You should be very wary of the people you let into your life. Make sure you’re surrounding yourself with positive people. This is actually more important than you think. In this article, I go over five reasons why you need to stay away from negative people as soon as possible. Pay attention because this can change your life.
1. They can actually make you dumb.
No joke. There’s been neuro research that shows listening to negative people complain for a period of time affects your brain cells. Crazy right? So if you want to remain intelligent then I suggest you stay away from the negativity. Even listening to negative people on the media can harm your brain. Trevor Blake says “It actually peels away neurons in the brain’s hippocampus.” You only have one brain, don’t let it go to waste.
2. They make you depressed.
Remember, we are the average of the five people we hang with most. The reason being is because we are products of our environment. In fact, this is even more true than you probably think. Why would you want to hang around people that make you feel negative? It can possibly ruin your day. Focusing on the negativity in life makes you feel depressed. When you’re listening to a negative person rambling on and on about the horrors of their life, you’re essentially focusing on it. You’ll catch yourself starting to think like them, causing you to feel depressed about the horrors of your life.
3. They take up your valuable time.
Time is extremely valuable, even more valuable than money! Once it’s gone you can never get it back. Knowing this, I think it’s wise to say that you’d rather hang out with friends that empower you. Negative people won’t do that. They don’t support positive things and they won’t treat you any different. If you share an achievement you recently had with them, they’ll just brush it off and tell you about how much their life sucks instead. You’ll leave the conversation wishing you could have done something more productive than socialize with a “time vampire.”
4. They see the bad in everything.
Imagine watching the news all day for the rest of your life. How would you feel? You’d probably think the world is going to end. You’ll feel miserable and probably paranoid. That’s because the news is so negative with very few feel-good stories included. Hanging out with negative people for too long is no different than watching the news 24/7. You can be at the most positive place in the world but they’ll look for that one negative thing that’s hiding somewhere. If you wouldn’t watch the news for too long, then you shouldn’t hang with negative people either.
5. They’re never satisfied.
You can give a negative person the entire world and they’ll go and tell you they wanted the moon. They don’t want to feel happy about something you gave them because they’re addicted to focusing on what they don’t have. This may cause you to feel like you’re not good enough for them no matter what you do.. because it’s true. Nothing will ever be good enough for them, not even you. There’s nothing you can do to change that and if you try to, you’re in for a world of hurt. Their mind is their worst enemy. They won’t see the good things they have because they live in a delusional world of negativity. Featured photo credit: Petras Gagilas via flickr.com
