The Happy Stoner | In Search of Positive People
I’m a pretty positive stoner. Not like, a fake, bubbly, always smiling, asshole or anything, but I’m not one who shares my downfalls and unhappiness everywhere I go. I am that way because I’m a mom to young kids, which means I am constantly on stage, modeling how responsible adults behaves. So when shit gets thrown at me, it’s my duty and my job to show grace under fire, resilience, compassion, and acceptance of personal responsibility.
To me, positivity is a way a person might view the world and their role within it. Positivity is about realizing the finiteness of life and having a plan for how to take advantage of it. It’s about understanding your influence on others and using that influence to positivity effect change in their lives. It’s about doing the best you can to be the best you can, and not accepting less from yourself.
Lately, I’ve been finding myself interacting a lot with the Negative Nellies in the world, to the point where I think people are just unable to recognize this trait in themselves. So, today I want to talk about it, and hopefully, elucidate some facts that negative people and chronic complainers may not know about how they influence the world around them.
The Chronic Complainer | Draining Society Since Forever
Me: Hi, Geoff, how are you?
Geoff: OMG, I have to tell you everything that’s happening in my life! It’s been nuts.
Then he’d talk (barely taking a breath) for 45 to 55 minutes about his life, how he felt about it, past stories that related, and every other conversational tangent under the sun.
When he’d exhausted everything he had to talk about, he’d asked me how I was:
Me: I’m great…
Geoff: Oh, I gotta go, I’ll talk to you soon.
from “How to Tell if You’re a Conversational Narssicist” | psychcentral.com
Okay, so to me, there is something very “look-at-me!” about the chronic complainer. These are the people who use social gatherings to trot out their “woe is me” shtick, a comedic routine based on a litany of current complaints, foibles, and hardships.
They want sympathy and support, and maybe some social shares. So they create this gimmick, this persona that they believe is sympathetic and funny. Sometimes it is funny! But always in that ludicrous way. That way where you walk away from a humorous interaction and think “whew, I’m glad that’s not me.”
Unfortunately, the Chronic Complainer often lacks the insight to recognize how their words and affect come across. Here is how negativity influences your life, environment, and the people you care about.
Complaining Impacts Others
Some people are genuinely negatively affected by someone else’s complaints. I am one of those people. It’s a trademark Pisces trait; absorbing the energy that others give off. As I’ve grown up I’ve learned that this is definitely a factor for me. I become harder to motivate when I’m surrounded by Debbie Downers. I lower my standards, lessen my expectations. A sour attitude creeps over.
In my life, we have actually had to put up strict boundaries within our extended family, to safeguard against the unhealthy spouting off of negativity. David would find me angered and grieved by Facebook encounters, and that was enough for him to say no more.
The children of Chronic Complainers cannot put up such boundaries, and thus can become poisoned by the parent’s attitude. We have all run across those kids, either surly and mean, or wide-eyed and nervous, tip-toeing around adults in fear that their very existence is something to be complained about.
Complaining Impacts You
Negativity isn’t something you can put on and take off. Your attitude is something that slowly becomes who you are. It becomes woven into the fabric of everything you touch, everyone you come across, every potential opportunity for change or growth. You cannot get a job with complaints. You can’t fix a marriage by complaining. And you can’t win over friends with complaints.
Every time we think a thought, be it happy or gloomy, it makes it easier to have that thought. This is why all of those gratitude journals, apps, and exercises work. The more we exercise our positivity muscles, the easier and more natural positive thinking becomes.
When you constantly focus on you, your pains, your problems, you fall into the pit of becoming a malignant narcissist. You literally wire your brain to be an asshole.
Takeaways
- Recognize the far-reaching implications of living in negativity.
- When you need to vent, ask to do so. Not everybody wants to hear it. Sometimes explaining first that you need to complain for a few minutes makes all the difference in how insufferable you are to be around.
- Don’t spout negativity around children.
- Realize the risk. You can lose friends, you will affect your romantic pursuits, you will greatly impact the mental health of your children, far into their future.
- You can be irreverent, sarcastic, edgy and opinionated without being a self-obsessed jerk. Learn about and avoid being a conversational narcissist.
| Further Reading |
How to Tell if You’re a Conversational Narcissist
Complaining is Terrible for You, According to Science
How to Deal with Negative People
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