Staying positive in today's world

As I look around at my friends and family, I am saddened by what I see. People are so negative and they don't even realize they are being negative. I work at staying positive, because of my depression that I fight on a daily basis. I don't know, but maybe that has made me more sensitive to negative things. I tend to shy away from them.

In some cases, a gentle reminder works to help people wake up to the fact that they are approaching a toxic level of negativity. Believe it or not, your attitude does have an impact on your life, the lives of those around you and your health.

Positive people are more likely to succeed in life. Why? Because they look at the obstacle in front of them and think, I can conquer this. They don't give up. They find a way.

Negative people will look at an obstacle and think, I can't do this, it's too much, I'll never make it, yadda yadda. And you know what? They don't make it. Every time.

Politics are a very popular area for people to be very negative. Love him or hate him, Trump was elected president. Bashing him every chance you get will not change this. You may have loved Obama, but I got news for you, not everyone did. But at some point you have to make a choice. Are you going to continue to bash someone that in likelihood has no clue you even exist and couldn't care less what your opinion of him is? Or are you going to actually DO SOMETHING positive that will make an impact on the world around you and make it a better place? Boycotting his daughter's clothing and jewelry lines won't hurt her, or him. It will however, put hundreds of innocent people out of work. And why? To settle your pettiness because you hate her dad? Come on, I thought we were adults here, or am I mistaken on that one too?

I have actually cut people from my life because they couldn't stop being negative. It's a cancer and it will eat away at you and those who stay around you until you are physically ill from it. You have to move beyond it and move forward. I've actually had to cut family from my life as much as possible in order to have peace of mind. And for me, that peace of mind is more valuable than chasing the approval from someone that was never going to give it anyway because I did something they didn't and they can't stand it. I chased my dream, I became a published author, and yes, FAMILY was some of the biggest nay-sayers of all.

There's a song by Tim McGraw about someone getting a promotion and everyone wanting to be the one to get it and trash talking whomever gets it until they lose the position. I realize to an extent it is human nature to not want to see the next guy doing better than you, but really people, unless and until we can move beyond that mentality, we will never move forward as a species.

I love being around positive people. They fuel my work and my drive to keep going. I got a message from my niece yesterday begging me to hurry up and get book two published because she's read book one twice waiting for it to come out. That sort of thing makes me so happy, knowing someone enjoyed my book and actually re-read it.

So I'm going to issue a challenge to those of you who read all of this. Find one positive thing a day, every day, for a week. write it down, make a note somewhere, and read them again when you are feeling low. It can be something as simple as "He smiled at me today", "the dog was insanely happy to see me when I got home from work". Just something small, happy, but a reminder that not everything in life has to be negative all the time.

Salud.