Do you learn from negative people?

by free2beme 16 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  OUTLAW

  To stay away from them...OUTLAW
• 

  acadian

  I learn from everybody, regardless if they are negative or positive. Peace
  Acadian
• 

  Finally-Free

  To deny what is "negative" is to deny much of reality. Life is not always nice. People are not always nice. We don't learn or grow by ignoring things that are "negative". My greatest lessons have always come from the most painful experiences. The key is to learn from them rather than wallowing in them.

  W
• 

  done4good

  The key is to learn from them rather than wallowing in them.

  Precisely. Something almost impossible for most jws, and perhaps one of my biggest gripes when I was the org. I just could not get the "persecution complex" that so many seemed to have.

  j
• 

  Balsam

  
  I came from a very positive minded parents and home life. My first real experience with negative people is when I was 16 with a young man who later became my 1st husband. My parents were uncomfortable with him but understood that to voice an opinion of not liking this young man would likely make me more determined to with him. The relationship went on for 3 1/2 years before I married this guy at 19. It went down hill from there and we were in the verge of divorce the first year of marriage. It was then we came into contact with JW's who seemed very positive minded but it was more or less smoke and mirrors. It saved the marriage by causing us to focus on the religion and putting our difference and his negativity on hold. My then husband became a more positive person which helped our marriage. Something that always bothered me was that my husband seemed to get some sort of gratification out my causing me to be unhappy. He would even smile to himself when he would berate and put me down. A sign of emotional abuse which I did not understand until a year before I left him.

  But it was only temp, and the negative mentality began to feed of the negative aspects of Jehovah's Witnesses teachings of which there are quite a few. Viewing everything outside of the witnesses as evil and dangerous to the JW spirituality, destruction of all people outside of JW's when the end came. No association with worldly family members or limited association with them. Preaching the end is near, danger of listening to the medical doctors. Medical field being under Satan's influence just like all government.

  Eventually I had so given up my positive upbringing and traded it in for the constant bombardment of negativity through my husband and the religion I became negative too. It literally smothered my upbeat thinking and brought on depression on a daily level. I finally realized I had to leave my husband and it wasn't until later that I realized that the religion I had been so devoted to was also a negative influence. I stayed in the marriage and religion nearly 30 years. I wasted a lot of my life staying mentally trapped in negativity.

  I am with only positive people and positive experiences now and life is 100% better. Negativity is a dangerous thing because it is so debilitating and brings on depression. I worry for my son who seems to follow in his father's footsteps and he is living in negativity too, though he does try to fight it. He is out of the religion but how much of negativity is genetic and inherited? Are people born with negative personalities? Are people born with positive personalities? I wonder about this often. I can smell a negative person and feel their bad vibrations now in a way I don't ever recall happening. When my son comes to stay with us he brightens up and the negativity seems to ease off, but when he returns to his negative lifestyle he goes right back to the same negative thinking. He is 18 years old.

  For any of you young folks out there run as fast as you can from negative people, no matter who it is be it family or friends. Understand they are poison to your life. For us older ones I hope you learned and fled as I did, because life is so much better if we leave the negativity behind. Trevor brings out a good point too, just observing negative people is education because of how badly their lives turn out. Everything can be learned from.
• 

  minimus

  I learn from negative people.....and positive ones. When I try to balance a bad situation, I think of both the negative and positive. Negative people tend to make those around them either negative, too or totally different to almost over compensate for the negativity. If someone regularly puts people down, I'll purposely try to steer the discussion into something more positive.
• 

  serendipity

  I used to be negative, and now consider myself a realist. I was in no way, shape or form, mediocre because I wanted to excel in whatever I did.

  Over time, I started to become less negative and decided not to worry or criticize so much because it's an energy drain, and I don't have energy to spare. Since I choose to be around my negative JW family members, I don't have much patience with others who are negative and will try to avoid them. IF people are negative, I ask if there is any basis to their negativity. If so, then perhaps I can learn from them. But, I don't go out of my way to do so.