Postcards from the Funny Farm – PFTFF

What do you do when someone around you is in-your-face negative? Do you have a strategy for these “inspiration suckers?” Well, I can tell you one thing you cannot do with them: escape. I recall one day I was overhearing a very negative and counter-productive conversation. Rather than get involved in it and possibly get the proverbial: “What do YOU think Damien?” I ran out of that area. I went to a new location and tried to forget about the vitriolic stuff I had just overheard.

In that moment, I saw an even more negative situation where a kid was actually being the negative, toxic one. I realized then and there that you can run but you cannot hide from toxic people and their negative energy. I struggled for a long time develop a strategy for handling these people. One day it hit me as clear as day: ignore them. Can anything you do make a prickly plant soft? When you let these people affect your inner peace, you encourage them in essence. By ignoring these toxic people, you take away their power over you and over others. Why not turn the other cheek and daydream of Argentina travel? Even a toxic person knows what a closed door means. If you ignore them long enough, they will move on.

I would love to be able to tell you that these people will one day not be in our society anymore but they always have been and they always will. Just ignore them. They may not go away, but they won’t take anything good out of you. Oh one more thing, did you ever hear about the lifeguard that got pulled down and drowned while trying to save a flailing, pannicking swimmer? Both people died because the lifeguard tried to embrace a drowning man. Don’t let negative people pull you under, let them drown you’ve got better things to do anyway. Here’s a great article that gives more detail on how to ignore annoying people.

Do you think ignoring negative people is the best approach?