Posts Tagged ‘New Age’

Merry Christmas 2009

written by Drew | 2009.357 Thu 24 Dec

Just a quick message from myself, before I begin my festive celebrations…

Although this is a few days late, I am extremely chuffed that Rage Against The Machine made the UK’s Christmas number one. I actually like their song Killing In The Name; I didn’t buy it, however, because I already had it. The band itself seems like a bunch of decent people.
I don’t like The X Factor, and I’ve never watched it or any of its brainless variants. I haven’t even listened to what was going to be the “obligatory” number one. I am strongly opposed to the “fixing” of the Christmas number one in any shape or form, simply because I think it should mean something. Simon Cowell and co. somehow have managed to do this for the last four/five years.

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Other People CAN Get In the Way

written by Drew | 2009.334 Tue 01 Dec

I swore I would write this post a while ago, and if I don’t write it now I will probably forget. If I sound like I’m randomly rambling, it’s because I can’t control my urges. ^_^

We’ve been told for years that we have to have a “positive” mindset, hang around “positive” people and stay away from “negative” people, if we want to be successful.

We’ve also been told that attitude is the one thing that will guarantee success in life (and that talents, skills, background and personality are virtually useless).

Most prominently, we’ve been told that we are solely responsible (read: to blame) for our successes and failures, our mistakes and achievements.

BULLSHIT.
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Drew’s New Year Message – 2009

written by Drew | 2009.321 Wed 18 Nov

Not sure what to write right now. I could talk your ears off about so-called positive people, observations about relationships from the bench, negativity, bastardised words and so on. Even I think it gets old sometimes.

So I’m going to go ahead – even though Christmas is over a month away – and write my annual New Year’s message.

Last year I encouraged people to think about themselves, as well as others, owing to the experiences I’ve had with genuinely negative people. I’m glad to report that I don’t speak to a single member of that phoney social group any more, and as a result my wounds have been paper over, my social confidence has grown, and my social circles have experienced modest growth.

My message for 2009 is a slight variation of a very popular, often misinterpreted motivational/New Age mantra. If you’ve ever seen my statuses on Facebook then you’ll know what I’m about to say.

If there is anyone in your circles who is negative toward you, drop them.

Like TJ Hoisington said: turn, run and never look back.

Let me set a few ground rules here. If the person in question is guilty of two or more of the following points:

  • is overly critical of you
  • gloats about their life
  • is someone who won’t talk to you, but about you
  • is always cancelling on you
  • resorts to silent treatment as a first resort
  • is a compulsive liar / makes a lot of excuses
  • is always trying to bringing you down, so they can be happy*
  • is living off of you
  • takes a lot more than they give
  • is a hypocrite
  • insists that they can do “what they want” but don’t grant you the same courtesy

then they’re someone you’re better off without, with no exception.

* I’m not talking about people having a hard time or in a difficult situation, whom you should always empathise with. I’m talking about people who can’t stand other people having one bit of happiness; they have to be the only person that can be happy.

Again, it’s not always easy to do this – some of the worst offenders will likely be people very close to you. But rest assured that if they have done it before, they will do it again. And again. And again. And again. (Because negative people – not negative thinkers – don’t change.)

As a result of this message I can see myself being dropped from a bunch of people’s circles. That’s fine with me: some people have a problem with me being Mr Ex-Doormat That Decided To Fight Back. But I will be dropping an equal number of people from my circles, and they pretty much know who they are.

In these dark times, when people are being hit from all angles at once, the last thing you need is people sucking the life out of you with their self-serving behaviour. The problem is that the people who do that aren’t always as obvious as one might think.

Positive People: a DREWspective on what they AIN’T

written by Drew | 2009.278 Tue 06 Oct

This post was originally called “Positive People: a DREWspective on what they are”. I’ve since renamed it because I thought it was inaccurate.

The following post was written based on my experiences with people who call themselves “positive” and promote “positive thinking”, as well as people who have been branded “negative”. By definition I do not consider myself to be either one of these people.

Back in 2005, when I started listening to Synergy and the late Achievement Radio on Live365, I was engrossed in the whole New Age thinking thing. But I was always troubled by this idea of people separating themselves (and others) into “positive” and “negative” groups.
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