Maintain Your Happiness! Identify Bad Apples.

I’ve been reflecting again and it took some really deep, sometimes not so pleasant conversations to get to this point. I’m sure from my previous posts, it’s pretty evident that I’m dealing with people doing some pretty horrible things to me and my close friends. Horrible in that they were once close to us, created a relationship with us that we thought would last and then dumped us off once we were deemed not helpful to them anymore. In addition to that, these people have been spreading horrible stories about me and my group that are just plain untrue. That’s on top of the fact that we’ve gone out on a limb to help them and develop them. It’s been bugging me to have been semi-blind sighted, but this is never a fun situation to be in. And it does get you down. 

Because of this, I’ve noticed that I’ve become less trusting, more guarded and easily frustrated. That just isn’t me. I had several friends and my sister approach me asking what’s going on, because I wasn’t being myself and it was so subtle they couldn’t tell if something was really wrong. I didn’t think anything was wrong to be honest. But after talking with them and dissecting some of what was going on with me, there definitely was. 

I was focusing too much on the people who are awful to me. I was trying to show them that I knew what they were doing, that they can’t get away with it and that they aren’t as smart or manipulative as they thought they were. WHY? Why was I expending so much time and energy on them? I was just making myself more upset (even though I didn’t know it) and focused on more negative things. This made me come off to people as negative, irritable and just not myself. 

I’m so glad that I have friends and my sister who felt comfortable enough to say something to me and have that really tough conversation. It wasn’t something I really felt I needed to work through, but I did. I needed to decide to quit letting them pull me down, to quit letting their actions govern my actions and to quit letting them make me feel badly. 

I needed to focus on the MANY individuals in my life who are amazing people. They are the type of people I want to be! I have so much supportive relationships, positive role models and strong friendships that I needed to STOP focusing on what someone was posting on Facebook to passively aggressively get me down and START focusing on praising my friends triumphs, meeting up with friends that have been busy the past few months and relish in the fact that I’m achieving my dreams, slowly but surely. 

As I always offer advice, here is mine for today. Take a step back and see if you’re letting someone affect you adversely. And take steps to identify and resolve or eliminate that bad apple so to speak. It could be as easy as hiding them from your newsfeed and it could be as difficult as talking it out with them and hashing out your issues. Whatever the solution, know that it is necessary to do it. Not letting others drag you down is easier said than done. Focus on those people who are awesome. Do fun things with them. Be sure to maintain your happiness!