Positive and Negative Humans

I’ve lost track of the number of humans I’ve met in my life. Considering how many different circles I’ve been in for school, work, volunteer, social, and hobby stuff, it’s probably in the thousands. As such, I’ve been around plenty of negative people and positive people alike. I’ve seen firsthand many times the impact each type has on a variety of situations.

Before going any further, I’ll clarify a few things. When I talk about negative people, I don’t mean those who feel bad at times. I’m talking about those who have made negativity a way of life and attempt to push their poor attitudes onto all of those around them. Similarly, I’m not talking about positive people as if they always feel good and never feel bad. I mean people who feel good more often than not and who do good wherever they go. With that in mind, on with the post.

Suppose you had to lift a heavy object. While you could manage it alone, it would take a long time and put you at risk of injury. Now suppose someone else helped you lift it. Together, you could get more done in less time and at much lower risk to both of you as well as the object. The more people there to help, the easier, safer, and faster the work would get done. This is what it’s like being surrounded by positive people.

In contrast, suppose the only people around were both unwilling to help you lift the heavy object and also attempted to talk you out of lifting it. Some of them may even try to physically prevent you from lifting it. The more people doing that, the lower the chances of anything good getting done. That’s how it is to have a lot of negative people around.

Negativity can dramatically increase as even one extremely negative person enters a situation and dramatically decreases once that person exits the situation. Having just a handful of those kinds of people around makes it much harder to feel good or accomplish anything worth doing. You might know someone who complains in almost every sentence. If so, then you’ve experienced how frustrating and draining it is to be around them. You might also know someone who says something uplifting on the regular, like Mister Rogers. The calming reassurance that flows from those kinds of people is so soothing and beneficial for productive activity. Whether things are going well or they’re going poorly in any given situation, having positive people around makes whatever is happening much easier to handle. Those people make bad situations bearable and good situations great.

Having a lot of positive people around you makes it easier to remove burdens and bear the burdens that can’t be removed (or that take a long time to remove). Think back to a situation you were in that seemed hopeless until someone noticed a solution that everyone else had missed and thereby resolved whatever problems were happening. That one person did what everyone else, both separately and together, failed to do. Imagine how much better the world would be if everyone in a situation were committed to finding and implementing solutions.

My dog Sawyer was a huge source of positivity. Even a brief interaction with him would make me feel much better, especially if I was going through a hard time. His death was a huge blow in so many ways, especially from the standpoint of positivity. Since he died, I’ve made a point to distance myself from excessively negative humans. This was pretty easy since I had hardly anybody like that in my life toward the end of Sawyer’s life. Further, I haven’t let those who’ve told me that “the pain never goes away” adversely affect my healing journey. In fact, I’ve proven to myself that those words are false as the pain has almost entirely gone away thanks to all I’ve done over the last year and a half. This shows that, at least to some extent, I can refuse to accept negativity from those around me. While I haven’t mastered it, I’m getting better at it every year, along with reducing the negativity I put out. That feels good, and I hope it does good in the world.