Read Part 1

Last night I was talking to a good friend. She’s not one of those people who is constantly negative but she does get heated about some certain topics and triggered by some things people say. She also pays more attention to things that make her unhappy than she should. I accidentally said something that triggered her and got us into a debate about what constitutes racism. I almost automatically engaged. I think we basically know where she stands and she knows where I stand, and we don’t have any huge disagreements, but the polarized debates of the mainstream kind of seeped into our conversation.

meh

We changed the topic but the conversation already started to have s less positive tone. She started complaining about selfish behaviors on steeming. I bit, there is so much I could say so why not say it right? Except after ten minutes I noticed my mood was noticeably worse than it was earlier.

I’m not blaming her, I want her to know that! It’s my fault. I bit.

We are given many options every day about what to focus on. We have our habits of engaging with the thoughts we are used to engage with. If we want to end the cycle of negativityvin our lives we need to get a grip on our focus. Focus is everything.

So when life throws you inconveniences, you don’t have to ignore them, just don’t dwell on them. Say “Shit” and leave it at that. When others try to pass their inconveniences on to us, it’s not always their fault, it’s just part of our world culture, but we don’t need to engage. It’s our responsibility NOT to engage.

Here are some options I had last night while talking to her.

I could have said I was busy and ended the conversation.

I didn’t do this because I don’t think she is not someone who always makes me feel down, I think she’s just a little younger and surrounded by people who complain and doesn’t have the same kind of support from a tightly knit tribe that I have. She sometimes feels alone and doesn’t have the extra ten years of battle experience that I have (Hopenshe doesn’t mind me saying so).

I could have just changed the topic

This works sometime and doesn’t other times. Sometimes people really want to insist on one topic or insist on complaining. She is not like this most of the time, but everyone gets in those moods sometimes. I tried it once or twice but it’s not easy to go from something negativedirectly to something positive and so we slipped a few times. Maybe it was the red of the crypto markets or maybe it was just that kind of day in general.

I could focus on what we could do about it

This is where complaining can be a good thing, when the only purpose is to identify the problem and then look for a solution. I’m a big fan of this because I think many problems we tend to think of as out of our control are actually anything but. That is my sole purpose for creating any initiative, to redirect my own energy towards making a difference and encourage others to do the same.

I could focus on the good

This is always an available option. There’s always something good to focus on, even in the worst situation. Even the things we don’t like will allow us to more clearly define what we do want and that in itself is a positive.

I could reframe the topic of conversation

Out of the frustration of not having enough money, we can find the fuel to work harder. I started off talking about how “I only have five weeks left to find a better source of income” because after that all my fiat is gone. I realized I was going to bring myself back down with this and turned it into something like this: “That’s five weeks to focus on guitar and writing and community. Let’s see how many songs I can write! Let’s see if I can reach a minimum of $10 payout in five weeks! Let’s see wat else I can accomplish!”.

I could joke my way out of the negativity

As I type this I immediately think of @clayboyn. This is one thing I’ve studied from interacting with him. Whenever people are getting heated, he drops some ridiculousness and it usually helps to snap people out of it. You can always drop a joke. It might not always be taken well but if it has a chance, you might as well try. I’m working on staying in a flirtatious mode, not for the purpose of sexual advancement (;-D) but because it’s essentially just a playful interested attitude towards others and that’s never a bad thing (unless you are trying to manipulate people with it).

When all else fails, if you can try escape, don’t engage with the negativity

I do this with my mother all the time. Whenever she yells at me, I say “mom I love you, but I’m nit going to pay attention to what you are saying until you calm down”. Sometimes it makes things worse for a few moments but it always leads to a de-escalation if I insist on my own vibes.

We are constantly emitting a frequency and it’s constantly being influence by the other frequencies around us. We can let those frequencies drag us down, or we can hold our own despite the things that try to drag us down, and sometimes as a nice side effect, we bring others up to join us in the good vibes.

when someone starts complaining I try not to engage with the person as the whining complainer in front of me, I engage with the awesome incredible person that I know them to be under the issues. See that in them, and if they don’t start to see it in themselves get the hell out of there or if you insist on feeling good and they insist on feeling bad, they will eventually not be able to stand being around you and spare you the headache.

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Confessions of the Damaged - a collection of short stories

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