I actually wanted to title this post “I Hate Crappy Attitudes,” but decided against it. After all, it seems rather negative, which is exactly what has me on a bit of a rant today.
Nothing irks me more than folks who are always down in the mouth.
- Things are never good.
- Work is dull, or stressful, or too slow, or organized badly, or…
- Someone is sick, or making bad decisions, or being disagreeable, or….
- Decisions are bad, or shortsighted, or ill-advised, or…
Good grief already.
I confess that I am an optimist and as such, I am often a little disappointed with reality not working out exactly as I think it should.
On the other hand, my husband is a pessimist – or as we like to call it in our house, a realist. It’s not that he thinks that the glass is half-empty, he simply thinks that the glass is as likely to be half-empty as it is to be half-full. And, in the end, that’s probably a much better balanced approach to looking at life.
The point of all of this is that I strongly believe that your attitude influences who you are and those around you.
- Do you want to work with miserable people? Simple: be a miserable person. Your attitude influences the culture around you.
- Do you want to complain about slow work? Simple: be disagreeable and people won’t want to work with you. Do it long enough and they won’t want to work with your organization.
- Do you want to feel overworked and under-appreciated? Simple: never learn to delegate and never share credit. Soon you will be overworked because no one will want to partner with you.
Life isn’t a bed of roses, but it isn’t a pile of poo either. And if you are one of those who seems to like living in a pile of poo, I’d appreciate it if you would take a shovel and move it somewhere far from me!
“Well said,” she says after a particularly poo-ey day! 😉
Catherine
This is one of things where I can really say that it is very good that I am not God. You see, parenting is oh so related to how God deals with us sometimes too.
For example, ever have your parent say this to you?: “You want to cry? I’ll give you something to cry about!”
I am a realist. But when it comes to negativity-I just want to ask, what is so bad about your life that you walk around looking like you were baptised in vinegar. If I were God-I would say-“You want something to cry about?”
I would be a horrible God.
I played golf yesterday with my former boss. He was just layed off a week ago. He was very upbeat and working on looking for work. Just a few years ago-a few months after he hired me-his 16 year old son (only son) came down with a mysterious illness. He ended up at Children’s Medical Hospital in 24 hour watch before it was over.
Many tests were done and they finally determined that it was probably some water-born bacteria that attacked his lungs. They had the problem nailed down and knew what treatment would work to kill the instigating bacteria. The problem was that it took almost a month to find this out-and all of his organs had been through too much. He died in the hospital because of the symptoms this bacteria had caused.
I have a coworker who has cancer. She works as hard as anyone. She has a strong fear of needles so that when she is going in for treatments she holds ice to her arm for an hour to numb it. I hear her singing in her cube sometimes.
I have another coworker who’s house burned down a few weeks ago.
I got a neighber who was beat to death with a hammer by one of my roomates in college in the apartment next door to where we live right now. We can still see where her blood was on our stairs as he took her body out to hide it. Her little 8-9 year old girl has a new mommy and daddy-she used to call them grandma and grandad.
What is your problem? Really? You want to be a realist? Come to the corner with me and we can poke fun at my wife and her optimistic friends while they poke fun at us.
You want to gripe and complain because you did not get your bottle today? Come over to my place – let me show you our stairs.
Come to the cemetary with me and let’s read some stones and see who has had it bad. Come to where I work and look at what cancer has done to a person who still smiles.
Come with me-and let us be realists together.
Now Love, I didn’t say being a realist was bad. I think I actually affirmed your viewpoint because you don’t suffer heartache as often as I do. I’d rather you be a realist than a pessimist any day!!!
And you are right…one only needs to look around at the sufferings of others, and their response to their situations, to both be thankful for your own blessings and to learn a lot about how to properly respond to tough times.
I should also add:
Mock mock mock! You love giving me a hard time about my optimism!!! 🙂