which leaves me ten pounds short of my 210 lb target for this year.

Statistics aside, last night raised an interesting point.

For anyone considering doing the LighterLife diet, you will probably come across people who will criticise you for taking part in it, and particularly the diet itself. They’ll say that it’s an unhealthy diet and that you’re stupid for putting your body at risk, while “stepping in” and giving you alternatives.

All I have to say about these people, in the kindest way possible, is that they’re the ones who have criticised you for being who you were in the beginning, and will still find some fault with you in the future. They’re people who don’t know what they’re talking about, and see you as a threat to their existence because you’re willing to do whatever it takes to change your life.

I’ve been around too many people like that in my life, and now I find ways of distancing myself from them. I don’t know about you, but this kind of thing seems to be more common in women than other men (men will just make fun of you).

Listen, I will advise one thing: like with cosmetic surgery, or any other life-changing thing, make sure you want to do it because you want to do it; don’t conform to these artificial images of what society, the media, or even your close friends and family dictate to you. Like my mom, other people’s minds are always changing, and very very few people are consistent in their thinking.