Friday, January 02, 2009

Purging The Negative People

In 2009 I think it is wise to simply purge the people from your life who are negative influences, takers, posers, gossips, dream killers and generally rude or hurtful.

Think about it. We all spend a lot of time dealing with people who annoy us and bring grief. There are too few hours in the day to be spun into the web of these dark souls.

Now if they are your family or your co-workers you might not have the ability to totally eliminate them from your world, but you can curtail how you react to the drama that they bring to the planet.

It is easier than you think to clear your plate of these folks. Do not follow them on social media. I recently removed two people from my online platforms. Both I had met and both were self-centered "takers" whom brought little value. With a few clicks their presence was gone and I need not worry about them. They were acquaintances who I am sure will not notice I have unfollowed them.

Those whom you know better it takes a little more effort to navigate away from them. When you do cross paths, simply be polite (mutual friendships and participation in organizations will bring some of these people around often). Being rude just makes you look bad.

In a few cases you might need to "break up" with them, but in most cases you can orchestrate drifting apart and just get on with life!

That is my plan. Fortunately my list is short of those who need to be purged in 2009. But I am much happier in my avoidance of them already.

Life is short, spend it with those whom you have a mutually beneficial relationships and who brighten your world.

Have A Great Day.

thom

7 comments:

Matt Scherer said...

Thom,

Thanks for the wonderful blog on those obnoxious people in my circles of influence. As usual, you described a problem that is common for many of us. Reading your blog makes my day.

Anonymous said...

So true, I tried to do it last year as well with some sucess. I plan on making it a priority this year. Good post! Thanks

Susan aka Miss. R said...

You just validated exactly what I've been thinking about for the last 24 hours. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for listening the other day. You really did listen!

David said...

Hmm, wondering if the twitter follow was a coincidence. Not only is it hard work to keep positive people around, but sometime hard work to keep the positive inside yourself. Thanks for this article.

Steve Vandergriff said...

I could not agree more. I did this myself in Q4 of last year and I'm much happier dealing with honest folks who are on the up & up.

Neil said...

I've been really disappointed with some negativity and infantile feuding on Twitter recently. Fortunately it is very easy in that environment to simply unfollow.

Good post, thanks for sharing.