Photo by Mauricio Artieda on Unsplash

I used to be a negative person.

Sometimes, I find myself lapsing back into my old ways, but now I’m able to notice the signs and snap myself out of it.

Beforehand, I would become negative without realising what was happening. It was as if being negative was my default state.

Little things would rile me, I became negative and would remain that way for the remainder of the day. Defiant against any attempt to shake me out of my negative stupor.

Negativity can have its uses, such as looking at something in a negative light, to see how it can be improved, but overall, it’s folly. Being negative saps your energy, it takes a lot to maintain a negative state, and it will leave you feeling tired and miserable.

Likewise, when you’re in a negative mood, you’re not the most fun person to be around. Your friends and close family will resent spending time with you if you suck the life out of everything!

Like the ever-positive person, no one wants to be around someone whose negative at every opportunity. You need balance in life. A little negativity is good sometimes, it’s also necessary. No one can remain positive all the time.

However, once you start becoming more and more negative, it becomes detrimental.

Your negativity will consume you and alienate people if you’re not careful.

Negative Vibes

We are all prone to becoming negative at times.

It’s easy to get that way when things don’t work out as you planned, or if you come across something that annoys you. The truth is, modern life has a lot of triggers which make us negative.

Despite living in the best period of human history, we constantly find reasons to be negative. We shouldn’t be negative at all, considering we are blessed to be alive. Yet, we still do.

Maybe, it’s a human trait, maybe it’s a result of modern life, it’s hard to say.

The problem is, being negative achieves little. It will only make you miserable, and if you’re around people, they will resent you. No one wants to be around someone whose negative all the time. It drags down the mood of the group and becomes tiresome quickly.

A story from my time in New Zealand comes to mind when I think of this topic.

My friends were keen to go snowboarding during the winter months. This was something I had never done and didn’t particularly want to do either. I became negative about it and was vocal about how I wasn’t going to bother snowboarding if we went to the slopes.

When we got to the slopes, I had nowhere to go. It was either hang around by myself for 5 hours or go snowboarding. I chose to go snowboarding.

Far from hating the experience, I enjoyed every minute of it. Even the bits when I fell flat on my back, as I learnt how to snowboard! My negativity had clouded my judgement. I had made my mind up about something before I had even given it a try.

I was so wrong about snowboarding that I went back a further three times and thoroughly enjoyed myself each time!

If I had listened to my negative self I would never have given snowboarding a try. I never would have realised how much fun it was. My negative vibes served no purpose, only to make me miserable and a pain in the arse to be around.

Once I threw my negativity aside, I realised how much fun I could have in any situation.

My negativity served no purpose. I was better without it.

The Takeaway

This post may sound like I’m bashing being negative.

I am to a certain extent.

However, negativity does have a purpose in our lives, otherwise, we wouldn’t have the trait. If used in the right way, it allows us to be critical and push ourselves to improve.

However, if you become too negative, it can be detrimental.

You will start to find yourself being critical about every little thing, and finding faults in everything you see. Without realising it, you will become more and more miserable, and people will find you a bore to be around.

Negativity in this regard will get you nowhere. You will end up stuck in the same place, complaining about trivial things, instead of living your life and enjoying yourself.

There is a fine line between being critical and being negative.

You want to walk the tightrope as carefully as you can, otherwise, you may fall into the abyss and become negative without realising it.

Follow me to see more articles like this.

...

Follow