"One Bad Apple..."

This photo is courtesy of Inna

It is sometimes bewildering how people will test your patience, your understanding, and your everyday positive energy.  It is remarkable to see how people go through their own inner pain and pain caused onto them by others - whether perceived or real - and then they turn around and turn that pain onto you.  You don't have to be involved with anything that they are involved - however, you just happened to cross their path.  Once you're in their path, you get a full emotional blast of the horrific situations that they are going through.  At the very least, you get showered by their negative energy.

Some days it's even worse.  Instead of running into one negative person, you run into four or five of them, on your way to work, or on your way home from work.  Those four or five people may not even realize how negative they're being, yet they happen to expose you to their depression or negative mindset.  It isn't long before their thoughts start to turn your positive outlook into a negative one.  You begin to sour in your appreciation and understanding of life and people around you.  You begin to hate whatever or whomever they said to hate.  You begin to fear whatever they said to fear.  It isn't too long before you literally hand over your brain into the hands of someone who has no positive vision for themselves or for you.  They usually offer no positive ideas or action to turn situations around.

They hate a member of their family, their town, the neighboring town or have perceived (real or not) wrongs against them by either private or governmental agencies.  By the time you sit down to have your dinner, you've already had a full mental meal of anger, hatred, prejudice, victimization and thoughts of retaliation.  You begin to use words like "them" and "they" and "those people".  You've been stripped of your understanding of your own place in humanity and in the end you begin to dehumanize and generalize others.

However, your day goes, remember these words:  There are good and bad people everywhere and all our life circles.  From our own families, to our friends, neighbors, religious groups, governmental agencies, etc.  No matter how evil some people may be or appear within our circles, there are usually a majority of people who are truly good.  You have simply encountered the bad apples or dirty drops of water if you will?

Do your very best to get past the dark spirits, and embrace the bright spirits around you.  There is far more good around you than evil.  Instead of dwelling on the negative, make solid plans for enacting positive change the next day or week.  Try not to judge other people any more harshly than you judge yourself for your own mistakes and misdeeds.  And remember above all...we all make mistakes.  One bad apple...or one thousand drops of dirty water...does not spoil the whole world.