

Many of us have ran across Debbie Downer, Negative Nancy or Pessimistic Patty in our everyday lives. These are the people that are so enthralled in the bad things there never seems to be any room for good things. They sometimes seem to live quite happily in martyrdom. They inhabit our families and social circles. Dealing with them can be emotionally draining and exhausting and you must be careful because their attitudes are contagious. Negativity perpetuates itself, breeds dissatisfaction and clutters the mind. When the mind is cluttered with negativity, happiness is much harder to come by.
How each individual decides to deal with the negativity varies. Do you fight back? Do you just ignore? Do you avoid the person all together? Do you become confrontational? What works when all else fails? How do you continue with a relationship whether personal or professional? How do you not take the negativity personal? So many things go through your mind when dealing with them sometimes you just plain give in or up however it doesn’t make the negativity go away.
Some tips on dealing with negativity are to spend more time with positive people. If you are around cynical and negative people all the time, you will become cynical and negative. Is that who you want to be? You have the freedom to choose your attitude in any circumstance. CHOOSE A POSITIVE ATTITUDE. See yourself as the person you want to be. Realize that some people complain for the shear purpose of getting attention. It doesn’t matter whether it is positive or negative attention they just crave attention. Concentrate on the task at hand. If you feel negativity creeping in….close the door. Focus on remaining positive. Realize sometimes things are what they are, all you can do is offer support when you can and realize that some people are just dark clouds passing by. The old saying “If you see someone without a smile give them one of yours” rings true. Sometimes a sincere warm friendly smile is all someone else needs to brighten their day.
Along the way we sometimes encounter unhappy people, people that need our extra smile to brighten their day, we can’t control how the Pessimistic Patty, Negative Nancy or Debbie Downer feels or acts: however we certainly can control how we as individuals act and react to negative situations. Make it your mission to “Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative”, everyone will be better for it.