JOIN USIt's time to shut them out
Keep away from all shades of negative and toxic people in your life. Negative people come in all forms: fault-finders, fear-generators, spirit-robbers, confidence-killers, danger-creators, argument-lovers, self-esteem blowers, dream-killers, fear-generators, tale-carriers, faith-blasters, hate-mongers, rumour-mongers, blame-fixers, constant complainers, liars, backstabbers, dominance cravers, and so on. Such people are always around us and will be eagerly wriggling their way into our lives trying to rent space in our minds.
Keep them away by raising your rent because they destroy your self-esteem and self-confidence, and drag you backward in the pursuit of your noble goals of life, besides creating enemies out of your friends. They find their happiness and fulfilment when they see you tumble and bleed (emotionally). They do not add any value to your life but, on the contrary, inject gibberish and debris to your character, reputation, dreams and aspirations.
Destructive vibe
Negative people always take joy in undermining your value, destroying your self-esteem and confidence, and belittling your dreams and aspirations. They make fun of your visionary thoughts and abilities, drain your energy, and pull you back from your goals. People who judge, doubt, unreasonably criticise and disrespect you are not worth your company. They generate negative energy in you which you may have to fight against. They look for a problem in every solution instead of the other way.
Remember, you cannot live life amidst negative and toxic people, much less trying to please them. To the extent you keep negative people and negative thoughts away, positive people and positive thoughts inhabit their place. Both negative and positive people/thoughts cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Your conscious mind can only hold one thought at a time, positive or negative. You choose; do not blame others. Winning over all negative tendencies that poison and weaken the mind results in the development of a calm mind, which is a guarantee to sustained happiness.
Detachment is key
However, you yourself should not fall into their traps by taking a negative outlook about them; just pardon them for their petty mindedness and detach mentally (if possible, physically also) from negative people and still reap positive results. Negative people strive to make you one of them; defeat their purpose and frustrate them. Keep away from them, ignore them or sympathise with them and forgive them, but never trust and follow them.
However, if it is inevitable to live with negative people, see positively what lessons you may learn from them like, how not to treat people, how not to hate people, how not to trap people, and so on. Do not waste your time and energy in trying to reform negative people. They can never be reformed, just as you cannot make neem sweeter by pouring honey into its roots. They should come out of negativity on their own by learning from their own experiences and observing positive qualities in others.
If you want to rise above positively, you must drop negative people from your mind (if not from life) like hot cakes. With this, identifying negative people becomes easy and if you need more assistance, just look around or open the internet or read the Bhagawad Gita, in particular, Chapter 14. A conscious effort is required to keep negative people/thoughts away and develop positivity in all spheres of life so that life can be a pleasure to live.
Here are a few features of some typical negative people and thoughts:
Perennial criticisers & doomsayers
They criticise and condemn every speech and action of yours and can never look at these objectively to discriminate between right and wrong. They take a stand that they know all, others are stupid, and that you should live your life in conformity with their ways! Law of averages, of course, result in some of them in being right and some wrong. If future events turn out to be right, then these people exclaim, ‘Look I had told you beforehand about this’; if wrong, they still explain saying, ‘It should have happened the way I cautioned, but you were just lucky to escape’.
Dominance seekers
Their only purpose is to assert their self-proclaimed superior wisdom and assert that they will never go wrong. Often, their ambition manifests in the guise of ‘concern’ for you and expect every action of yours to be in conformity with their views. A familiar example is a spouse who forces the partner to eat more to keep healthy! Even when his/her voice is rude, you cannot complain because what he/she is saying is supposed to be in the interest of the partner’s well-being.
Exaggerators
No matter what you do, either regularly or occassionally, these exaggerators magnify the event beyond the limits of truth and report to your well-wishers that you are a rambler and that is the reason why you get into difficulties often! Even a sip of coffee that refreshes you in a day will, in their view, brand you a coffee addict. Any physical ailment, big or small, will be attributed to that ‘addiction’.
Super advisors
These know-alls cannot take care of themselves or their families, but can always advise even the prime minister or a Supreme Court judge as to what action he should have taken or not what not. You may be a legal expert, but they claim their knowledge to be superior and hasten to tell you how to solve a legal problem! They have a solution for every problem of yours. You may be an able administrator and the head of a big institution, but these super-advisors have an expert solution for any critical problem that you might have.
Constant complainers
To these people, nothing is right in the world. Whether it rains or shines, these people grind their teeth in anguish and disgust. These people cannot set their personal life in order taking shelter under the excuse that they are not allowed to do so as others are not doing their job well —teachers, parents, family members, public servants, etc. Nobody attends to their duties sincerely and nothing is right in the world.
‘Don’t’ masters
Whatever you do, these ‘don’t’ masters have only one advice — ‘don’t’. Even a simple plan to take a walk will be struck down by them saying that traffic is bad out there or it is sure to rain.
Problem lovers
Negative people focus on problems, positive people on solutions.
Fear generators
Fear is a dark room where negatives develop and fear generators are the ones who pull you down from all your forward steps. Suppose you are rushing to lift up an old man whom you observe falling down, these fear generators come up instantly to tell you, ‘Don’t touch him, you might have to take the blame yourself and face the police’.
Worrying heads
They are always worrying about what happens tomorrow and want you to appreciate and join them in their crazy worries. They try to come up with solutions for every problem that might arise in future — physical, mental and spiritual.
Rituals specialists
These are people who keep bombarding and filling you with doubts and fears if you do not follow religious rituals. ‘Are you going out? Don’t leave the house in rahu kala!’
Pessimists
Their focus is always on the negatives of life events and they always nourish a mental attitude of expecting (sometimes being certain) outcome of any activity to be bad and harmful. They destroy even the slightest hope that you might have that the outcome may be positive.
Rumour mongers
Such people not only spread wrong information but also malicious, unfounded and defaming information, otherwise known as rumours, dobber, big-mouth and blabber-mouth. Though they do so because of immaturity and mania, their actions might cause severe character assassination leading to serious situations, like even suicide.
Under-achievers
These are people who fail to achieve their potential or do not do as well as expected. This is mostly on account of the person entertaining or living in various negative traits discussed above.
Is there a way out?
Yes. Surround yourself with positive minded people, for they will strengthen you to achieve your goals and keep your mind calm and at peace. Positive people create energy, enthusiasm, self-confidence, courage and self-esteem in you, and push you up towards your noble goals in life. They reveal themselves up with traits opposite to those discussed above.
Look at the opposites of negativity. God has created a life with a perfect balance. If there are negative people and negative thoughts in this world, there are an equal number, if not more, of the opposite, i.e. positive people and positive thoughts, too. Turn your mind towards them. That way, you can have the best of both!