Lately, I been talking to a lot of people and many of them have told me that they have a hard time staying optimistic. I always ask why and most of them tell me that they have bad things going on in their life. Or they will admit that they do not have the best surroundings in their life. Of course, when someone tells me that their surroundings aren’t pleasant, I will say to them that they need to change their surroundings. As easy as it is to say that to someone, It’s not that simple. I can admit I had a hard time changing my surroundings.
You can’t block it out and keep it around you.
I always thought that as long as I stay positive that negativity would not be able to touch me. I always believed that if I woke up every morning in a good space, I would be fine. And I also thought that my positive forces were stronger than negative forces. That was an excellent mindstate to have, and for a while it did work. But the more I allowed negative people in my surface, the negativity started to multiple, and before I knew it, I was around a lot of negativity. Before I knew it, I started becoming that way. At the time when I was going through this process, I had a few positive people around me. I thought because I had them in my life that I did not have to let the negative people go. They kept trying to explain to me that I would have to eventually. But it was something I did not want to do yet. Although they were negative, I had so much love for them, which made it hard for me to walk away.
Take a minute and analyze your surroundings.
I felt like these are the people that I started with these are the people I want to end up with.
Ironically at my job, my manager had bought plants for all the departments. He gave one to my department, and he instructed us to take care of it. In the beginning, I and my coworkers took turns keeping up with the plant. But after a week or two, we neglected it. After a while, the plant started to die. Their leaves were turning brown and they looked dried out. When we noticed it, we started to water it. We thought that if we took care of the plant as we did before that it would come back to life. As time went on, more leaves turned brown. Even though we took care of it, the plant still was not coming back to life. There were about four leaves that were full of life.
The first step to growth is separation.
At the time I felt like this plant was a representation of my life. No matter how much I remained positive no matter how much I took care of myself, I had a choice to make. If I decided to keep negativity around me, I would eventually adapt to my surroundings. One day I went to work, and I took a pair of scissors and I decided to cut all the leaves off that were dying. I removed them and threw them in the trash. Only about four leaves were standing on the plant, but I watered it day by day. After a while, the plant reformed into a whole new plant.
Save yourself, or suffer.
I realized just like that plant that what I was going to have to do with people that I loved the most. I could either save myself and reform or I can stick around suffer.
The reason why I mentioned this story because most of the time a lot of people are unable to reform into the person that they want to be. People are too afraid to cut off what they do not need. Always remember that whatever you decide to cut out of your life you can get it back, but this time it will be healthier for you.
I think its funny how some of the simplest things can teach you the most valuable lessons in life.