Negative people

Are you one? I describe myself as one. I often hope for the downfall of others and am secretly disappointed when others succeed. Have you ever felt this way? Do you still feel the same way now, if not what made you change? How do you get rid of this negative mindset?

• When I was eight, I had a Linus sweatshirt that read,"I love mankind, it's people I can't stand." I still feel the same way.

• I only get disappointed when others succeed when their success is of a questionable nature. Providing it is totally above board and honest, they deserve it, even if it beats me. You kinda have to accept that a lot of the world is corrupt and unfair and always has/will be, but that doesn't mean that integrity is dead.

• I resent the sweet smell of success on anyone.

  Cheryl

• I try to combat envy with the idea that there's no reason others' success can't be mine; actually, I'm more new agey and woo-woo than that, but most wouldn't be interested. I still have bouts of negative thinking, but come to my senses that I'm only hurting myself.

• That's not negativity, that's malign envy.

• I used to be. I was very resentful up into my early 20s. Sometime in that period I got over the resentment and I eased up on the negative comments over time. Some people just never seem to stop. My view is that they make their own prison. I try to stay clear of sour people.

• To me it feels like such a waste of time envying other people's success and achievements or even comparing their lives to my own. A lot of people are too afraid to deal with themselves so they distract themselves by dealing with other people and their issues instead.

• I resent the system because of bad people who are successful...but only because they are bad, not because they are successful. I don't envy or resent their success itself and I am actually glad I don't have to support any of them. For instance, when I found out this compulsive liar I knew from college was working in PsyOps I was glad, because it can be hard for such a person in the real world, but here was a ready made career opportunity just for compulsive liars. I have never been glad if someone who seemed to have it all together ended up dying young or becoming homeless or going to jail. Even if I didn't like the person, I take no comfort from that unless they get busted for something they actually did to me and even then it probably wouldn't really satisfy a thirst I might have for revenge.

• It pisses me off that Justin Bieber is so successful. How can any musician or songwriter think otherwise?

• I mean the system that made Rebecca Black rich and famous is obviously a broken unfair system. But hate her? That would be ridiculous. She didn't create the system and she certainly has never written a song I've heard.

• I'm very negative, though in a thoughtful way (I'd like to believe). Living in a radically capitalist city like NY, it's hard not to be somewhat jaded and cynical. So many people here are self-obsessed, mean-spirited, insipid and venal. Or some combination thereof. I thought moving to Brooklyn from Manhattan would help. Ironically it seems even worse out here. The affluence and preciousness (think Stuff White People Like) are downright nausea-inducing. If both of my aging parents didn't live her, I'd have moved away loooooong ago.

  Negative%20Williamsburg%20Nancy

• I'm negative, but in a pessemistic way, rather than an envious way. When someone tells me their dreams I really do try to be supportive, because my instinct is to tell them "Well, that won't work, and you could end up on the streets trying". I'm not envious when someone achieves their dream, I'm surprised. Frank Zappa explained pessmism the best: "90% of the time you're right about how things will turn out, and the other 10% of the time you're pleasantly surprised."

• I'm a cockeyed optimist.

  Nellie%20Forbush

• Don't worry, the sun will come out tomorrow.

  Annie

• But that's not what OP meant by negative. I'm a pessimist too, and since everybody dies in the end, over the long term it is the most honest way to be.

• "Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little." --Gore Vidal

• I don't think I envy people but i resent people who brag about what they have or the great trips they're taking etc. I have friends who are very good at that. They call me up after I haven't spoken to them in a while and I just know it's to brag about something: the cottage they're buying or the trip to Europe they're about to take or their new car. It really pisses me off and makes me wonder why I'm not enjoying life as much as I could be. So yeah it brings me down and makes me hate my life a little more.

• Envy is a positive thing...it let's you know exactly what you want for yourself. If you find yourself confused about what you really want in this life, look for what you envy. Mystery solved and case closed. Use envy for an indicator of your heart's desire. Envy, the great motivator if you let it be. Never feel bad about your envy of others. It's allowing yourself to admit to yourself what you feel you rightfully deserve.

• Gore Vidal is such a bitter failure of a man that his comments are a cautionary tale.

• OP, you gotta be careful about the energy you're putting out in the world, because really and truly, you mostly affect yourself. It all comes back. Any ill wishes you have are really going to come true for yourself more than others. And that's going to make you (more) miserable, right? So, to just default in life is to let your thoughts come any old way they come and not take control. When non-supportive thoughts arise, change them. It's your head, mister. It's up to you. You won't be perfect about it. Just make the effort. Regularly. You CAN change for the better. You could also try to overpower the negative. For every non-supportive thought, you must think at least 2 supportive thoughts to cancel it out. This is hardest in the beginning, but gets easier. Over time, you can will yourself to be a better person inside, and it'll make you happier too, which is the best part.

• I have a felling this thread will not end well

  Negative Nelly

• Everyone has theirs ups and downs. Lesbians are highly negative people. Just watch it.

• Watching the negative people in my life showed me that being negative all the time has nothing to offer.

• I'm cautiously optimistic.

  Prudence

• Negative people go nowhere.

• Justin Bieber is talented and people like him. That's why he's successful. It's not like he's won Grammys though.

• No, that does not describe me, OP. While I can be cynical and sarcastic at times, I don't wish for the downfall of others or get disappointed when the succeed. I generally like most people, as long as they are kind and respectful to me and to others. People who are not kind and respectful are avoided as much as possible. I basically try to live the golden rule, although I assume almost no one else does.

• It's not true that negative people go nowhere. A big percentage of wealthy people, especially straight male Republicans are very negative people who hate to see others do better than themselves.

• Bieber is not talented - he's an auto-tuned puppet. He just happens to appeal aesthetically to tween girls is all. I say this in the spirit of positivity. I grew up with a toxically negative father. He HATES seeing others happy and usually has to convince himself they're stupid and deluded. He gets jealous and pouty even if close family members get or do something nice. In my efforts to be as unlike him as possible, I've coached myself to be a fairly positive person. I'm fatalistically cynical and pessimistic about humanity in general, but I still try to treat others around me with care and compassion regardless. Incessantly negative people are incapable of happiness - why would you want to be like that?

• I was very negative and still think I am too negative though I am working on it. Two things are helping me: 1. The realization that life won't get better simply because I want it to. I'm not talking about some Secret nonsense. I only mean that I have to act if I want something in my life to change. 2. I could think all the negative thoughts I wanted about some people but at the end of the day, those people looked pretty happy and secure with their lives and I wasn't. So what was the point?

• I am not envious or jealous of anyone. I just wish I was more free.

• were

  R31, oh dear. And got more sleep. Oh dear.

• I am truly happy for deserving people who've found success and happiness. Currently, I am frustrated with my career-- I look at them and think I wish I had that level of satisfaction-- not their particular wealth, accomplishment, standing per se, but the personal fulfillment they get out of it. What helps me with this thinking: 1. I know there is no hierarchy of success-- it is all relative to the person and I don't judge them by it. To me, a broke but happily married couple is just as successful to me as a one who earned his first million. One man's success isn't the same as another's. 2. There is no point to hating or bringing them down. We are all here, just humans struggling to find meaning/purpose and order to our existence. Some find it earlier/later than others, some miss it.

• Make faces at yourself in the mirror.

  anon

• Good luck op. Try to remember a time when you weren't bitter. And think about people who have it worse than you. Are they bitterly envious of you?

• [R16] Gore Vidal was very successful and remarkably productive over a much longer time than most American writers. He is also dead. Your comment is moronic. His comment was ironic probably, but goes to the competitive nature of people who try to 'make it' especially in the arts. He knew everybody, including many of the successful trendy people, and only admired some of them. He was well aware of how much luck, belonging to the right club, and having people able to pull strings for you, matters in the careers of 'artists'. Many of them are mediocre and too many are simply selected out as prominent or even 'great', and lack even a moderate talent. I loathe a lot of people and wish them ill; they've used and betrayed me. I hope to know of a few at least who suffer in agony. On the other hand I am happy when a work of art that strikes me as arising from a strong, powerful internal need and is realized in an effective way, is acknowledged. I don't have to 'like' the creator to respect his/her accomplishment. But even for this level of ability great acclaim and financial security is rare and some fool is apt to come along and get what should have gone to the genuinely talented. Justin Bieber is a grotesque; but that's what corporate control of everything brings. I don't care much about merely commercial 'pop', though odds are that there are many more gifted people than him who will get nowhere even in that stupid and corrupt marketplace. I am angered (or saddened) that the corporate fascism that has overtaken America has made it hugely difficult or even impossible for genuinely gifted people to have meaningful opportunities. One of the posters above writes about discouraging people. I don't. If someone is driven to try, they should. I have known some pretty improbable people who have invented reasonable lives for themselves, based on their art. Others 'fail' but at least gave it a go and sometimes know some peace as their lives inch forward to where we're all going.

• OP lest cut to the chase, you are a jealous bitch. Why? because you don't have all the things other people have. Probably a older, fatty, fugly, unemployed, house frou. Because you are such a looser, you are jealous of almost everyone and everything. You don't have to be that way. Unfortunately you are lazy and choose to be the Peg Bundy of the block. Sitting home eating bonbons, drinking box wine and living off the government tit. You want people to fail because that will bring them down to your level, right? Maybe try it the other way for a change. Maybe it's time to get a real job and with that some self respect.

• One of my best friends is very negative. He will call me up and said he is "sad" because "So-and-so got his dream job," or "One of my friends is getting married." He tends to be more enthusiastic about friends who are doing badly and then gets depressed if things take a positive turn for them. I just don't understand it, I am always happy for my friends reagardless of what's happening in my own life.

• Insecurity R38. Your friend is afraid that people will leave him if they get married, better job etc. He wants them to fail so they can stay where they are and never leave him, have more stuff then him, or be happier then him. Not a good influence on you. You could maybe help him, but he will never be able to help you.

• Envy isn't pretty, OP.

• R11 is the worst person in the world.

• There seems to be some confusion regarding envy on this thread. Envy is not jealousy. Envy is seeing what someone else has, and wanting it for yourself; jealousy is seeing that thing and wanting them not to have it, regardless of wanting it yourself. I work every day at not being negative, and learned long ago that being envious of success is fine, so long as I don't want them to lose it, making me jealous. So, to whit, I don't care about Justin Beiber, but wish I were as successful. More power to him. Does that make me negative?

• You're confusing negativity with sadism, OP.

• I resent R42's self-entitled willingness to redefine the entire dictionary to make some brainless point he just thought of. Envy and jealousy to do not mean what he says they mean. You are using jealousy where begrudge would be more accurate.