The Negatives of Negativity

So I want you to think of the most depressing person you know. I’d be willing to venture that their life is really not the tragedy that they would have you believe. In fact, I would venture further that if your friend would stop complaining once in a while and put forth some effort then they would have a lot less to complain about. Now, I want you to think about how you feel when you spend time with that person. Have you ever noticed that no matter what kind of mood you are in when you talk with you friend that you always leave feeling worse then you did before? You find yourself complaining about things more and are suddenly tired. There is a simple principal that causes this anomaly. Negativity is an infectious disease that is communicable through thought. However, like the most diseases there are simple ways to prevent and cure it.
I have a friend who used to be a very negative person. His family took him to Disney a few years ago for three days. Upon return however, all he could talk about was the fact hat he had dropped his lunch and lost it. Now, did he have a terrible time? No, aside from dropping his food that one time, there was no other upsets on the entire trip. His negative attitude at the time completely obstructed all his wonderful experiences from view and hyper focused his view on that one small incident. Negativity robs the host individual of any happiness by omitting those thoughts and observations that would bring happiness.
If you take two burning logs and place them next to each other the resulting flame will be larger than the sum of the to separate. Negativity, and its companion’s anger and hate, are like flames that grow larger the more logs they can affect. Thus the statement misery loves company. A person alone will never generate the same level of emotions that two people or more could generate. That is why people in mobs will do things that they would be horrified had they done the same thing alone.
Infections affect more easily those individuals that are in a weakened state, but all are still susceptible to disease. Such is the same with negativity. There are individuals that just naturally seem to be able to avoid most negativity, but no one person is immune to it. There are many anti-negativity activities that we can employ to avoid becoming negative in the first place and once infected there are many cures.
Nutrition is vital to the whole health of an individual. Likewise, there are certain emotional nutrients that an individual needs to stay positive. Work and accomplishment are the whole grains of emotional health, family is the milk, sociality and charity are its fruits and meats, and we can always use a little dessert. If you are depressed take a look at your life. Is your emotional diet lacking in “whole grains” are you consuming to much “junk?” To much daytime TV would make anyone depressed. The first step to positive emotion is to adjust your emotional consumption. If your negativity seems beyond self-help get help from others by asking them to feed you positive messages of encouragement as you seek to adjust your emotional nutritional balance. Sometimes professional help is necessary. Chemical imbalances can weaken the body’s defense against negativity just like an immunodeficiency causes an increase risk to infection.
Whatever the cause of negativity, it can be helped. If you are blessed with the natural defense against it you have the ability to help others. If you suffer from negativity there is help. We as a society raise huge amounts of money to cure things like cancer and aids. Negativity is just as infectious a disease as small pox. We got rid of small pox. As a society shouldn’t we do more to rid ourselves of negativity?

- Charles