For anyone who isn’t familiar with my older weblogs: around this time every year I used to write a message to anyone who reads the crap I put out. It’s basically a reflection of the year that’s gone by, with thoughts about the year ahead, and some advice if anyone wants it.

Usually I ask people to think about other people who don’t have life as good as they do, particularly around Christmas time. (It didn’t surprise me that very few people did, not least because hardly anyone read my weblog! ) I always think about homeless people, and those who don’t even have anyone to celebrate Christmas with, because that particular time can drive people to death.

In recent years I’ve had problems with women around this time: two years ago it was a callous Finnish girl who misled me, and last year it was a girl who left me for “dead” for a lighter, brighter, significantly whiter guy with everybody’s approval. I’m thankful that this year hasn’t been nearly as painful or dramatic; the only incident was a BB gun pellet to the lip, which has now healed.

My message this year is going to be very different to those previous years: instead of advising people to think of others, I’m going to advise thinking of yourself.

You see, I used to be part of a social group. I thought I had finally found a bunch of people who accepted me for who I was, but unfortunately it was nowhere near like that. I was conveniently ignored by the girls, made the butt of jokes and criticism, and generally outcast as a “negative” person. I wasn’t the most optimistic person around, but I told things how they really were from my perspective, and I think people had a problem with it.
Having taken a closer look at what happened, and seeing things happen since then, it dawned on me that maybe I wasn’t a negative person after all. (See my weblog post on Negative People.) I was certainly a negative-thinking person at the time, but I wasn’t going around forming gangs, hurting people or calling them names.

I can’t say that disconnecting myself from these people has improved my life, and I’ve yet to find another social group to join. However, it has made all the difference, certainly in how I think.

Again, my advice to anyone who has a negative person in their life – echoing the words of TJ Hoisington again – is to turn, run and never look back. You can live with a negative thinker, but a negative person will literally suck the life out of you, to the point where you feel worthless.

There was an incident not so long ago where someone had a go at me for something I said. It was during a week where things were going wrong all over the place, and I was incredibly stressed out and miserable – and they knew it. Instead of addressing the real issue – as most people do when they just want to have a go at someone – they threw everything and the kitchen sink at me. They dug up history, and a lot of regressed opinions, and used it as ammo.
They refused to apologise because they “meant what they said”, but for some reason insisted I didn’t “take it the wrong way”.

That, in my view, is a negative person.

I’ll give the same advice as I did in another place on the Internet, so make sure you write it down if you want to.

If there’s someone in your life who is just looking for a chance to have a go at you – especially when you need it least – and ignores what you say, drop them. Don’t encourage them by saying or doing anything, just drop them.

With all that said, I hope you guys have a few things to leave behind in 2008, and have a Happy – Ballin’ even – 2009. Peace.