First off, there are sarcastic people and then there are negative people.  I’m of the sarcastic camp and will say some pretty horrifically sarcastic things, but that doesn’t mean I’m negative.  Negative people can use sarcasm to disguise their speech, but they usually react to situations only with criticism, deflection, and discouraging remarks.  You can spend your whole day building a project and a negative person will only say ‘you forgot this.’  They constantly only see the bad things in life and only comment on what is wrong.  They have become so bitter with their lives that it spills out into their words and actions.  When you constantly have to be around a negative person, they will unconsciously bring your happiness level down because they are so miserable and cannot find happiness within themselves.  It is not wise to keep these people in your life.

People who are negative are stuck. They are dissatisfied with parts of their lives and either feel as if it is out of their control or something put upon them from the start.  They do not like where they are, but they also do not know how or cannot change their situation.   Because they cannot change, they become jaded about their present situations and it will show through how they treat others.  Some of these people are physically stuck, but the majority of them are emotionally stuck.  There is something they can’t let go of or deal with, and unlike denial, where a person tucks it away, they are aware of the trauma, but cannot or will not deal with it.  Because they feel miserable, they will project this onto others to normalize their own feelings.  They use sarcasm to elevate themselves and feel superior to others, but their words are laced with poison that only drives to make them more miserable.  Some people equate sarcasm to negativity, but it is not the same thing.  I am perfectly happy being sarcastic as hell and can still support people.

People who are negative may or may not have reasons to have such a negative outlook on life based off their experiences, but what they don’t realize is that what they put out greatly affects the moods and attitudes of those around them.  When someone oozes negativity, you can feel it. If they can’t find the time to lift themselves up, they certainty will not not lift you up, and some will even resort to tearing you down so they can feel better about their own lives.  They see people who are happy as idiots because that is the only way they can justify someone being so happy.  If you are forced to spend time with a negative person, you can try giving them one compliment a day.  Just as they can influence you, you can influence them.  Overall, they can become draining as it takes a lot of energy to deal with them. It would be in your best interest to surround yourself with people who can build you up and support you instead of tearing you down.

 

 

I’m a big time procrastinator and it eats up most of my time and day.  I have a general fear of just trying coupled with plain laziness.  At the end of the day, I am genuinely not happy  about my progress.  I’m still content with myself overall, but I feel as if I didn’t get the most out of my day.  I watched a Ted Talk by Ted Urban and it was actually pretty uplifting, so check it out if you have time.  Basically, he says we are not motivated because we don’t have a deadline, but that we must realize the end of our life is a deadline and some of us are going to be disappointed when we reach it.  I do not really fear new things, I just have a general anxiety about it, so the only thing that’s stopping me is that I am just lazy, which means I’m comfortable where I am.  The thing about success, though, is that you must never feel comfortable.  The moment you feel comfortable, you’ll let your guard down and slow down.  That’s not what I want and need to achieve in my life, so I need to start making changes.  Not everyone is born with drive, but many people are born with some sort of talent, but that doesn’t mean those who don’t have drive can’t develop it.  If you develop your passion, you will also develop your drive because the two are intertwined.  Drive is the ability to never be satisfied and comfortable, and that’s what makes an individual seek out more.  Drive can also be severely detrimental, but there is always bad with good if you can accept it.  Find your passion and you can find your drive.

My grandmother just recently passed and it’s been rough adjusting to someone who’s been so present in my life.  She was the one who I snuggled up to when I was afraid.  The one who treated my skinned knees.  And the one who told me I would be okay.  And now she’s gone.  I recorded a video of her and at the end, I asked her if we could come back to record some more and I cried because we never did go back and I regret it.  However, I know I must be grateful for what we did do and the time I had spent with her.  Oftentimes, when someone passes, all we can think about is what we missed out on, but we forget about what we were able to have with that person.

I have to let go of the guilt and the what ifs.  She’ll never see me walk down the aisle, but she did see me finally happy with someone.  I wished I would’ve spent more time with her during her last days, but I had spent my lifetime by her side.  To let go of the person, we also have to let go of these regrets for they only do damage.  If we are  not able to let go, we will always have negative feelings when we remember the person we lost.  Instead, I know I must celebrate who she was and what she meant to me.  She has made an impact and she has changed my life and that’s all I need to remember of her.  One day, I will also leave and I hope I will have changed a life as well.

It’s going to be a long journey and what you have to realize is that the most important thing in your life is not finding your soulmate, but yourself.  You can marry the best person in the world, but if you don’t know who you are, the relationship could be in danger or you may fall apart if it doesn’t work out.  It will take you years to find who you are, so it’s okay if you don’t know who you are now.  How do you know when you have found yourself? When you really like and appreciate yourself and are able to value your own voice is when you’ve found yourself.  Find what you like and don’t like in people and cultivate the likes within yourself.  Stand up for what you believe and know you are worthy of people who can appreciate you.

Read a lot of books.  Go on solo trips.  Listen to music.  Keep a journal.  Love.  Lose love.  Never stop learning.  Find out what makes you unique and take pride in that for no one is quite like you.  If you are unsure of where you are currently and where you should go, realize that no one is ever sure of these things, but take the time to value what you do like and find out what you want out of life.  While you’re busy going through jobs and partners, don’t forget to find yourself in the process because that is the most important relationship you’ll ever forge.  When you are your truest self, know that others will be attracted to this and see how confident you can be.  Learn to be your own best friend.  Pick yourself up when you are down.  Say nice things to yourself when you need to hear it.  Forgive yourself for things you’ve done.  Let go of the past.  Finding yourself means you are becoming the person you were meant to be.

Who can be innovative and creative so that it results in a new way of thinking? I believe visionaries see things just slightly differently than everyone else, but this small amount allows them to see beyond what most people will ever see in their lives.  When your vision of the world is slightly askew, you view situations differently than others and you will have a different approach that they may have never stumbled upon.  How do you view the world differently?  You can start by not accepting everything that is given to you as fact.  Question everything around you and what you have known.  When you start to question why things are the way they are, you can start to envision ways to change it.  Become aware of human nature and what it entails, for technology changes, but human nature never does.  Visionaries know that ideas can change the world, but they must also know their audience.

Celebrate your quirks and strangeness, because that is what makes you unique. When you are proud of what makes you different, you can take responsibility for it and use it to show others a view they may not have considered before.  Visionaries are not profoundly different, they just happen to see a certain situation differently, and that can be attainable if you keep your mind open and question what you do know.  I believe people  like Steve Jobs and Howard Hughes were innovators not based on their intellect alone, but also the ability to question and see things differently.  Of course these two individuals are highly intelligent, but that is not enough to become a visionary.  Lastly, visionaries require a certain amount of drive because you believe so much in yourself and your ideas that you will let the world know at all costs.

 

So you’ve been told gossip is bad your whole life, but guess what, it can actually make you a more insightful person if you elevate it.  How do you step up your gossip game?  Firstly, we view gossip as a undesirable tactic that is used by snippy women, but all of us engage in it at some level or another.  Gossip at it’s base level is basically judging people that we barely know based off what we heard, but it can also make us more caring and insightful as individuals if we so chose.  When you talk about someone, consider what their motivations could’ve been.  Why did she steal?  Maybe it’s the fact that she’s poor and had too much pride to ask for money.  Why is she so promiscuous?  Maybe it’s because she finds no value in herself because someone made her feel that way.  Why does she continue to stay with him?  Perhaps her self-esteem has been lowered so much that she feels she has nowhere to turn to.  When you start to ask more questions, you see how they got to where they are and you become more compassionate in the process.

When you are able to discuss people at great lengths over and over with different groups of people, you start to see that there are trends in how people act and you can start to decipher what happened to someone even before they tell you their past.  You know that people react mostly about the same to life events and you can predict what they will do.  Human actions haven’t changed over the years, only what we think about them have.  When you can dissect them at this level, you will understand them more profoundly.  I liken this skill to the same skill I have in analyzing and interpreting books.  To be really good at both, you must practice your skills by discussing them more often in book-club like settings.  Now tell your mom she was wrong when she said gossip won’t get you anywhere.  The skill to becoming more empathetic and knowledgeable about our fellow human beings lies in our grasp, but it is up to us how we get there.

 

The way we feel about ourselves is actually much more important than how we think about ourselves; but in order to change how we feel, we have to change how we think about ourselves.  If you feel like you are not worthy, a failure, ugly, or despise yourself, chances are that it is because you think badly about yourself.  However, thoughts can pop into our minds and leave, but feelings linger and they are the most important to our self-esteem and confidence.  If you’ve made some poor decisions in the past, you may hate the former you and feel extremely shameful for what you have done.  If you hate the way you look, you may feel guilty for how your body got there and the lack that you are doing to change it.  If you cannot form meaningful relationships with others, you may feel as if you are not worthy of being loved because you don’t love yourself.

First off, who is benefiting from you thinking this way?  Are you?  You gain nothing by constantly beating yourself up for things no one else can see.  You are fighting an imaginary war in your mind and you are always the loser, but no one else can see this and wonder why the beautiful girl at the bar thinks she’s ugly because her boyfriend tells her so he can lower her self-esteem so she won’t leave him.  Or the girl you are with doesn’t understand why you can love her, but it is you won’t allow her to love you even when she is giving you her entire world because you think you are not worthy.  You are the only one holding yourself back when you continue to feel this way about yourself.  If you don’t care about yourself and forgive yourself, you will never allow others to do the same.

If you are ready to move on, forgive yourself for all that you’ve done wrong.  That doesn’t mean you forget, but you let go of the shame.  Every time you bring up that memory, you recall the shame and it is not healthy.  Instead, connect a positive thought to it so that when you bring it up, you remind yourself of the positive thought and you’ll find that the shame disappears.  The memory has not changed, but your feelings about it have.  Learn to love all your faults that you see in yourself.  Everything that is imperfect about you and all the setbacks you’ve experienced have made you exactly who you are.  When you learn to love your detracting values, you will see the beauty in who you are.  Value your voice and your time.  Recognize that you hold power in your voice and that people seek to own power, so you must make sure you are heard.  People are forever in stages of flux, and you must know that if someone doesn’t value your time that you are investing, they are not worth your investment, for life is too short to spend your time on people who do not care about you.

If you are not your own best friend and cheerleader, who do you expect to be that person for you?  You may think it’s egotistical to believe the very best in yourself, but that’s because you’ve been at the other end of the spectrum and believe the very worst in yourself and the light at the end of the tunnel always looks scary from the other side.  When you think of yourself as someone whom you would want to be with, you will have finally accepted yourself for who you should be.

 

 

 

If there is just one thing you should do in your life, it is to never betray yourself.  Learn to believe in the power of your own words and live by them.  If you ever criticize someone else for an act, do everything in your power to never do the same thing.  This has a two-fold effect, for you  don’t become a hypocrite and you are more cautious of what you say about others.  You will never live up to the standards of someone else, but you can live by your own standards and if you can, you can be proud in that fact.  You can set your standards really low and get away with everything, but eventually, you’ll find that you’ll criticize someone for doing the same thing, and betray yourself in the process.  You are free to judge others for their actions as long as you make sure you never commit the same things for as long as you live.  If you do, then you must have more compassion for the people you judge.  What this does is limit your judgement because you are also judging yourself in the process.

When you can achieve this feat, you will gain a tremendous amount of pride in who you are because you know what kind of person you are.  It will show in the way you carry yourself, the way you talk, and how you allow others to treat you and you they.  You will value yourself and your word and others around you will take you at your word.  They will recognize the confidence you have in yourself and be drawn to that without knowing why.  You will be able to influence others through your actions and words and possibly change the world.  There will always be people who will betray you, let you down, or take advantage of you, but don’t let that person be you.  Do not cheat yourself out of becoming the best version of you that you can become.  When you  have this much pride in who you are, you can look anyone in the eye and know your own worth and make them see it as well.

They say you should be grateful for what you have and appreciate where you are, but some of us can’t do that when we’re holding on to so much. It’s not even a possibility that you can appreciate what you have because you feel you have nothing.  So, how do you change this mindset when it’s your reality?  People who can be grateful don’t understand these people because they have learned to be grateful, but how can someone who has never been taught start?  Most of the time, these people want to change, but also refuse to change because they think it will result in more of the same: disappointment and they’re used to disappointment.  Why change if it’s all the same?  I want to say to them, ‘Is what you’re doing now working?  How long have you been doing it?  Do you want a different outcome?’  If you know you’re not happy, the biggest step is changing your thought patterns.  You’re used to being negative about everything, including yourself, so you immediately bat down suggestions that may help you.  If you are happy being unhappy, keep on doing what you’re doing, but if you’re not, you’re going to have to agree to being uncomfortable.  Agree to embarrassment.  Agree to the unknown.  And agree that there is another possibility out there that you haven’t considered.

It’s easy to say ‘If you’re not happy, change something,’ to these people when you can change, but they can’t because they fear change. They don’t like where they are, but they also fear change even more because they have a fear of the unknown.  When you are not confident with who you are, you are not confident with the future.  Accept that the path to change is littered with fear, shame, and sadness, but it is only because you’ve been avoiding all these feelings for so long that you feel them full-force once they come.  Once you accept it, you’ll see that embarrassment is a state of mind.  You’re only embarrassed for as long as you let yourself be.  Do not let these things hold you back from who you can be and where you can go.  The only way to combat fear, shame, momentary sadness, and embarrassment is to face them until they become meaningless and lose a grip on you.  I see that these things can c ripple people and the greatest tragedy is not that they didn’t get what they wanted, but that they didn’t become the person  they were meant to be.  The person they were meant to be is someone who accepts themselves for exactly who they are, but are always striving to be better.  There is just one correlation amongst people who are not happy who don’t live in extreme conditions: they are not happy with themselves.  They don’t know how to be happy and if someone were to show them the way, the way would look treacherous to them and they would refuse to take it.  But I ask you once again, is what you’re doing now working?