The title speaks for itself, and mathematically, it's a truth. In Life, however, we come into contact with negative people everyday. While it's a humorous thought to ponder, throwing two of them into a room and seeing if one harms the other but comes out positive, isn't exactly ethical.
So how do we address the negative people and circumstances of the world? We've all seen them, and had to interact with them. The people who tell you Monday morning that their weekend was the absolute worst. As though it was a competition. There's the people who can trump every crappy experience in your life to make themselves seem like the worlds victim, and no matter what you say, they've had it harder.
As someone who works on this daily, as a manic depressive, I can assure you that copious amounts of pills, alcohol, sex, money, etc. won't solve the issue. If you truly want to see everything in the world as negative, you can find a way to dwell on every minor negativity, bypassing ever seeing any of the good. In fact, I've often found that negative people see the world as some sort of score card, where their experiences are tallied daily, and they are the only one who can understand the scoring, so it always seems to be in a deficit.
The other day I actually thought about this for a period of time, and I couldn't come to a conclusion about the cause. We all have horrible things happen in life, our cars break down and have a massive repair bill, our favorite pet passes away, we lose our jobs and sense of belonging in the world, etc. For others it sometimes seems as though their lives are filled with nothing but good luck, lottery wins, promotions, and other unexpected windfalls.To be honest the amount of good or bad in our lives doesn't seem to be a calculable amount that we can quantify, but more of a random factor.
The next thought I had was one that a lot of people may not agree with, but seemed to make the most sense; learned behavior.When I thought about the people I knew who were consistently negative in life, I looked at their world around them and considered hereditary biases. Suddenly it made more sense.
Picture a person who's raised with a parent who is constantly critical of the world, negative about every aspect, and constantly belittling, suddenly you see how their child grew up to be this person that seems to feel the world is out to get them.
There are whole families of people who act this way, constantly competing with one another for who has it worse, seeking pity from one another. No wonder their children don't stand a chance, they were raised to see the world as a terrible Karmic ass kicking on a daily basis.
I can't say that I was a child of this practice by any means. My parents had their hardships, and their triumphs, and saw them as such. They used to tell me, "it happens, but you can't let it keep you down, and you can't let it get to you. You have to learn from it and move forward in life." They were right.
So, when it came to my depression, I saw it as a chemical imbalance in the brain that I had to learn to deal with and overcome. I could sit in my room crying, oh poor me, or I could get up and make it better. I struggled for a few years, but honestly, it got better. The big question when I was in a negative state, was how am I going to become positive?
Step 1: Find something positive in each day and focus on it.
In College we had a counseling class, devoted to working with people who were in crisis. Our teacher, was a wise and wonderful British woman who used to start every class the same way; Find the positive and tell the class about it. We had to think of one positive moment from the week, one thing that moved us, made us smile, or just brought us joy, and we had to explain it to the class. While many of us found it humorous, and some even saw it as pointless, she was making a profound point; If you can find one happy thing to focus on, and remind yourself of it, you can't say the whole world is negative.
The practice took time, and a lot of thinking sometimes. It was so easy to find something horrible about the world. Finding the negative was easy and felt better some days, while finding the happy and the positive was hard. Eventually though, it became easy to find something to be happy about each day. I could see the 6 feet of snow outside my door as cold, gross, and annoying; or I could see the fact that when the sun hit the frost covered trees in the morning and the fresh snow was still falling, made something in me feel oddly warm and happy. Each morning after that class, I began looking for that happy daily, and eventually found somedays were almost stellar when I thought about them.
Step 2: Find your own Calm.
One of the points my college professors taught me, was that a lot of the worlds Crisis is driven daily by the fact that people are on edge all the time. We work tireless hours, under tight deadlines, striving for bosses who under appreciate us, and it becomes easy to panic, become exhausted, and snap at those around us. The truth was that if we want to be happier, nicer, energetic people, we have to find calm. The question was how do we do that in a crazy hectic day?
The truth is that everyone's calm comes from a different place. Some people like to read to calm themselves by escaping into a good book and leaving the world behind. I like to throw on some headphones, go for a long walk in the middle of nowhere, belting out my favorite songs, or cleaning the house. Either way you do it, the endorphins in your body release, giving you a sense of calming and relaxation, which make it easier to be happy. The best option I was given though, and I still use when the music won't work, was meditation.
I know some of the world thinks meditation means sitting cross legged, listening to Himalayan chants and wind chimes, but it doesn't have to be. What I found worked was called a guided meditation. You sit in a quiet place, close your eyes, and listen to someone with a soothing voice walk you through an imaginative world that you create. This also becomes good for your imagination. Something as simple as someone telling you,
"You're in your car, and you slowly pull up to the empty piece of property that you own. You get out, and smell the clear warm air. You hear the singing of the birds around you. Take a moment, picture the surrounding. Picture what it looks like, how you feel. Hear the soft melody of the birds, and feel the warm air on your skin. Breathe in deeply and take a moment to take in your surroundings..."
Essentially the visualization can last anywhere from 5 minutes to half an hour, works with your work breaks, and you can do it anywhere. Once calm, it's easier to refocus and move forward with the day. There are millions of them online, on you tube, and you can even make your own. They fit with whatever you find relaxing, from being on a beach, in the woods, a library, etc. (or in this case, a field of Sunflowers)
In the end, I don't know why the world is spinning into this odd negative space, but as I was told when I was a child "the world is what you make it" and frankly, I think it should be positive. So if you find yourself feeling the negativity around you, and from others, remember boy scouts; Don't jump in to save them and end up flailing and drowning yourself..... Knock them out, and drag them to shore if you have to. Just kidding. Find your own positive, focus on it, and if the negative people want help offer it. At the end of the day though, it's up to them, and they can only be saved if they truly want to be.
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