Everybody needs a recycling bin inside their head for anything negative they encounter on a daily basis.
You might think it would be easier to just ignore negativity. Unfortunately, our minds don’t work that way. Our minds take in absolutely everything we see and hear. If we ignore negativity, it goes in and plays anywhere it likes, and it can cause us to become less positive. However, if we make a conscious decision to place negativity into our recycle bin, it doesn’t impact our regular day to day activities, and we retain our positive attitude.
For example, there was a girl I worked with who had the most negative attitude towards work I’ve ever encountered. From the moment she came in she would explain how she had dreaded coming to work, the managers were awful, the customers were painful, it’s too cold, it’s too hot; you’d think at the end of the day she’d be happy going home; not this girl, she ended the day as she began by saying, “I’m not looking forward to coming in tomorrow.”
At first, I’d try to explain how she’s in work. She’s not going to any place else, so she might as well be happy at work. That didn’t work, as the saying goes; negative people will find a problem for every solution.
My next approach was to ignore everything she said, that wasn’t successful either because her voice had the quality of chalk on a blackboard, for any of you who are old enough to remember that experience, you’ll know it wasn’t a pleasant one.
My last approach was to accept her for who she is, I listened to her giving out and then put her negative words into what I now call my recycling bin. Inside my recycling bin is this quote.
This is where I place all the negative things I witness but don’t need in my life.
Negativity exists and will always exist as long as there are people who are unhappy with themselves and what they’re doing. We can’t change those people or ignore them. We can only accept their presence and be eternally grateful we are not one of them.
I’ll leave you with a few of my favourite quotes:
“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” ~Jimmy Dean.
“Try to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” ~May Angelou.
“Inspiration comes from within yourself. One has to be positive. When you’re positive, good things happen.” ~Deep Roy.
“Life changes very quickly, in a very positive way, if you let it.” – Lindsey Vonn.
