A Sad Disposition
“Misery loves company” so the saying goes, but I’d like to explore a different angle of misery. I know a (fortunately small) handful of people who seem to revel in misery. They enjoy being depressed, they enjoy it when things go badly for them and I would go so far as to say that they attract bad circumstances to themselves just so that they can be grumpy.
Now this way of thinking I just don’t understand. If anything, I tend to be on the opposite end of the spectrum and, being eternally optimistic, I tend to find the positive in bad situations and I hate being depressed. I will make every effort to wend my way out of the doldrums, no matter how long it takes.
Now I know that I can’t expect everyone I meet to have a sunny disposition. But I just don’t get the concept of enjoying being miserable. One of my friends will say something positive probably about one time in one hundred. And she’s a nice lady: intelligent, very pretty, has a well paying job but she just finds the negative in everything. And it’s not just complaining about her own life but she will also complain about things she observes in other folk’s lives or just about life in general or sometimes the characters in a book she read. She’s had some tough times, maybe more than most, but we all have history and baggage.
I work with a girl who is so exceptionally negative that I’ve started making a concerted effort to consciously brighten up my own surroundings just to try and curb the negativity from smacking me in the ear. I’m generally successful but from time to time some bad attitude slips through and I have to put on my big girl panties, stick my chest out and push my way up and out and back into the light.
I can recall learning an Afrikaans poem in primary school that refers to the sad little turtle dove who, when he comes to a puddle of water will first stir it up with his beak so that the sand at the bottom of the puddle mixes in with the water, and then he will drink the water and sadly bemoan the fact that he had to drink muddy water when in fact he could have drunk the sparkly clear water that he originally found. These people I’m talking about are like this dove – they seem to prefer making life distasteful before living it.
Maybe I’m being unreasonable but I genuinely don’t understand this pull towards the negative. My little girl (all 11 years of her) suggests that possibly folk like this are just looking for attention. She, too, knows children that revel in misery – maybe they learn this behaviour from their parents. How sad!
All I can say is that I believe you are what you believe you are. And if you believe that you are a hard done by individual for whom nothing has ever gone right then you probably are that person.
I choose to believe that I’m blessed right out of my socks, life is groovy beyond my wildest imagination and things can only get better.
Happy Day!!
Now this way of thinking I just don’t understand. If anything, I tend to be on the opposite end of the spectrum and, being eternally optimistic, I tend to find the positive in bad situations and I hate being depressed. I will make every effort to wend my way out of the doldrums, no matter how long it takes.
Now I know that I can’t expect everyone I meet to have a sunny disposition. But I just don’t get the concept of enjoying being miserable. One of my friends will say something positive probably about one time in one hundred. And she’s a nice lady: intelligent, very pretty, has a well paying job but she just finds the negative in everything. And it’s not just complaining about her own life but she will also complain about things she observes in other folk’s lives or just about life in general or sometimes the characters in a book she read. She’s had some tough times, maybe more than most, but we all have history and baggage.
I work with a girl who is so exceptionally negative that I’ve started making a concerted effort to consciously brighten up my own surroundings just to try and curb the negativity from smacking me in the ear. I’m generally successful but from time to time some bad attitude slips through and I have to put on my big girl panties, stick my chest out and push my way up and out and back into the light.
I can recall learning an Afrikaans poem in primary school that refers to the sad little turtle dove who, when he comes to a puddle of water will first stir it up with his beak so that the sand at the bottom of the puddle mixes in with the water, and then he will drink the water and sadly bemoan the fact that he had to drink muddy water when in fact he could have drunk the sparkly clear water that he originally found. These people I’m talking about are like this dove – they seem to prefer making life distasteful before living it.
Maybe I’m being unreasonable but I genuinely don’t understand this pull towards the negative. My little girl (all 11 years of her) suggests that possibly folk like this are just looking for attention. She, too, knows children that revel in misery – maybe they learn this behaviour from their parents. How sad!
All I can say is that I believe you are what you believe you are. And if you believe that you are a hard done by individual for whom nothing has ever gone right then you probably are that person.
I choose to believe that I’m blessed right out of my socks, life is groovy beyond my wildest imagination and things can only get better.
Happy Day!!
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