Adulthood and Avoiding Negative People

I've come to a realization recently: I am too darn old to surround myself with people who are negative, mean, or otherwise poisonous personalities. 

While this applies to people in general, I am finding it is a trait most commonly found in women. Prior to law school I had a very small group of female friends. In fact 75% of my friends were men. I simply get along with men better for a multitude of reasons. Certainly, my closest friends are women and always have been, but my extended circle was usually men. As I've gotten older (and married) I have more great women in my life than I do men, and ultimately, my group of friends (real, true, accountable & fun) is small.

I am OK with that. Because most people suck.

To understand more, take a look at this article. The article talks about how the majority of people are either contributors, people who contribute positively the their environment, or contaminators, people who contaminate it. When I say most people suck, I am referring to contaminators. I have found that two of the groups I am most actively involved in are chock full of contaminators: law school and the military (spouses.) 

In law school you develop friendships with a group of people pretty early on and you tend to stay connected to those people through the entire three-year process. The main reason for that is how insulated you are in law school, especially your first year. Add to that the fact that law students are high-strung, sleep-deprived, caffeinated, over-achievers who are competing (literally) for grades and jobs and it can be a toxic environment. 

Military life has its own set of problems. For one, it is a rare time where people from all over the country, from many backgrounds and life experiences, are in one group and again, often insulated from others. Mix in the difficulties of the job and lifestyle (and the roller-coaster of emotions that accompanies it) and it can be difficult to navigate those relationships. 

I recognized the effect this negativity was having on my life in the past 6 months. I would read a Facebook status and scowl, then spend 30 minutes scouring other posts, comments and past notes for more information and then spend another 1 hour stewing over the whole thing internally. This particular example is someone I've never even met in real life - and her complaining had affected almost TWO HOURS of my day. Cutting out that type of negativity was pretty easy, I went through Facebook and promptly deleted anyone that I didn't know (or didn't like) and did the same thing with a few blogs.

It is a lot harder, however, to cut out real-life friends when they start contaminating your environment. For one, many times these friends have contributed some positive things to your friendship. It can also be hard when you are in contact with that person for uncontrollable reasons (i.e. you work together, attend classes together, have mutual friends or your husband's are in the same unit.) 

My feelings on this really came to a head last night. I was supposed to meet a large group of ladies out for cocktails after class. My close friends were among them, but the vast majority were mere acquaintances. I ended up not attending, mostly because my foot was sore and I had a lot of homework. As I drove home, I started feeling guilty.
And then it hit me. I didn't want to be there. I had no desire to hang out with those girls (with the exception of a few) and I had no reason to feel guilty. I made a decision to go home, be relaxed and productive rather than have a few cocktails with people I don't know or like. Why would I ever feel bad about that?  My "epiphany" led me to think more about how I should choose my friends - if I don't enjoy them, if they're not contributors - then they are not really worth my time. 

Now, in order to fully purge negative people from my life, I have to be brutally honest. I am a negative person, sometimes. I have bad days. I complain. I gossip. I am even mean on occasion. I have to recognize that if I truly want to address this matter head-on. I have to commit to change my own negative tendencies - after all, if I act in a negative way, then I am just poisoning the people around me. The people I actually care about.

So, for this to truly matter in my life, I have to make sure that, as much as possible, I am a contributor. And then surround myself with contributors whenever I can. 
'Cause those contaminators just ain't worth my time! :)