Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity?
My initial response is no, but when I look back, there have been many.
The Screaming Man did.
I have seen that I initially dismissed it as insanity from my perspective but could see that the situation was creativity.
The most creative people create from a place that does not fit society’s norms and expectations. It comes down to your judgments of what is insanity and what is creativity.
Different was Bad
As I grew up and got my indoctrination into the world, I think I was conditioned to view anything different from the norm as bad or undesirable.
One of my favorite teachers fell under this category. I was a sophomore in high school full of hormones and wanted to get through life as quickly as possible.
I had decided to adopt an attitude of not trying because it didn’t seem good enough for those responsible for my education whenever I did. I especially hated writing because there were too many rules.
Then came this class, the teacher was a woman who looked at life differently from me, and to me, she was a little bit insane. In retrospect, I can say wholeheartedly she was not the least bit crazy. She cared and was willing to do whatever it took to allow us to grow as young people. My education would have been much more valuable with more teachers like her.
She saw our class’s problem as a group that didn’t like English, writing, or each other. She went on a one-woman campaign to change all of those factors.
I remember she had us doing group-building activities outside on the field and in the classroom, and of course, at first, I was thinking, “This is stupid, and I hate it.”
But as I got to know her and the others in my class, I began to find that I liked writing things and having someone else see what I thought.
The writing wasn’t all rules; it was creativity and capturing what you think and feel. That you could express yourself this way was a revelation!
The insanity that had been her method to me led to the creativity of not only myself but many of the others in the class.
It is many years later, and I have relearned the lessons about writing that I learned many years ago. I am grateful to all of the people who have motivated and taught me something, and I know that tenth-grade English class was the first time I saw insanity and later saw creativity.
The Box is for Crackers
I believe this is an essential concept because most of the great.
Keep your thinking here!
Discoveries and genuinely original work come from individuals who think outside the box and may be considered a little insane in their process and thoughts.
Think outside the box as often as you can, don’t let anyone else’s societal expectations change the way you think or dim the great thoughts and deeds in us all.
Don’t let your ideas be dismissed as insanity, stick to them, and they will set you free and most likely change the world.
Attitude-a way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically is in a person’s behavior.
Attitude is everything because it is a result of the way we think and feel about everything in our existence, and shows the world just what we believe about ourselves. If you are not conscious of your attitude and why you think or feel a certain way about something, then you are at the mercy of that thought pattern. Many of our destructive issues resulting from low self-esteem stem from our attitude about ourselves and perceptions of the value we bring to. Today perceptions make a pact with yourself to be conscious of your position and the resulting experience that comes into your life because of it. Look at your thoughts, words, and actions and see how they reflect your attitude toward life, other people, and, most importantly, yourself.
Attitude Toward Life
Most people look at themselves as adults like they are set in stone. It is as if their attitudes about the world were poured into concrete when they were very young, and they never seek to revise them or improve them in any way. It is our attitude toward life that determines life’s attitude toward us. You will get precisely what you believe you will get from experience—your att, and yours the catalyst for life’s behavior toward you.
What do you believe about life? Is it fair? Is it cruel? Is it difficult? Whatever your attitude is toward life is what you will get from experience. Take a moment and become conscious of what those beliefs are. If you radiate confidence and self-assurance, then the world will react accordingly. The same will be true if you lack confidence and are insecure. Life is an equal opportunity provider of challenges. Your attitude will determine the ease or difficulty with which you will face challenges. Create awareness in yourself of your feelings toward life. Expect more good than bad, and that is what you will experience.
Attitude Toward Others
It is essential to develop a positive attitude toward other people because success rarely comes to one person by themselves. We are all interdependent in living our lives every day, and there is someone you rely on and someone that depends on you. It is our attitude toward others that determines their attitude toward us.
Your attitude should be to treat every person that you meet as if they are the most critical person in the world. Developing this mindset is a much more difficult task then it sounds. We are filled with bias, discrimination, judgment, and selfishness that limit our interactions with others. Being conscious of this will eliminate it as you treat others to treat you. Change your life by putting your interest in the stories of others ahead of your own. What can you learn from them? How can you help them? This attitude will increase your enjoyment of life and opportunities for success. Life isn’t all about you, understanding that is the beginning of really living.
Attitude toward Self
All people look at themselves as the hero of their own story. Their attitude and will determine if it is a success story or not. Your opinion about yourself develops continually over your life, and you can change that perception at any moment for the better or, the worse. It changes because of your actions and your attitude about these actions. Before a person can achieve the kind of life they dream about, they must become that kind of individual. If you want to be successful, then do the things successful people do. Set goals, take action, and be persistent in those actions until your goals are achieved. If you think you want to be something but set no goals and take no steps toward it, then you do not want that. This is your attitude.
Too often in life, we shortchange ourselves because we fear failure or what others are going to think of our efforts. These fears manifest in our minds and tell us: “You can’t!” “You mustn’t,” “People will think I am crazy.”, or any other negative message you can think of. A positive attitude toward yourself will erase those things. The human mind is only capable of entertaining one thought at a time. There is no benefit in negativity and many benefits to being positive. Why not consider positive thoughts and create an attitude of success for ourselves? Attitude is everything when it comes to success or failure.
So the challenge is to be conscious of your attitude today and be honest with yourself about what you find. If you lack in confidence and self-assurance, then start to change this. Set goals, write them down, take action toward them, and be persistent in following through until the goal is achieved. Your attitude will determine your experience in life with others and yourself. It all starts with knowing your thoughts, words, and actions today. Act as if success is already yours.
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” ~ Maya Angelou
“Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new.” ~ Og Mandino
“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” —Ayn Rand
“Do what you have to do until you can do what you want.” —Oprah Winfrey
“Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.” —Henry Rollins
All things are changing at all times. Absolutely nothing or nobody stays as they are right now. Either something is moving in a positive direction, or they are becoming less favorable, and your life is a reflection of the transformation you are currently experiencing.
Personal wealth, health, and relationships are developing each day, and your choices fuel that process one way or another. Fortunately, we are creators and can take charge of the transformation process. Here are six factors that lead to change in a positive direction. All of our lives are an exact replication of who we are on the inside. If you don’t like what you are experiencing, you have no one to blame but yourself. The optimistic view is that you will be able to make changes on the outside and in your experience by changing the way you think and the thoughts you entertain. That is totally up to you.
What you focus on grows.
If you are not where you want to be right now, your attitude is one of the first places to look for change. Often your focus will determine where you are in life. Focusing on what you don’t have or what is going wrong will invite more of that into your life. Concentrating on what you want in life will bring more of that into your life. Be grateful, loving, accepting, kind, and understanding, and avoid hateful, judgmental, angry, or limiting thoughts, and you will see transformation occur in your life.
Where your focus is will lead to the flow of energy. If you live in fear of loss or worry consistently about what may happen, you will experience the worst side of life. Remember, focusing on the thoughts and things you want to happen in your life will allow you to develop your reality in a way you would like. You are either in control of your existence or reacting to the things that happen to you.
Always be Better
In life, transformation in a positive way is called Growth. Each of us has the opportunity to grow every day. Growth sometimes happens naturally in life, but we need to seek it more often. Seeking it can be as simple as spending time in nature or reading a book with crucial information you need.
Or it could come through watching a video in the instruction of something positive. The growth provides excitement, and as you expand into it, the transformation will be a positive thing in your life. Growing is the force that brings your dreams and goals into reality. Always strive to be a better version of yourself because it will lead you to find your talents and gifts in the world.
Develop Positive Beliefs
What we genuinely believe colors our reality and dictates what we can experience. If your life is not moving in a positive direction, then look at your beliefs. Many of our limiting beliefs have been developed through the conditioning of our youth. Parents, siblings, relatives, teachers, peers, and the media have given us the rules that our consciousness accepts as accurate.
It is vital to a positive transformation that we recognize the limits and understand that we can change them at any moment. Developing these positive beliefs and replacing limiting beliefs allow a person to experience a real and positive transformation regarding money, love, health, or anything else.
Practice Gratitude and Appreciation
Another factor in positive transformation is learning to practice gratitude and appreciation for the things you have in your life. Looking at the right things and being appreciative of them will allow more of those things to show up in your life. Be a consistent giver of gratitude, and your transformation will be moving in a positive direction almost effortlessly. It allows you to see better and making a daily list of these things gets you to look for something to be grateful for throughout your experience. The human mind can only entertain one thought at a time. When those thoughts are negative, focus on things that you appreciate right now. Appreciation will bring you to a positive level.
It allows you to see better and making a daily list of these things gets you to look for something you are grateful for throughout your experience. The human mind can only entertain one thought at a time when those thoughts are negative; your experience will follow. Focus on things that you appreciate right at this moment. Appreciation will bring you to a positive level. You can’t be both negative and positive at the same time, you can only choose one, and that choice is up to you.
Avoid Negative Influences
A simple method for positive transformation is to avoid negative influences in your life. It seems simplistic but looks at the people in your life and the activities you participate in and evaluate them honestly. If you have friends that are engaging you in gossip or negative talk about others, it will bring negativity into your life.
The activity which causes you to judge others is harmful to your existence. Avoid these negative influences and add more positive things to your life. Either change the conversation with a cynical friend or change your friends to those who are more optimistic. If you watch television, which focuses on negative thoughts and feelings, watch something else. Positive transformation is as simple as changing the channel.
Be Kind to Yourself and Others
Finally, being kind is a simple method to transform your life positively. Kindness is free; it feels right for everyone involved; it is fat-free and delicious. You can’t get or give too much of it. Judgments of others move us away from kindness, which drives us negatively. Look at someone who annoys you or bothers you and then send them service, and you will see your transformation take place.
Our judgments and anger toward others only hold us back. Practice kindness and send love toward others. That is also true in how you treat yourself. We are often our own worst critics and are not supportive at all. Look at the way you speak to yourself and temper it toward kindness. Being kind toward yourself will be an essential factor in your ultimate happiness. When you choose between compassion and something negative (judgment, anger, meanness, etc.) BE KIND!!!!
“Real transformation requires real honesty.If you want to move forward – get real with yourself.”Bryant McGill
“Change starts in your thoughts.”Anonymous
“Yes, your transformation will be hard.Yes, you will feel frightened, messed up and knocked down.Yes, you’ll want to stop.Yes, it’s the best work you’ll ever do.”Robin Sharma
“You’re always one decision away from a totally different life.”Anonymous
“It’s not about perfect.It’s about effort.And when you implement that effort into your life.Every single day, that’s where transformation happens.That’s how change occurs.Keep going.Remember why you started.”Anonymous
Each day you wake up and have a simple choice as to what type of day you will experience. Is it a great day? A good day? A boring day? A bad day? A disappointing day? The decision that you make will determine how your day goes. Our attitude is the most significant factor in how much we experience life, and life is what you choose to make it.
One of the most critical factors that determine our attitude is how we look at our lives and the world. How do you spend your time? Do you look for ways to give to others? American society is centered on personal gain. The more you have, the more successful you are. This measurement leaves out a lot of important factors that measure not only your worth but your value to others. Joy and satisfaction often come from what you give to others, and the gain for you is not a monetary one but a spiritual one. Happiness comes from within. Seek opportunities to give to others.
All things each day provide us with the opportunity to find beauty and magic in all things. If you are spending your time destroying others or yourself, you are on the path to failure in reputation or feeling. If you know someone thirsty, give them a drink. If they are hungry, get them some food. If they are feeling low, treat them with kindness. If they need a friend, then be one to them.
Most of us were exposed to all of these values when we were young, but how many of our teachers and role models practiced them. This practice makes the lesson last and moves the action to a new generation.
You have total control over what type of day you will have. Is this a great day with the unbelievable potential for good? Or is this a day of boredom and perpetual letdowns? You are the one who decides the direction of your day and the course of your life, and your life will be what you make it.
“Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.” James Dean
“Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness.” Frank Tyger
“Be happy with what you have. Be excited about what you want.” Alan Cohen
“Life is a journey, and if you fall in love with the journey, you will be in love forever.” Peter Hagerty
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou
Attitude- a settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically reflected in a person’s behavior.
How do you settle in the way you think about things? Our attitudes are the perspectives through which we view life. Our opinion about anything will define the emotions we feel about that thing. It will also determine the joy, success, anger, or failure we will experience. Everything around you and what you are doing in life will be affected. Your emotions are a result of your beliefs and how you define things in your life. Our actions are going to be determined by our emotional state. For example, if you set your job as something you hate or something to get through, the way you perform the job will reflect that. Your attitude determines everything. The same is true if you love what you do. That joy will reflect in your duties around work.
Your actions will reflect this to the world in the way you act throughout your day. Each person should examine their attitudes today, the ones we have about all the things you can experience, and see how they affect your behavior and actions in all things. It begins with the thoughts you entertain about something, the emotions naturally attached to those thoughts, the words used to express your ideas to the world, and the actions you take that show your attitude.
Good Attitude Equals Success
When you set out to achieve anything, your attitude should be one of the first investments you make. A positive attitude will allow you the motivation and persistence to overcome obstacles or to see around them to achieve the things in your dreams. A negative belief about doing something, yourself, or your abilities will make your goal challenging to accomplish. Assess your thoughts at the start of any project and make sure it is on the positive side. Then follow it through to the successful conclusion.
What makes a positive attitude? The belief is that whatever we are endeavoring to accomplish is worthwhile and will lead us to a better life. If we believe it will bring more joy and satisfaction in our lives. Having confidence in what you are doing and a strong desire to experience that thing will allow you to create and maintain a positive attitude. With this attitude will come success and accomplishment. If you are not feeling optimistic about something you are doing, look at your approach and either make adjustments to the positive or abandon the project. There is no point in pursuing something, making you unhappy, angry, or sad. Just as the right attitude will bring success, the results of a poor posture are just as sure.
Where Attitudes Come From
An attitude is a part of us, but it develops over time. Each experience we have shaped it, and our view of the world and ourselves is no accident. Our practical knowledge builds our beliefs, and those beliefs reside in our subconscious mind, dictating behavior. These beliefs will influence, design, and control all of our attitudes about everything we do. If we believe we are “always bad at math,” our attitude toward doing the math will improve, and the results of any math-oriented things will be terrible because of it. So we become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and our attitude will lead the way in our failure. Changing that course is not easy, but it isn’t complicated either.
The first thing that has to happen is that you need to identify the places your beliefs are lacking. What do you believe about making money? Look at your attitudes. What do you think about your ability to succeed and accomplish things? What do you think about your talents, skills, intelligence, creativity, or other critical factors? Identify the beliefs that limit you and then endeavor to change them. Changing an idea requires a little reprogramming, but consistent effort can get it done. If you can change your mindset, you can change your attitude and, therefore, accomplish anything.
Good Attitudes
Building the right attitude involves an awareness of where you are at in life. More often than not, no activity or accomplishment in life will go smoothly without a hitch. A positive attitude will provide a person with the perspective in achievement to see the opportunities on the horizon and keep moving toward them despite the little potholes of life we have to get through. When your attitude is on the positivity of the accomplishment, nothing will deter you. Not the negative programming of your past or the negative moods of those around you today.
A positive attitude will allow you to keep your eye on the prize and get you moving toward that kind of accomplishment. Liking the goal and having faith in your ability to accomplish it is enough to pull you over, around, or through anything that might get in your way. A positive attitude will allow this to be the life case. Remember a time you accomplished something others thought you couldn’t. Attitude carried you or, conversely, stopped you. How has your mood written your story? How does it continue to write it?
Positive Attitude Builders
Look at the people you choose to surround yourself with in life. Either they are positive or negative factors in your achievement. The influence of a positive person will fuel you. It will provide a good push toward success. Like fuel in a car, the positive cohort makes everything run well. And often, encouragement is all you need to keep you moving forward and stop you from losing focus or heart in achieving your goals and becoming what you want to be.
The detrimental effect of negative people will be harmful to your attitude and limit what you can do. How many goals and dreams have died a horrible and premature death because of negative thoughts? It can be challenging to believe in an idea if the people around you tell you it can’t possibly happen. Limit or remove these influences from your life because you will never be your best, carrying the negative baggage negative people try to pile on you. It is hard enough to find your path in the best situation. Don’t let the influence of negative people make it harder.
Your attitude needs to be a creation of you and not someone else. Learn to believe in yourself, and all you can do and all you dream of is reachable.
Honest Evaluation
Honestly, look at your attitudes about the things in your life. Look at what you believe about yourself and the way the world works. Your attitudes are a direct reflection of these beliefs. If they do not positively serve you, you need to change your beliefs and develop new ones that will allow you to live your best life. It all starts with looking at your thoughts today and recognizing those you are giving your attention to. Acknowledge the emotions that stem from these thoughts and the words you use to express them to the world. Finally, the actions you are taking because of your attitudes about life. They will define you and what you can accomplish in life.
“A ship is always safe at shore, but that’s not what it’s built for.” —Albert Einstein
“Some people want it to happen. Some wish it would happen. Others make it happen.” —Michael Jordan
“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” —Ayn Rand
“Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.” —Henry Rollins
“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” —Steve Jobs
It is a difficult task indeed to start to think about what you are most grateful for. Many people will say money. Some will say, love. Some will say, family. Some will say something else entirely.
I am thankful for all these things, but to me, there is no doubt that showing your gratitude is the most important thing to do. The feeling of gratitude is important. So for me, I guess the act of feeling grateful is the thing I am most grateful for today. Here is why.
Taking things for Granted
I was the type of person who took many great things in my life for granted. Not appreciating the things that people did for me out of the goodness of their hearts. Yet, I was not grateful. In fact, I think I felt entitled to all the things I had in my life.
The problem with that is that you are never pleased with what you have but are always angry or worried about what you don’t have. This is the problem with a lack of gratitude. No matter how much you get, you are never pleased.
When You Lose Everything, You are Grateful for Anything
In my life, I had the good fortune to lose everything. In that time of turmoil, many feelings of self-pity and anger eventually will consume you or push you to make changes. I decided to change.
It started with a change in attitude. The sun didn’t rise and set because I existed, and I could make a decision every day to decide how that day to be happy. Happiness started with a realization of how lucky I was to have anything at all.
That realization expressed provides the feeling of gratitude. When it comes to events that are difficult to deal with, your designation of either good or bad is your perception of the experience. The experience is still the same. You might as well be grateful for it.
Gratitude leads to more Gratitude.
Once you take a moment to express your gratitude each day, it has been my experience that the momentum will build, and you will find more in your life to be grateful for. I have read that the act of being grateful is one of the most important emotions that you can experience because it opens the door for more things to enter your life that will deserve gratitude.
So I am most grateful for the time I take each day to appreciate fully what I experience in my life every day. Away from labels of good or bad, they are experiences that provide all of the situations that combine to teach me the things I need to know to follow my purpose. It is the moments of thankfulness that we find what is great in ourselves.
One of the things we all must navigate in life is our work/life balance. We live in a society where work is a must to live because we all need money. But work doesn’t have to be a boring, difficult task that we hate. Confucius advised, choose a job you love, and you will never work a day in your life. The Secret is to find what you are passionate about and do that to earn money.
Many people will argue that this can’t happen because you can’t make money following your dream. However, those people never looked for or found their passion, so they see it as impossible. It isn’t, and if you set your goal for finding that type of job, right for you. You will. It begins by honestly looking at your thoughts, words, and actions and identifying what makes you come alive on the inside. Then find a way to make money incorporating that into your life. Or you can work at something mind-numbing, life-ending, boring, and defeating. It is your choice.
Finding Passion
Finding our passion seems like a daunting task, but it really isn’t when you pay attention to how you feel. Most men are taught to keep their feelings at arm’s length and act. The problems arise when you realize that you are a human and have emotions that need to be dealt with actively or deal with them passively. This means that what your feeling will get
your attention eventually, you can pay attention and acknowledge emotional responses or be the victim of them through uncontrollable outbursts or even physical illness.
A passion is something that you do that makes you lose track of time. You find a focus, and all other things drift away, and you are creating something new. Creativity is the fuel for all human activity. When you are creating, you are unique, growing, and being vital to the world. Creativity brings passion to things and allows your personality to show through. Work at something like this, and it will be amazing. Work at something opposite of this, and it will feel like a prison sentence.
Attitude is the Key
When we look at any job we choose to do, success or failure will be determined by the attitude we have when performing this task. Your ability will certainly allow you to perform adequately or not. But your attitude will allow those skills to rise to the surface. Being positive is the only attitude to real success. Nothing good was ever created through negativity. That is a fact. If you are spending all your time complaining, you allow the victim mentality to take control. You give all your power to the problem.
Whereas being positive about things will allow growth to be possible, and your choices will give you power. There are always three choices to every situation, accept it, change it, or leave it. A positive attitude will allow you to see all of these options more clearly. Enjoy the little things that your job entails. There must be something that you like, or you should really be doing something else. Focus on these positives and ignore all of the negatives. Positive attitudes at work allow you to be your best and others to be their best as well.
Work and Grow
Work is an inevitable part of life. It provides a purpose, develops skills, and can be of value to society. We should all look for jobs that resonate with us. Not just for the money we make, but for the enjoyment they bring to our soul. If this is a foreign concept to you, then you need to seek a new job. To work at something you despise is a version of torture nobody should endure. When you see your situation as limited with no other options, you are trapped. No human works at their best in this situation. Seek the freedom of doing what you have a passion for and see what a life of enjoyment is like. It is possible to be financially secure and enjoy what you do. It all begins with a focus on your thoughts, words, and actions when it comes to work today.
“Be so good they can’t ignore you.”
“We rise by lifting others.”
This song by Huey Lewis reminds me of being in high school and college and the many jobs I had back then. Work is an interesting part of life. I’m taking what their giving ’cause I’m Working for a livin’.
One of the things I like the least in life are mean people. Mean people exist and thrive on crapping on the attitude, accomplishments, interests or well being of someone else, with the sole purpose of making themselves feel more powerful or to increase their own self-esteem. In a word these people are toxic and need to be avoided at all costs. They can leave you feeling worn out, tired, depleted and negative about everything but most importantly about yourself. It seems that they spend all day thinking about how to be mean to people.
Now I understand that most acts that can be considered mean come from people who need to make themselves feel better about whatever is happening in their lives and because they feel a lack of power, self-esteem or everyday ordinary goodness in their own lives. This makes them feel the need to treat others poorly. What bothers me is that it takes very little effort to NOT be mean, and perhaps some of the inadequacies they see in themselves would be alleviated if they just tried to be less judgmental and inconsiderate once in awhile.
People’s actions may be done without the intention of being mean to others, but when you gossip, put others down, ridicule, judge or make fun of someone else, you are stepping into the dark side of mean. So often in our social media society do people make fun of others, it has become an accepted form of expression. Look no further than Youtube. You can look at almost any video on there and if you bother to read the comments left, there is always someone who has gone out of their way to leave a not so positive comment, often using foul language and almost always to put down the content of the video or the creator. I often wonder how bad their lives must be to spend their time to be so negative. It is really unnecessary, if you don’t like something you see, why don’t people just not watch it? I guess that to do that would rob them of an opportunity to be a jerk, and being a jerk and getting noticed is better than not getting noticed at all. On Facebook, people go to all kinds of lengths to make negative pages about people, for the sole purpose of hurting them. There are numerous cases of cyber-bullying that have even led to suicide. Why? I just don’t seem to be able to grasp the concept of being that hurtful to someone else.
It has become the right of everyone to be negative about everyone who is a celebrity. We all seem to have a licence to judge them and their situation simply because they are well known. In reality, we know nothing about the issues facing these people and the facts about their circumstances. It all comes from jealousy, we as a society, build people up and seem to relish in tearing them down. Charlie Sheen is a great example. Does he have issues? Yeah, he does. I don’t think that I know enough about him as a person to make a judgement about whether or not he is an addict or mentally unstable. I have never met him and I don’t know any more about his character or values than I do about someone who cleans windows for a living. Most people don’t. That hasn’t stopped our society from judging him and ridiculing his decisions like we are so much better a person than him. Really we know nothing and a train wreck, real or imagined makes people feel good, because it’s not their train wreck. Just say the name Snookie and people will immediately let you know their judgments about this person. I don’t know why people like to judge her so much, but she has gotten rich and famous because of it. I personally don’t know Snookie and how she chooses to live her life is her business and that of MTV. I think people criticize her because they see a part of themselves in her that they just don’t like.
In life there are going to be people we deal with that we may not like or appreciate. It happens, people are different and not everyone is going to get along. But does that give us a license to be mean to them? It takes little effort to be courteous and accepting. If people put in as much effort into being kind and accepting as they did into being mean and judgmental the world would be a much better place.
Here are a few ideas for those of us working on living a positive lifestyle and Stop Being Mean:
Most mean people have a sarcastic edge….arm yourself with a few funny one-liners that you can use when faced with a negative person.
Don’t take what a mean person says personally…it is their problem, definitely not yours!
If you have a friend that has a mean streak and tends to say things that hurt you or others, try saying, “Ouch” out loud and never allow yourself to get sucked into the behavior. Always know it is okay to not continue the friendship.
Don’t go running away scared from a mean person, walk away with a stronger sense of yourself, knowing that you made a good decision not to get sucked into the negativity!
The ultimate victory for us is not to fight back, get even, be vindicated, nor ever to bring the Mean Person to justice. The ultimate victory is to render this person irrelevant.
Some helpful hints on how NOT to be mean:
Before doing anything quickly ask yourself: “Will this thought/action/comment make the world a better place for me, or anyone else?” If not – don’t do it and save yourself the repercussions. There’s no point expending effort in making yourself or others unhappy. Ever.
Tell yourself constantly that you’re a nice person so that your mind begins to accept that you are. Change your behavior accordingly to fit these new standards. Thinking you’re one of the “good people” instead of a “bad person” can really make a difference to how you act. Your mind will react positively.
Resist judging people if they are not nice to you. You shouldn’t judge people anyway. There is always someone nice inside everybody, even those whose insecurity causes them to be mean to you.
Like all habits, this one will be hard to stop. With perseverance, however, your defensive meanness will change.
Smile. A smile will let people know that you are pleasant and inviting. If you smile at someone, look them in the eye.
Ask people how they are doing. Take the time to ask someone how things are going in their lives, without being nosy or intrusive. If they seem resistant to talking, just let them know that you’re always around to talk to, and that you want them to be alright.
Be a good listener. Listen when other people are talking to you.
Be courteous, patient, observant, and considerate. And be positive. Don’t be negative or critical. Keep looking for the positive in any given situation.
Be humble. The key to being nice is remembering that you are not “better” than someone else. You’re an individual, but everybody has their struggles, and being nice to one another makes life better for everyone.
Be sincere. Be nice because you want to look back on your life and know that you were a nice person, no matter what.
Don’t lie. You will go on to do good things if you refrain from lying.
