Negative Comments Quotes

every relationship had its own “love account.” Doing something kind for your partner was like a deposit. A negative comment was a withdrawal. The trick was to keep your account in credit.

Never give anybody permission to disturb your peace. Always ignore negative comment. Dwell on positive thoughts and occupied your mind with songs of praise.

I will no longer let the fear of vicious comments or replies stop me from speaking what I believe to be right. I will also never give a message that everybody will agree with. I know that even my most faithful followers will never agree 100% with what I say. I also know that they know that and are fine with it. I am done letting the bullies win. They won’t anymore. Not here.

Even if you leave a negative comment on a video, youtube algorithm thinks that you want more such videos in your feed. The universe works in the same way. Don’t engage with the type of things that you don’t want in your life.

Weird—no one is this popular, There wasn't a single negative comment, which made Micah even more suspicious. Some sort of parishioner conspiracy of silence? Could the church organize everyone's silence on a grand scale? Can all church members be this loyal? Were they paid off?

Don't grab hurtful comments and pull them close to you by rereading them and ruminating on them. Don't play with them by rehearsing your badass comeback. And whatever you do, don't pull hatefulness close to your heart. Let what's unproductive and hurtful drop at the feet of your unarmored self. And no matter how much your self-doubt wants to scoop up the criticism and snuggle with the negativity so it can confirm its worst fears, or how eager the shame gremlins are to use the hurt to fortify your armor, take a deep breath and find the strength to leave what's mean-spirited on the ground. You don't even need to stomp it or kick it away. Cruelty is cheap, easy, and chickenshit. It doesn't deserve your energy or engagement. Just step over the comments and keep daring, always remembering that armor is too heavy a price to pay to engage with cheap-seat feedback.

Sometimes you need a reminder that negative comments about your body aren’t even really about your body, they’re about society and our society’s wrongheaded and impossibly narrow definition of a “good” body. Your body didn’t do anything wrong. What’s fucked up about your body is not your body at all, but that your body has to live in a society that thinks it has a right to say fucked up things about your body.

Staying relevant and speaking in kind tones is by far, the best way to make your point. The moment you lose track, throwing out a negative comment you’ve lost your way, and get the terrible task of carrying your own negative, regretful baggage around with you. It’s senseless to create your own heavy heart.

When the weaver bird flies, nobody talks; when the busy bee flies, no one will make comments... But when a human being begins to fly, you begin to hear talks in the town such as "abomination!... where did he get the wings from?". Never mind! Your dreams are your wings, so decide to fly!

And actually, Pa was wrong, because even if other people couldn’t take talent away from you, they could destroy your confidence with their negative comments and mess with your brain, so you didn’t know who you were any more or how to please anyone, least of all yourself.

If you want friends you must be friendly. Always complaining and posting negative comments is not going to bring you friends. No one likes to get puked on.

Difficult people are all around. There will be someone that can steal your joy, offend you, leave you out, say something untrue. The key is to handle it correctly. Don’t take the bait. Don’t dwell on the negative comments. This is how you live happy.

Use “and” instead of “but.” Doing so will help you avoid inadvertently negating your validation, comments, etc.

Discard negative comments, criticism and influences.

Cynthia Kersey reminds us, “The negative comments of others merely reflect their limitations—not yours.

In the music industry I get a lot of public judgement. Any time the topic of my religion surfaces, there are always people who react negatively, telling me to leave my crazy beliefs out of it. The problem is, I can't. My beliefs are as much a part of my being as my music, or my family, or my obsession with earthy-tasting cereal. Luckily, after all the rejection I faced on my mission, I'm no longer afraid of negative reactions. I've already heard it all--- face-to-face. Hateful comments still hurt, but they don't hold the same weight they once did. Besides, say what you want, but I'm a short-haired angel. (Or at least I was to one man on a subway.)

When you decide to reclaim your personal power you'll be talked about... told that you've changed, that you've somehow "lost the plot" or that you think you're better than others; but, that's just human nature. Your job is to realize that negative comments and "backhanded compliments" say more about the person speaking them, than about who you are. When people label you, they're seeking to define you... you're above all that.

In the Netherlands, we give feedback very directly, but we are always polite.” I love this comment, because a Dutch person’s feedback can indeed be both brutally honest yet delightfully polite—but only if the recipient is Dutch. If you happen to come from one of the 195 or so societies in the world that like their negative feedback a bit less direct than in the Netherlands, you may feel that Maarten’s “politeness” is downright insulting, offensive, and yes, rude.

The only happy people I know are people I don’t know well.” This observation is a one-sentence antidote to this obstacle to happiness. If all of us realized that the people with whom we negatively compare our happiness are plagued by pains and demons of which we know little or nothing, we would stop comparing our happiness with others’. Think of those people you know well, and you will realize the truth of Helen Telushkin’s comment. Most likely you know how much unhappiness everyone you know well has experienced. And even with regard to these people whom you know well, chances are that you do not know with what inner demons—emotional, psychological, economic, sexual, or related to alcohol or drugs—they have to struggle.

As a winner, learn not to let negative comments affect you. Just treat it as firewood that feeds your fire. Soon that fire will be so big and so bright that those who criticized you will smell the smoke, even if they happen to be on the other side of the world.

Idiom: arm chair critic Meaning: someone who is very critical, says negative comments about everything but does nothing about it Example: -My friend is such an arm chair critic. She is always complaining about the cost of her rent but never tries to find a cheaper place to live.

Hypercritical, Shaming Parents Hypercritical and shaming parents send the same message to their children as perfectionistic parents do - that they are never good enough. Parents often deliberately shame their children into minding them without realizing the disruptive impact shame can have on a child's sense of self. Statements such as "You should be ashamed of yourself" or "Shame on you" are obvious examples. Yet these types of overtly shaming statements are actually easier for the child to defend against than are more subtle forms of shaming, such as contempt, humiliation, and public shaming. There are many ways that parents shame their children. These include belittling, blaming, contempt, humiliation, and disabling expectations. -BELITTLING. Comments such as "You're too old to want to be held" or "You're just a cry-baby" are horribly humiliating to a child. When a parent makes a negative comparison between his or her child and another, such as "Why can't you act like Jenny? See how she sits quietly while her mother is talking," it is not only humiliating but teaches a child to always compare himself or herself with peers and find himself or herself deficient by comparison. -BLAMING. When a child makes a mistake, such as breaking a vase while rough-housing, he or she needs to take responsibility. But many parents go way beyond teaching a lesson by blaming and berating the child: "You stupid idiot! Do you think money grows on trees? I don't have money to buy new vases!" The only thing this accomplishes is shaming the child to such an extent that he or she cannot find a way to walk away from the situation with his or her head held high. -CONTEMPT. Expressions of disgust or contempt communicate absolute rejection. The look of contempt (often a sneer or a raised upper lip), especially from someone who is significant to a child, can make him or her feel disgusting or offensive. When I was a child, my mother had an extremely negative attitude toward me. Much of the time she either looked at me with the kind of expectant expression that said, "What are you up to now?" or with a look of disapproval or disgust over what I had already done. These looks were extremely shaming to me, causing me to feel that there was something terribly wrong with me. -HUMILIATION. There are many ways a parent can humiliate a child, such as making him or her wear clothes that have become dirty. But as Gershen Kaufman stated in his book Shame: The Power of Caring, "There is no more humiliating experience than to have another person who is clearly the stronger and more powerful take advantage of that power and give us a beating." I can personally attest to this. In addition to shaming me with her contemptuous looks, my mother often punished me by hitting me with the branch of a tree, and she often did this outside, in front of the neighbors. The humiliation I felt was like a deep wound to my soul. -DISABLING EXPECTATIONS. Parents who have an inordinate need to have their child excel at a particular activity or skill are likely to behave in ways that pressure the child to do more and more. According to Kaufman, when a child becomes aware of the real possibility of failing to meet parental expectations, he or she often experiences a binding self-consciousness. This self-consciousness - the painful watching of oneself - is very disabling. When something is expected of us in this way, attaining the goal is made harder, if not impossible. Yet another way that parents induce shame in their children is by communicating to them that they are a disappointment to them. Such messages as "I can't believe you could do such a thing" or "I am deeply disappointed in you" accompanied by a disapproving tone of voice and facial expression can crush a child's spirit.

Always remember this: whenever you have thought long and hard about a new idea or plan of action, working out lots of details and preparing for all sorts of contingencies, and you first tell someone else about it, they are hearing it for the first time. It will be nearly impossible for any newly informed person to be as enthusiastic or as confident as you are. And it’s natural for your own confidence level, like water running downhill, to settle at the lowest point nearby. That’s why it is so important to be very careful about how you share your plans with others, and limit your exposure to the negative thinking and negative comments casual disbelievers can produce.

Human beings remember "firsts"- the first time something happens, or the begining of an experience- and we tend to remember "lasts" as well. So when you are about to make a critical/negative delivery , start your criticism with a positive begining, it will affect the rest of the experience. Start by giving them solid ground to stand by expressing the fact that you value them and they matter. Once they are reassured of their own worth, people will accept your comments far more easily and they'll get less defensive.

Don’t grab hurtful comments and pull them close to you by rereading them and ruminating on them. Don’t play with them by rehearsing your badass comeback. And whatever you do, don’t pull hatefulness close to your heart. Let what’s unproductive and hurtful drop at the feet of your unarmored self. And no matter how much your self-doubt wants to scoop up the criticism and snuggle with the negativity so it can confirm its worst fears, or how eager the shame gremlins are to use the hurt to fortify your armor, take a deep breath and find the strength to leave what’s mean-spirited on the ground. You don’t even need to stomp it or kick it away. Cruelty is cheap, easy, and chickenshit. It doesn’t deserve your energy or engagement. Just step over the comments and keep daring, always remembering that armor is too heavy a price to pay to engage with cheap-seat feedback.

The lack of self-listening is often the cause of communication breakdown. If we could hear our words and comments through the ears of our listeners, we would be appalled at the overgeneralizations, the inaccuracies, and the insensitive, negative comments we make about ourselves and others. Learning to carefully select our words plays a major role in presenting ourselves in a favorable light, getting along well with others, and effectively getting the job done. When we make self-deprecating remarks about our looks, intelligence, or competence, we reveal an unhealthy mindset, chip away at our self-confidence, and create the wrong impressions, setting the stage for us not to be taken seriously.

Silence is not always complacency. It is contemplation and forethought taking place in the minds of those who would be careful with their words and actions, unwilling to contribute to negativity that is fed by rashly-spoken comments. Quiet contemplation is a powerful tool for change because those thoughts, though silent, become actions built on conscientious pondering. Those actions then become examples. And quiet example is the greatest teacher, the most effective behavior modification tool of all. I am not listening to what you say half as closely as I am watching what you do. Think about that.

Let us finally consider how naive it is altogether to say: "Man ought to be such and such!" Reality shows us an enchanting wealth of types, the abundance of a lavish play and change of forms — and some wretched loafer of a moralist comments: "No! Man ought to be different." He even knows what man should be like, this wretched bigot and prig: he paints himself on the wall and comments, "Ecce homo!" But even when the moralist addresses himself only to the single human being and says to him, "You ought to be such and such!" he does not cease to make himself ridiculous. The single human being is a piece of fatum from the front and from the rear, one law more, one necessity more for all that is yet to come and to be. To say to him, "Change yourself!" is to demand that everything be changed, even retroactively. And indeed there have been consistent moralists who wanted man to be different, that is, virtuous — they wanted him remade in their own image, as a prig: to that end, they negated the world! No small madness! No modest kind of immodesty! Morality, insofar as it condemns for its own sake, and not out of regard for the concerns, considerations, and contrivances of life, is a specific error with which one ought to have no pity — an idiosyncrasy of degenerates which has caused immeasurable harm. We others, we immoralists, have, conversely, made room in our hearts for every kind of understanding, comprehending, and approving. We do not easily negate; we make it a point of honor to be affirmers. More and more, our eyes have opened to that economy which needs and knows how to utilize everything that the holy witlessness of the priest, the diseased reason in the priest, rejects — that economy in the law of life which finds an advantage even in the disgusting species of the prigs, the priests, the virtuous. What advantage? But we ourselves, we immoralists, are the answer.

People must have affirmation and praise in order to maintain a high level of performance. Withholding negative or critical comments is not nearly as important as giving positive input through compliments and praise.

That’s what the apostle Paul is talking about when he says, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). We can literally say to a comment or a thought that presents itself to us, “Are you true? Are you beneficial? Are you necessary?” And if the answer is no, then we don’t open the door of our heart. We make the choice to walk away from the comment and all the negative thoughts it could harvest if we let it in.

That’s the true mark of a champion—forgetting the last victory and preparing for the next one. And that one comment should be on every coach’s wall: The first job that we have today is putting yesterday aside to be remembered later. (Tony LaRussa, World Series Champion 2011)

Seen through the lens of human perception, cycles are often viewed as less symmetrical than they are. Negative price fluctuations are called “volatility,” while positive price fluctuations are called “profit.” Collapsing markets are called “selling panics,” while surges receive more benign descriptions (but I think they may best be seen as “buying panics”; see tech stocks in 1999, for example). Commentators talk about “investor capitulation” at the bottom of market cycles, while I also see capitulation at the top, when previously prudent investors throw in the towel and buy.

Change Your Thoughts and Watch Your Actions Change. When you hear your inner voice throwing critical comments, become cognizant of when they occur. Exchange the negative banter with a specific, positive thought. Over time, you’ll notice the inner critic shows up less and less replaced by positive thoughts (and action).

Scientologist community and was still invited to get-togethers. You are allowed to be friends with non- or ex-Scientologists, as long as they aren’t antagonistic toward Scientology. If they are, you are expected to disconnect or break off all ties with that member, who is considered a Suppressive Person. A person is declared by the church to be an SP for a variety of reasons, which may include going to the authorities about the church or making any kind of negative comment about it publicly or in the press. Both are considered suppressive acts that can have devastating consequences for relationships. And furthermore, if the church were to find out that you remained in contact with an SP, you would then

You’ve probably heard comments such as these your entire life: “Why can’t she put her stuff away?” “Doesn’t she care how it affects the rest of us?” “Why is she so lazy?” “What a pig!” And you have most likely internalized these painful, derogatory, negative remarks over the years until they have slaughtered your self-esteem, making you wonder What is wrong with me?

Be careful of judging or commenting on things beyond your frame of reference. Let us stop the stigma society has attached to sufferers of mental illness. People should not be negatively perceived because of their mental health status; not from an employment perspective, dating perspective, or any other perspective. The diagnosis is not necessarily the measure of the man!

What a curious and handsome man Brian was! Full of wit, innuendo, and charm. No doubt Brian knew exactly what he was doing, the flirty thing that he was. Not a naive young man—he wanted Rob. That had been apparent from his cream comments. And yet, ex-girlfriends. But no negative quips about Todd or his husband. Or Sam Anderson’s little queer consulting firm above his head. Bi? Pan? Not that it mattered. Rob hadn’t come here to pick up a date—just a cup of coffee.

Kuan Yin looks very traditional. Her hands are folded together. The thick cloth of her costume is folded perfectly," describes Lena. "Just as in the previous session, I’m reminded of the significance of the folds. I’m having an interesting vision that I haven’t thought about in many years. I see a beautiful tree where I used to go when I was a teenager. It stands majestic, atop the rolling hills behind the house where I grew up. Kuan Yin is at the tree looking very luminous. I see the bark of the tree, which looks very real, very three-dimensional. For some reason, Kuan Yin is touching the trunk of the tree. She suddenly seems very small next to me and she wants me to touch the tree. I’m not sure why. There is a tiny bird, with pretty feathers in its nest. It is about the size of a wren. I see the texture of the tree. I think it might be a birch. I’m not sure. ’Why should I touch the tree,’ I ask. She’s telling me that I created the tree, that it is another realm I was able to visit because life was too painful and lonely at home.” “You created the tree. You create your whole world with thoughts,” assures Kuan Yin. “Every time I try to touch the tree, Kuan Yin wants to help me touch it. There’s something different about this conversation. Usually we work on something about the earth. Because we’re revisiting my childhood, I get the impression Kuan Yin’s trying to show me something that maybe I created in my childhood.” “Well, do we all create our reality?” Kuan Yin asks of Lena. “I think she’s going to answer her own question,” comments Lena, from her trance. “Yes, you can create your reality. Once you free yourself from the negative effects of karma. I know it is sometimes difficult to differentiate between free will and karma. Focus upon your free will and your ability to create reality. I’m optimistic and hopeful you can do this.

As a teacher of future preachers, Bonhoeffer devoted time to making written comments on students’ manuscripts, but he did not allow negative criticism in class when a student had just presented an early effort at a sermon. The future preacher too must feel accepted, must receive Christ’s hope and love, in order to go forward and take them to others. Wherever that person’s ministry might lead in the future, Christ’s church-community must surround with prayer, sustain and uphold his servant, beginning in the seminary.

Extremism will generate both positive and negative reactions, or “engagements.” Facebook measures engagement by the number of clicks, “likes,” shares, and comments. This design feature—or flaw, if you care about the quality of knowledge and debate—ensures that the most inflammatory material will travel the farthest and the fastest. Sober, measured accounts of the world have no chance on Facebook. And when Facebook dominates our sense of the world and our social circles, we all potentially become carriers of extremist nonsense

Call it the “Tobacco Strategy.” Its target was science, and so it relied heavily on scientists—with guidance from industry lawyers and public relations experts—willing to hold the rifle and pull the trigger. Among the multitude of documents we found in writing this book were Bad Science: A Resource Book—a how-to handbook for fact fighters, providing example after example of successful strategies for undermining science, and a list of experts with scientific credentials available to comment on any issue about which a think tank or corporation needed a negative sound bite.14

and negative people I know. For myself, I opted several years ago not to watch, read, or listen to what others call “the news.” What we receive is not news. Bestselling author Esther Hicks recently commented that if the news were an accurate reflection of the day’s events, twenty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds of a thirty-minute broadcast would be good things that occurred, and the bad news would be just a one-second blip on the screen. What we call news is actually Bad News. To get the most from your Complaint Free journey, I encourage you stop watching, listening to, and/or reading the Bad News.

(..) it is quite common for those with a history of emotional abuse to feel they are being victimized, even when they are the ones who are being abusive. (..) First, many who were emotionally abused in childhood (especially those who were physically or emotionally rejected or abandoned by one or both parents) are extremely sensitive to any perceived rejection or abandonment from others. (..) Second, those who were emotionally abused in childhood or in a previous relationship—especially those who were overly controlled or emotionally smothered—are often extremely sensitive to anything that seems remotely like control, even when they themselves are controlling. To these people, even commitment can feel like emotional suffocation. Therefore, if they constantly create chaos in the relationship, it gives them a sense of freedom from the stifling confinement of intimacy. Third, one of the most common effects of a history of abuse is hypersensitivity. Those with an abusive past often develop a radar system tuned to pick up any comment or action from others that could be interpreted as being negative. (..) Victims of childhood emotional abuse are notorious for flying off the handle at the least provocation.

Catch When You’re Interpreting Negative Feedback as Worse Than It Is There’s also another way anxiety can cause people to misinterpret feedback they receive. If someone who is feeling anxious gets mildly negative feedback, that person often panics and sees it as much worse than it is. For example, you receive some comments on your work, and the first time you read them, the highlighted problems seem much more extensive than they will when you reread the feedback the next day. Experiment: Can you think of a time when you’ve panicked upon receiving negative feedback and seen it as worse than it really was?

Early in my career, I formed a personal motto, one by which I continue to live: If offering a criticism, accompany it with one potential solution. In the case I described, the individual didn’t want to work together to find a solution. Unfortunately, I’ve never found an effective way to deal with adults who exhibit immaturity. The Bible offers a bit of interesting insight that I consider applicable: “Do not eat the bread of a selfish man, or desire his delicacies; for as he thinks within himself, so he is. He says to you, ‘Eat and drink!’ but his heart is not with you. You will vomit up the morsel you have eaten, and waste your compliments. Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words” (Proverbs 23:6-9). The Bible also says, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men” (Romans 12:18). It saddens me to say, but in that individual’s case, peace meant limiting my interactions with him. To foster peace, I stopped saying hello in the mornings. Not out of spite, but because friendly conversation led to comfort, and comfort, I noticed, opened the door for negative comments. Rarely do I take such an extreme measure, but sometimes distance is helpful. His visits ended. My peace and fervor began to reemerge.

Women also engage in aggression, and their victims are also typically members of their own sex. In studies of verbal aggression through derogation of competitors, for example, women slander the physical appearance of their rivals (Buss & Dedden, 1990; Campbell, 1993, 1999). In the modern world of the internet, women are more likely than men to denigrate and cyber-bully other women by commenting negatively about their physical appearance and promiscuous sexual conduct (Wyckoff et al., in press). The forms of aggression committed by women, however, are typically less violent and hence less risky than those committed by men—facts that are accounted for by the theory of parental investment and sexual selection (see Campbell, 1995). Indeed, selection may operate against women who take the large physical risks entailed by aggression. Evolutionary psychologist Anne Campbell argues that women need to place a higher value on their own lives than do men on theirs, given the fact that infants depend on maternal care more than on paternal care (Campbell, 1999). Women’s evolved psychology, therefore, should reflect greater fearfulness of situations that pose a physical threat of bodily injury—a prediction that is well supported by the empirical findings (Campbell, 1999, 2002).

It might be useful here to say a word about Beckett, as a link between the two stages, and as illustrating the shift towards schism. He wrote for transition, an apocalyptic magazine (renovation out of decadence, a Joachite indication in the title), and has often shown a flair for apocalyptic variations, the funniest of which is the frustrated millennialism of the Lynch family in Watt, and the most telling, perhaps, the conclusion of Comment c'est. He is the perverse theologian of a world which has suffered a Fall, experienced an Incarnation which changes all relations of past, present, and future, but which will not be redeemed. Time is an endless transition from one condition of misery to another, 'a passion without form or stations,' to be ended by no parousia. It is a world crying out for forms and stations, and for apocalypse; all it gets is vain temporality, mad, multiform antithetical influx. It would be wrong to think that the negatives of Beckett are a denial of the paradigm in favour of reality in all its poverty. In Proust, whom Beckett so admires, the order, the forms of the passion, all derive from the last book; they are positive. In Beckett, the signs of order and form are more or less continuously presented, but always with a sign of cancellation; they are resources not to be believed in, cheques which will bounce. Order, the Christian paradigm, he suggests, is no longer usable except as an irony; that is why the Rooneys collapse in laughter when they read on the Wayside Pulpit that the Lord will uphold all that fall. But of course it is this order, however ironized, this continuously transmitted idea of order, that makes Beckett's point, and provides his books with the structural and linguistic features which enable us to make sense of them. In his progress he has presumed upon our familiarity with his habits of language and structure to make the relation between the occulted forms and the narrative surface more and more tenuous; in Comment c'est he mimes a virtually schismatic breakdown of this relation, and of his language. This is perfectly possible to reach a point along this line where nothing whatever is communicated, but of course Beckett has not reached it by a long way; and whatever preserves intelligibility is what prevents schism. This is, I think, a point to be remembered whenever one considers extremely novel, avant-garde writing. Schism is meaningless without reference to some prior condition; the absolutely New is simply unintelligible, even as novelty. It may, of course, be asked: unintelligible to whom? --the inference being that a minority public, perhaps very small--members of a circle in a square world--do understand the terms in which the new thing speaks. And certainly the minority public is a recognized feature of modern literature, and certainly conditions are such that there may be many small minorities instead of one large one; and certainly this is in itself schismatic. The history of European literature, from the time the imagination's Latin first made an accommodation with the lingua franca, is in part the history of the education of a public--cultivated but not necessarily learned, as Auerbach says, made up of what he calls la cour et la ville. That this public should break up into specialized schools, and their language grow scholastic, would only be surprising if one thought that the existence of excellent mechanical means of communication implied excellent communications, and we know it does not, McLuhan's 'the medium is the message' notwithstanding. But it is still true that novelty of itself implies the existence of what is not novel, a past. The smaller the circle, and the more ambitious its schemes of renovation, the less useful, on the whole, its past will be. And the shorter. I will return to these points in a moment.

I, for one, am not pro-sex. I am not sex-positive or sex-negative. I am pro-pleasure, which does not need to include sex at all, and I am pro-sexual choice—real choice. It is not enough to say that everyone should only do what they want. That’s a bromide that anyone can parrot and it ignores the ways that society pressures us to want certain things. Back it up. Show us examples of powerful, enviable women who are openly indifferent to sex, secure in that decision, and not constantly challenged by others. Don’t reinforce the new charmed circle with comments about how polyamory is more evolved than monogamy, or look down on vanilla sex. Stop assuming that sexual behavior must be linked to political belief or that horniness is an interesting personality trait. That’s closer to what I mean by real choice.

Mitt Romney's first interview with Zombie Reagan: Mitt Romney came in with cheerful assurance, because he wasn’t capable of anything else. “Let me first welcome you back to this side of the veil, Mr. President.” “Yeah, Mitt, it’s good to see you looking so well. Your father says hello, and he wanted me to add specially that whatever unfortunate negative things you might remember him saying to you when you were a kid, he always tried to tell you the truth and he hopes you’ve used it to improve, and he understands that even with the help of those comments, it might just not have been in you to improve. He wants you to remember he still loves you no matter what you’ve become, or even if you haven’t chosen to become any one thing in particular.” “That’s very kind. I miss my dad even now.” “Oh, so do I. I remember George as always that kind of guy, he had your back, whenever you’d think to watch your back, you’d find him somewhere around there, ready for action with that knife already drawn.

DR. KING: Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettoes, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence can achieve nothing but negative results. Those who are fired up in the audiences go home and face the same unchanged conditions; what is left but for them to become bitter, disillusioned and cynical. The extremist leaders who offer a call to arms are invariably unwilling to lead what they themselves know would certainly end in bloody, chaotic total failure. The struggle of the Negro in America, to be successful, must be waged with positive efforts that are kept strictly within the framework of our democratic society. This means reaching and moving the large groups of people necessary—of both races—to activate sufficiently the conscience of a nation. It is this effort that the S.C.L.C. attempts to achieve through the program which we call creative non-violent direct-action. PLAYBOY: Dr. King, would you care to comment upon the articulate former Black Muslim, Malcolm X?

As Schopenhauer writes in the second volume, commenting on the ending of the first: 'it is in keeping with this that, when my teaching reaches its highest point, it assumes a negative character, and so ends with a negation.' But Schopenhauer's point is that this is a relative nothing, not an absolute nothing: it is a nothing that might yet be something, if seen from a different perspective: 'Now it is precisely here that the mystic proceeds positively, and therefore, from this point, nothing is left but mysticism'. Mysticism: the knowledge of the incommunicable: the great foe of Enlightenment philosophers from Bayle to Kant. Surely, if mysticism begins where philosophy ends, Schopenhauer's point must be: so much the worse for mysticism. But while it is true that Schopenhauer sees mysticism and philosophy as incommensurable in principle, nevertheless, as Young points out, Schopenhauer evaluates mysticism positively. Not only do the last words of the first volume leave open a space for mystical knowledge by the relativity of nothingness - but in the second volume, Schopenhauer also points to the wide agreement of mystical experience across different cultures and traditions. Hence, against the common interpretations of Schopenhauer as nihilist or 'absolute pessimist', Young argues that such readings are 'insensitive to the intense theological preoccupation that permeates, particularly, Book IV'. According to Young, Schopenhauer's concept of resignation is not purely negative, but also oriented towards some darkly intuited positive element: an existence of another kind. When Schopenhauer says that the saintly ascetic achieves redemption, he is speaking of an other-wordly state, and that is why he opposes Stoic ataraxia, which, being a this-worldly solution, leads away from salavation, rather than towards it. In Young's view, therefore, not only does Schopenhauer accept a 'field of illuminism' or mysticism - but 'it is upon the veridicality of mystical insight into another, ecstatic world, a world relative to which this one is a mere "dream", that, for Schopenhauer, our only chance of "salvation" depends.

A famous American Freudian, commenting on a paper I had read, reported that he just had returned from Moscow. There, he said, he had found a lower frequency of neurosis as compared with the United States. He added that this might be traced to the fact that in Communist countries, as he felt, people are more often confronted with a task to complete. 'This speaks in favor of your theory,' he concluded, 'that meaning direction and task orientation are important in terms of mental health.' A year later, some Polish psychiatrists asked me to give a paper on logotherapy, and when I did so I quoted the American psychoanalyst. 'You are less neurotic than the Americans because you have more tasks to complete,' I told them. And they smugly smiled. 'But do not forget,' I added, 'that the Americans have retained their freedom also to choose their tasks, a freedom which sometimes seems to me to be denied to you.' They stopped smiling. How fine it would be to synthesize East and West, to blend tasks with freedom. Freedom then could fully develop. It really is a negative concept which requires a positive complement. And the positive complement is responsibleness. [...] Freedom threatens to degenerate into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. I like to say that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast should be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.

But as people become anxious to be accepted by the group, their personal values and behaviors are exchanged for more negative ones. We can too easily become more intense, abusive, fundamentalist, fanatical—behaviors strange to our former selves, born out of our intense need to belong. This may be one explanation for why the Internet, which gave us the possibility of self-organizing, is devolving into a medium of hate and persecution, where trolls6 claiming a certain identity go to great efforts to harass, threaten, and destroy those different from themselves. The Internet, as a fundamental means for self-organizing, can’t help but breed this type of negative, separatist behavior. Tweets and texts spawn instant reactions; back and forth exchanges of only a few words quickly degenerate into comments that push us apart. Listening, reflecting, exchanging ideas with respect—gone. But this is far less problematic than the way the Internet has intensified the language of threat and hate. People no longer hide behind anonymity as they spew hatred, abominations, and lurid death threats at people they don’t even know and those that they do. Trolls, who use social media to issue obscene threats and also organize others to deluge a person with hateful tweets and emails, are so great a problem for people who come into public view that some go off Twitter, change their physical appearance, or move in order to protect their children.7 Reporters admit that they refuse to publish about certain issues because they fear the blowback from trolls.

Spot Rumination Triggered by Emails Email is a common trigger for rumination. Text messages, Facebook comments, and tweets can be too. All the nonverbal cues, and many of the context cues, are stripped out of this type of communication. The asynchronized nature of email often adds to the issue. For example, does a slow reply to an email mean the person is disinterested? Or might it mean something else? Is the person busy? A habitual slow replier? Waiting on some information before coming back to you with a reply? Still thinking about what you’ve said? Is the person disorganized and got distracted? Not checking messages? Did your message go to spam? If you get caught in email-induced rumination, recognize if you’re jumping to any negative conclusions about why the person hasn’t responded and try coming up with alternative explanations that are plausible. Use the next experiment as a guide. Remember that slowing your breathing will always help you think more clearly and flexibly, so do this too. Experiment: Can you recall a time when a nontimely response to an email set off rumination for you? What was (1) your worst-case scenario prediction for the person’s lack of response, (2) the best-case scenario, and (3) the most likely scenario? If you struggle to think of an answer for “most likely,” pick something that falls in the middle, between your answers for the best- and worst-case scenarios. In the email incident you just recalled, did you ever find out what the reason for the slow response was? Often you won’t find out the reasons for other people’s actions, which is part of why this type of rumination tends to be so futile.

#14: SNAP OUT OF IT! One of the primary reasons for our unhappiness and discomfort is our attack thoughts. All day long, without even realizing it, we’re attacking ourselves and others. Attacks don’t have to be massive to inflict real damage—each small attack, from a negative thought about ourselves to a cold comment toward another person, adds up. Attack breeds attack. Attacking others in our mind or in our actions directly harms us. Our attack thoughts and actions are particularly dangerous because they can be so subtle and insidious that we might not realize how much they’ve taken over our minds. But as fiendish as they are, they’re surprisingly easy to let go of. All it takes is an ordinary rubber band. One day—today—wear a rubber band on your wrist. Whenever you notice an attack thought arise, flick your rubber band against your arm. Does this seem jarring? Good! It’s exactly what you need to literally snap yourself out of your unconscious attack thoughts. Once you’ve snapped out of the attack cycle, it’s time to clean up your thoughts. Use this exercise based on lesson 23 of A Course in Miracles: “I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.” The moment you snap the rubber band, witness your attack thought and say to yourself: I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts about________. You can fill in the blank with whatever you’re attacking, whether it’s broad or very specific. Practice this exercise throughout the day. Notice your attack thought, snap out of it with your rubber band, and then use the Course message as a reminder that you can think your way out in an instant. Miracle

DR. KING: Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettoes, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence can achieve nothing but negative results. Those who are fired up in the audiences go home and face the same unchanged conditions; what is left but for them to become bitter, disillusioned and cynical. The extremist leaders who offer a call to arms are invariably unwilling to lead what they themselves know would certainly end in bloody, chaotic total failure. The struggle of the Negro in America, to be successful, must be waged with positive efforts that are kept strictly within the framework of our democratic society. This means reaching and moving the large groups of people necessary—of both races—to activate sufficiently the conscience of a nation. It is this effort that the S.C.L.C. attempts to achieve through the program which we call creative non-violent direct-action. PLAYBOY: Dr. King, would you care to comment upon the articulate former Black Muslim, Malcolm X? DR. KING: I have met Malcolm X, but circumstances didn’t enable me to talk with him for more than a minute. I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views, as I understand them. He is very articulate, as you say. I don’t want to seem to sound as if I feel so self-righteous, or absolutist, that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Maybe he does have some of the answer. But I know that I have so often felt that I wished that he would talk less of violence, because I don’t think that violence can solve our problem. And in his litany of expressing the despair of the Negro, without offering a positive, creative approach, I think that he falls into a rut sometimes.

Information or allegations reflecting negatively on individuals or groups seen less sympathetically by the intelligentsia pass rapidly into the public domain with little scrutiny and much publicity. Two of the biggest proven hoaxes of our time have involved allegations of white men gang-raping a black woman-- first the Tawana Brawley hoax of 1987 and later the false rape charges against three Duke University students in 2006. In both cases, editorial indignation rang out across the land, without a speck of evidence to substantiate either of these charges. Moreover, the denunciations were not limited to the particular men accused, but were often extended to society at large, of whom these men were deemed to be symptoms or 'the tip of the iceberg.' In both cases, the charges fit a pre-existing vision, and that apparently made mundane facts unnecessary. Another widely publicized hoax-- one to which the President of the United States added his sub-hoax-- was a 1996 story appearing in USA Today under the headline, 'Arson at Black Churches Echoes Bigotry of the Past.' There was, according to USA Today, 'an epidemic of church burning,' targeting black churches. Like the gang-rape hoaxes, this story spread rapidly through the media. The Chicago Tribune referred to 'an epidemic of criminal and cowardly arson' leaving black churches in ruins. As with the gang-rape hoaxes, comments on the church fire stories went beyond those who were supposed to have set these fires to blame forces at work in society at large. Jesse Jackson was quoted was quoted in the New York Times as calling these arsons part of a 'cultural conspiracy' against blacks, which 'reflected the heightened racial tensions in the south that have been exacerbated by the assault on affirmative action and the populist oratory of Republican politicians like Pat Buchanan.' Time magazine writer Jack White likewise blamed 'the coded phrases' of Republican leaders for 'encouraging the arsonists.' Columnist Barbara Reynolds of USA Today said that the fires were 'an attempt to murder the spirit of black America.' New York Times columnist Bob Herbert said, "The fuel for these fires can be traced to a carefully crafted environment of bigotry and hatred that was developed over the last century.' As with the gang-rape hoaxes, the charges publicized were taken as reflecting on the whole society, not just those supposedly involved in what was widely presumed to be arson, rather than fires that break out for a variety of other reasons. Washington Post columnist Dorothy Gilliam said that society in effect was 'giving these arsonists permission to commit these horrible crimes.' The climax of these comments came when President Bill Clinton, in his weekly radio address, said that these church burnings recalled similar burnings of black churches in Arkansas when he was a boy. There were more that 2,000 media stories done on the subject after the President's address. This story began to unravel when factual research showed that (1) no black churches were burned in Arkansas when Bill Clinton was growing up, (2) there had been no increase in fires at black churches, but an actual decrease over the previous 15 years, (3) the incidence of fires at white churches was similar to the incidence of fires at black churches, and (4) where there was arson, one-third of the suspects were black. However, retractions of the original story-- where there were retractions at all-- typically were given far less prominence than the original banner headlines and heated editorial comments.

I believe that social media, and the internet as a whole, have negatively impacted our ability to both think long-term and to focus deeply on the task in front of us. It is no surprise, therefore, that Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, prohibited his children from using phones or tablets—even though his business was to sell millions of them to his customers! The billionaire investor and former senior executive at Facebook, Chamath Palihapitiya, argues that we must rewire our brain to focus on the long term, which starts by removing social media apps from our phones. In his words, such apps, “wire your brain for super-fast feedback.” By receiving constant feedback, whether through likes, comments, or immediate replies to our messages, we condition ourselves to expect fast results with everything we do. And this feeling is certainly reinforced through ads for schemes to help us “get rich quick”, and through cognitive biases (i.e., we only hear about the richest and most successful YouTubers, not about the ones who fail). As we demand more and more stimulation, our focus is increasingly geared toward the short term and our vision of reality becomes distorted. This leads us to adopt inaccurate mental models such as: Success should come quickly and easily, or I don’t need to work hard to lose weight or make money. Ultimately, this erroneous concept distorts our vision of reality and our perception of time. We can feel jealous of people who seem to have achieved overnight success. We can even resent popular YouTubers. Even worse, we feel inadequate. It can lead us to think we are just not good enough, smart enough, or disciplined enough. Therefore, we feel the need to compensate by hustling harder. We have to hurry before we miss the opportunity. We have to find the secret that will help us become successful. And, in this frenetic race, we forget one of the most important values of all: patience. No, watching motivational videos all day long won’t help you reach your goals. But, performing daily consistent actions, sustained over a long period of time will. Staying calm and focusing on the one task in front of you every day will. The point is, to achieve long-term goals in your personal or professional life, you must regain control of your attention and rewire your brain to focus on the long term. To do so, you should start by staying away from highly stimulating activities.

If Marx had no time for the state, it was partly because he viewed it as a kind of alienated power. It was as though this august entity had confiscated the abilities of men and women to determine their own existence, and was now doing so on their behalf. It also had the impudence to call this process ‘‘democracy.’’ Marx himself began his career as a radical democrat and ended up as a revolutionary one, as he came to realize just how much transformation genuine democracy would entail; and it is as a democrat that he challenges the state’s sublime authority. He is too wholehearted a believer in popular sovereignty to rest content with the pale shadow of it known as parliamentary democracy. He is not in principle opposed to parliaments, any more than was Lenin. But he saw democracy as too precious to be entrusted to parliaments alone. It had to be local, popular and spread across all the institutions of civil society. It had to extend to economic as well as political life. It had to mean actual self-government, not government entrusted to a political elite. The state Marx approved of was the rule of citizens over themselves, not of a minority over a majority. The state, Marx considered, had come adrift from civil society. There was a blatant contradiction between the two. We were, for example, abstractly equal as citizens within the state, but dramatically unequal in everyday social existence. That social existence was riven with conflicts, but the state projected an image of it as seamlessly whole. The state saw itself as shaping society from above, but was in fact a product of it. Society did not stem from the state; instead, the state was a parasite on society. The whole setup was topsy-turvy. As one commentator puts it, ‘‘Democracy and capitalism have been turned upside down’’—meaning that instead of political institutions regulating capitalism, capitalism regulated them. The speaker is Robert Reich, a former U.S. labour secretary, who is not generally suspected of being a Marxist. Marx’s aim was to close this gap between state and society, politics and everyday life, by dissolving the former into the latter. And this is what he called democracy. Men and women had to reclaim in their daily lives the powers that the state had appropriated from them. Socialism is the completion of democracy, not the negation of it. It is hard to see why so many defenders of democracy should find this vision objectionable.

When someone goes to the doctor and says, “I hear a voice in my head,” he or she will most likely be sent to a psychiatrist. The fact is that, in a very similar way, virtually everyone hears a voice, or several voices, in their head all the time: the involuntary thought processes that you don’t realize you have the power to stop. Continuous monologues or dialogues. You have probably come across “mad” people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves. Well, that’s not much different from what you and all other “normal” people do, except that you don’t do it out loud. The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn’t necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry. Sometimes this soundtrack is accompanied by visual images or “mental movies.” Even if the voice is relevant to the situation at hand, it will interpret it in terms of the past. This is because the voice belongs to your conditioned mind, which is the result of all your past history as well as of the collective cultural mind-set you inherited. So you see and judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a totally distorted view of it. It is not uncommon for the voice to be a person’s own worst enemy. Many people live with a tormentor in their head that continuously attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital energy. It is the cause of untold misery and unhappiness, as well as of disease. The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind. This is the only true liberation. You can take the first step right now. Start listening to the voice in your head as often as you can. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns, those old gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps for many years. This is what I mean by “watching the thinker,” which is another way of saying: listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence. When you listen to that voice, listen to it impartially. That is to say, do not judge. Do not judge or condemn what you hear, for doing so would mean that the same voice has come in again through the back door. You’ll soon realize: there is the voice, and here I am listening to it, watching it. This I am realization, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind.

FREEING YOURSELF FROM YOUR MIND What exactly do you mean by “watching the thinker”? When someone goes to the doctor and says, “I hear a voice in my head,” he or she will most likely be sent to a psychiatrist. The fact is that, in a very similar way, virtually everyone hears a voice, or several voices, in their head all the time: the involuntary thought processes that you don’t realize you have the power to stop. Continuous monologues or dialogues. You have probably come across “mad” people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves. Well, that’s not much different from what you and all other “normal” people do, except that you don’t do it out loud. The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn’t necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry. Sometimes this soundtrack is accompanied by visual images or “mental movies.” Even if the voice is relevant to the situation at hand, it will interpret it in terms of the past. This is because the voice belongs to your conditioned mind, which is the result of all your past history as well as of the collective cultural mind-set you inherited. So you see and judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a totally distorted view of it. It is not uncommon for the voice to be a person’s own worst enemy. Many people live with a tormentor in their head that continuously attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital energy. It is the cause of untold misery and unhappiness, as well as of disease. The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind. This is the only true liberation. You can take the first step right now. Start listening to the voice in your head as often as you can. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns, those old gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps for many years. This is what I mean by “watching the thinker,” which is another way of saying: listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence. When you listen to that voice, listen to it impartially. That is to say, do not judge. Do not judge or condemn what you hear, for doing so would mean that the same voice has come in again through the back door. You’ll soon realize: there is the voice, and here I am listening to it, watching it. This I am realization, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind.

There had been so many. He had hired young ones because they were more plentiful and worked cheaper. The better of those got married and pregnant and wanted six months off. The bad ones flirted, wore tight miniskirts, and made suggestive comments. He had hired more mature women to negate any physical temptation, but, as a rule, they had been bossy, maternal, menopausal, and they had more doctors' appointments, as well as aches and pains to talk about and funerals to attend.

ventured a couple of negative comments about her father, and never tried it again. “It was

Parents always have the best of intentions when they wish not to impose too much on their children, but in the absence of a normative standard, something else always fills the vacuum. Today, for instance, we flatter ourselves that we are morally neutral, that we can’t comment on a girl’s behavior for fear of crushing her “sexuality,” and yet we are constantly negatively judging a girl’s body rather than praising her internal qualities. The reality is that we haven’t moved away from judgment at all; it’s just that we judge girls now for their superficial “deficiencies.” Think of the alarming increase in the number of parents who buy their thirteen-to-eighteen-year-old daughters breast implants despite the high risk of surgical complications, or consider eleven-year-old Lilly Grasso, an athletic girl of normal weight who came home from school toting a so-called “fat letter” warning her mother that her BMI put her at risk. (Twenty-one out of fifty states now mandate BMI testing in schools, with dubious results.) Then there is the large number of boys who report that they are “revolted” by girls whose privates do not resemble those of the porn stars they view online, and in 2013, a student body president at the University of Texas–Austin even felt free to share his views about how to judge a woman’s private parts, and whether they will prove to be “gross,” based on her general appearance. Is encountering such negative judgments directed against a young woman’s body and most private areas empowering? Is such an attitude enlightened for either party? Or is it more empowering to praise a young woman for her internal qualities of character? I personally feel that it is the latter.

Nocebo effect” refers to the unintended negative effect of a medical diagnosis or treatment. It is particularly relevant to maternity care, because the mother’s emotional well-being is so often neglected, as we have discussed. Michel Odent comments, “The nocebo effect is inherent in conventional prenatal care, which is constantly focusing on potential problems. Every visit is an opportunity to be reminded of all the risks associated with pregnancy and delivery.”12

First, see if you can make three positive comments for every negative one (and, by the way, a count is one negative comment).

There is no standard in creativity , but there are guidelines. Never limit yourself. Go wild and create what you see and feel is right. I believe there is no wrong art as long it comes from within. Those who object what you created don’t understand your art. It doesn’t mean your creativity is wrong. Sometimes it takes times for people to understand and to adopt to something new. Don’t doubt yourself or give up, because of negative comments on your craft.

She asked Mother Ayahuasca to help her see her true beauty, and to clear away the self-criticism or negative comments she’d held onto for too long.

A less negative carbon ideologue then I might interpret the lonely wariness of Mr. Winkler and of Sharon Carlisle as proof of wrongheaded irrelevance. Socrates was equally irrelevant once the Athenians had served him his hemlock. The insipidities of the hollowed out Greeley Tribune, the no comment of most people to whom I “reached out,” and the typical anomie of an American metropolis, whose citizens I rarely saw except in their cars, in retail establishments or at the Fourth of July parade, operated synergistically to create the usual hot wide silence—about fracking, climate change, democracy and every other thing. A certain form of economic development held sway, and that was that.

4. Give recognition and show appreciation. “The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated,” wrote William James, the father of American psychology. It is impossible to be motivated and do great work if you don’t feel that somebody cares and appreciates what you do. Studies have shown that for people to be happy and productive at work, they need to experience positive interactions (appreciation, praise) vs. negative (reprimands, criticism) with their manager in a ratio of at least 3:1. (Watch out: For a marriage to work, you actually need a 5:1 ratio!!) So make it a simple habit to thank people each and every day — and that includes using the word generously in emails to your team. The way people want to receive recognition varies greatly: public vs. private, material vs. immaterial, from peers vs. from superiors, etc. Great managers test different approaches and observe reactions until they find the triggers that work best with each of their people. At MOM’s Organic Market, managers will sometimes publicly recognize employees who have performed well, but CEO Scott Nash has often found that one-on-one comments are most effective.

We allow the emotions of hurt, disappointment, and anger to keep us from speaking positive words to each other, or maybe we simply get stuck in a pattern of negative comments. As a result, distance and dissatisfaction grow. All of us long to hear affirming words, and those whose primary love language is affirming words long for them even more. We like to sense that our efforts are appreciated, and that our spouse sees something good in us.

fuzzy whiskers—they were comparable to genes in humans, having links to Parkinson’s disease, depression, bipolar disorder, and others. The degree of gene disruption was so profound, head researcher Fernando Gomez-Pinilla commented in the UCLA release: “Food is like a pharmaceutical compound” in terms of its effect on the brain. But that power also swings in the other direction—the negative impact that fructose had on both cognition and gene expression was attenuated by feeding the rats DHA omega-3 fat.

Commentators, journalists, and, on exceptionally clear days, their audiences are beginning to wonder why it is that with fatal environmental problems bearing down upon us, with global warming threatening agriculture and our minimal ability to feed ourselves, the rich and powerful aren’t more actively attempting to remedy the situation. Worse, why do they so often seem to want to do just the opposite of what is required? This question is easy to answer if we understand the psychology of the capitalist. Easy and disturbing. The logic of capitalism acknowledges that there will be destructive consequences for its activities. Economists even have a name for it: negative externality. This is also known as “externalizing cost” when it comes time for somebody other than the perpetrator to pay for the damage. It is a secular form of what the generals call “collateral damage,” which means that the wrong person got blown up. Or, as one might say, “We didn’t mean to pollute the river with coal ash. We were only pursuing private prosperity and personal happiness. In the meantime, we’re glad to have someone else pay to fix it.” But what do you do when it’s not a river - when it’s a whole world that has been trashed? Are taxpayers going to have to pay for a new planet? So the oligarchs and their minions, the so-called 1 percent, aren’t missing anything. They’re not stupid. If they choose to do nothing about looming global catastrophe, it is because they don’t want to do anything. And they do not want to do anything because the threat of destruction is, frankly, not persuasive to them. Those who benefit from capitalism understand that it has always depended on suffering, and they have confidence that if someone is to suffer it won’t be them. “Let the songbirds suffer in my place,” they say. “Or those fucking - what do they call ‘em - manatees. There’s only about ten of them left anyway. And, we admit, the miscellaneous poor will suffer, here and in those faraway countries, but why shouldn’t they suffer? Look at them! They’re rather good at it. Besides, the humans could use a little downsizing.” Pereat mundus, dum ego salvus sim!

Own your story. If someone makes false accusations or negative comments about you, the power is in your hands to correct them or stay silent and let them think whatever they want.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Once upon a time our politicians did not tend to apologize for our country’s prior actions! Here’s a refresher on how some of our former patriots handled negative comments about our great country. These are quite good JFK’S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60’s when De Gaulle decided to pull out of NATO. De Gaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible. Rusk’s response: “Does that include those who are buried here?” De Gaulle did not respond. You could have heard a pin drop. When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of ‘empire building’ by George Bush. He answered by saying, “Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.” You could have heard a pin drop. There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying, “Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?” A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: “Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?” You could have heard a pin drop. A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Germany and France. At morning tea the Frenchman complained that the conference should be conducted in French since it was being held in Paris. The German replied that, so far as he could see, the reason that it was being held in English was as a mark of respect to the other attendees, since their troops had shed so much blood so that the Frenchman wouldn’t be speaking German.

What Are You Afraid of With Social Media? Knowing what you’re scared of is just as important as your plan, goals, and dreams. Some things people are worried about include negative comments, posting something deemed offensive, not being “ready”, showing their vulnerabilities or insecurities, or just plain failing. Whatever it is, we’re all afraid of something. You need to know what yours is. To

Are You Afraid of With Social Media? Knowing what you’re scared of is just as important as your plan, goals, and dreams. Some things people are worried about include negative comments, posting something deemed offensive, not being “ready”, showing their vulnerabilities or insecurities, or just plain failing. Whatever it is, we’re all afraid of something. You need to know what yours is. To be fair, working on your own, you might want to reach out to someone for help or support in tackling how to handle what you’re afraid of – this is one of the advantages of working with a professional who will help you understand how to deal with multiple situations that may arise.   These questions aren’t easy and they may take a while to answer. That’s ok! In fact, that’s good! You should put the time and effort into really knowing what your answers are if you’re going to create a social media strategy that will actually see results.

Advice to other would be authors? I say this from the bottom of my heart… if you want to write … then do it. Jump in and do it… and don’t listen to negative comments about how difficult it is… everything worth doing calls for some hard work – read, study, learn composition of sentences, and try to keep your readers fascinated, no matter what the subject, that is definitely number one!

Pawo Rinpoche comments that, in Tibet, the intention of the lineage of profound view is usually explained as self-emptiness, that is, as a nonimplicative negation in which nothing whatsoever exists as a remainder after analysis through reasoning. The intention of the lineage of vast activity is explained as the other-empty ultimate that exists as a permanent and lasting remainder after such analysis. By clinging to one of these views as being the true meaning, the respective other one is then presented as a view of either permanence or extinction. However, these one-sided options, such as existence, nonexistence, permanence, and extinction, are neither the ultimate of the lineage of profound view nor the ultimate of the lineage of vast activity.

It has been proven time and again that a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative comments provides children with the best education and motivation to be successful. The coach that is constantly pointing out the negative, and never providing praise when it has been earned, is dangerous for your child and will lead to their emotional breakdown.

People feel like they can say whatever they want to say on social media, because of whatever is happening, or they comment on. It Is far away from them. Until they learn that their words had a negative impact on the situation or on someone. Is then they preach to be kind to others trying to cleanse their soul and consciousness. What keyboard worriers don’t know. Most of their suffering, bad luck, misfortune, and a curse. It Is because of the things they said with their banner, catfish, and anonymous accounts. It is karma for their action.

Never let negative comments intimidate you. Instead, let them Inspire your Motive to Action

interested in a subject like ornithology. Such scenarios sound innocent enough, but when we hear these comments over and over, the messages go in. This is where negative self-talk, such as I’m a bad person, I’m so stupid, Why can’t I do this better? Why are they mean to me? and What did I do wrong? comes from. We began to replay other people’s words in our heads and started believing them. This can create a lifetime habit of thought and feeling, of doubting oneself, questioning things, and being fearful of what others may say. People who struggle with such self-doubt are still attuned with themselves, but they have lost the connection to their sense of who they really are, their authenticity. They close down to their authentic self because they have given so much power to other people. They have come to believe this cloudy and incorrect perception of themselves. There is dissonance between the illusion of themselves they adopted along the way and their authentic self.

I have personally encountered several Bosnians who shared very negative experiences. Other employees would spew hateful and toxic comments intended to devalue them. They could not tolerate the thought of immigrants and refugees getting bigger paychecks. Many complaints were that Bosnians were easy targets for harassment. Those who harassed them could not pick on people from dominant, powerful, and wealthy socioeconomic classes.

Rude comments come from people filled with hate and negativity.

Quit being frustrated by people who are not for you, people that make negative comments and try to discredit you, marginalize you. You’re not defined by what they say. They don’t control your destiny. That’s just noise. Don’t give them the time of day.

We can all learn a lesson from Harry. The “I’m doing my job and that’s enough” attitude is small, negative thinking. Big thinkers see themselves as members of a team effort, as winning or losing with the team, not by themselves. They help in every way they can, even when there is no direct and immediate compensation or other reward. The fellow who shrugs off a problem outside his own department with the comment “Well, that’s no concern of mine, let them worry with it” hasn’t got the attitude it takes for top leadership.

What else can cause or activate a depression? Many tomes have been written on this subject, and I shall only mention the two theories backed, in my judgment, by the most scientific evidence. The first is Aaron Beck’s cognitive theory of depression, which forms the basis for the most commonly used psychotherapy for this illness, cognitive-behavioral therapy. Beck is a psychiatrist who argues that some people have dysfunctional attitudes that make them vulnerable to becoming depressed in the face of a negative event. These maladaptive attitudes often involve the notion that our happiness and self-worth depend on our being perfect or hinge on other people’s approval. For example, we might think, “My teacher’s critical comment means that I’m a total failure” or “If my girlfriend doesn’t love me, then I am nothing.” If we share these beliefs, then when something truly bad happens, we tend to have automatic negative thoughts about (1) ourselves (e.g., “I’m not lovable”), (2) our present experiences (e.g., “My boss always prefers my coworkers”), and (3) our futures (e.g., “I’ll never outgrow my shyness”). Beck calls these types of thought a negative cognitive triad.

as it sounds. Part of the challenge of listening is filtering out the noise of bias and defensiveness. When your frontline workers hear customers suggesting ways your business could do more for them, the instinctive response is to determine how much additional work that might mean. When service employees hear negative comments from customers about their or the organization’s service performance, they have a natural tendency to defend and protect. Their inherent sense of “possessiveness” about the delivery processes and their tendency to take complaints as a personal attack make it harder for people at the front line to listen in a nonjudgmental way. Although your people are up close and personal with customers on a day-to-day basis, as a manager you are in a better position to listen effectively. Being one step removed from the action, you should have less defensiveness and a broader perspective than the immediate moment.

Janet, a chemist and a team leader at a pharmaceutical company, received glowing comments from her peers and superiors during her 360-degree review but was surprised by the negative feedback she got from her direct reports. She immediately concluded that the problem was theirs: “I have high standards, and some of them can’t handle that,” she remembers thinking. “They aren’t used to someone holding their feet to the fire.” In this way, she changed the subject from her management style to her subordinates’ competence, preventing her from learning something important about the impact she had on others. Eventually the penny dropped, Janet says. “I came to see that whether it was their performance problem or my leadership problem, those were not mutually exclusive issues, and both were worth solving.” She was able to disentangle the issues and talk to her team about both. Wisely, she began the conversation with their feedback to her, asking, “What am I doing that’s making things tough? What would improve the situation?

But negative comments should quickly be forgotten. This can be done by skillfully “paying no attention.” The Zen mind is said to be “unmoved even when the eight winds blow.” We strive to remain unperturbed, no matter the situation—and even to be calm and good-humored.

This Negrophobic Reconstruction myth has been so dominant that a man as intelligent and humane as Shelby Foote commented negatively about Reconstruction in Ken Burns’s Civil War television series.

Find your self-limiting beliefs and push out of your comfort zone little by little. As absurd as it sounds, acclimate yourself to occasional discomfort. You will be amazed at what you can do. Don’t confuse your memories with reality. We all are commentators; we all shade out experiences with the hues and tones that bias facts. We look for occurrences that match our own values, but they may not be the values others espouse.Let’s admit it – we have memories that are biased by our own beliefs and values. Speak to yourself positively. If you can learn how to follow your own advice to yourself, you can become mentally tough. We are all too often victimized by our primal mind that speaks to us with poorly worded feelings. Overcome the negativity bias. Since prehistoric times, homo erectus gave rise to homo sapiens, and survived amid ferocious predators. He either fought for his lunch, or he was eaten as lunch.

Harvard Business Review wrote an article[2] stating that the ideal praise to criticism ratio in relationships is 5 to 1—five positive comments for every negative one. John Gottman, the famous researcher from the Gottman Institute who started studying couples in the 1970s in his research lab, found that for people who end up in divorce, the ratio is 0.77 to 1. This means three positive comments for every four negative ones.[3]

Would you like someone to call you stupid, lazy, incompetent or unattractive? You absolutely would not. Even if someone calls you these names, why would you do that to yourself? You cannot control your father or anyone else, and therefore they don’t have the power to tell you who you are and how good you are. They are not you, they are not in your body and they will never be. You have you. So be gentle to that person you see in the mirror, they have been through a lot and they don't need yet another negative comment from the person looking back from the other side of the glass.

You are adept at turning even the most positive comment into a negative.

The only thing that works is embracing, stepping into, and exaggerating the feeling. Remember from Mindfulness Method #2, it’s the feeling you’re afraid of. I didn’t want to be judged, looked at sideways, or have comments made about my voice because of how I’d feel about them. The thing I fear—my own feelings—happens inside of me, not outside. So, what’s the approach, exactly? When I’m on my way to a gathering or event, I feel my anxiety as intensely as possible. I exaggerate it. Notice it in my chest, gut, and legs. Let it course through my spine and head. If my throat feels tight, which it often does due to my vocal cord issue, I’ll exaggerate the tightness. Try to make it tighter and more constricted. The key is to embrace and welcome the very feelings I fear and want to avoid.

willing to close large distances in response to calls. Does that make them stupid? No! Due to the vastness of the landscape these birds often call home, it’s not uncommon for a walk-about tom to respond and come to a live-hen call that barely tickles his eardrums. When calling Merriam’s birds, I prefer to run calls that carry great distances and cut the all-to-often howling western wind. My favorite reach-out-and-touch-their-ears Merriam’s call is a trusty box call. Box calls get a bad rap. When I give seminars, I hear a lot of negative comments about them. They’re too easy to use. Every hunter on the planet hammers away on them. They don’t work on public land. You can’t get the exact pitch you want. I could go on forever with the complaints I’ve heard from hunters about box calls. Here’s my opinion on the matter. They work great to cut the western winds. They also work great when trying to raise the interest of a distant tom. On multiple occasions, I’ve been able to sit behind a quality spotting scope and watch a tom 500 yards away take notice of my box call. Once you master them, box calls can produce pitch-perfect tones. I especially feel this is the case when using a true chalk-on-wood system. Another Merriam’s eardrum ringer is an aluminum pot-and-peg call. I’ve found aluminum pot calls carry great distances. I’m also a fan of glass. What I love about pot-and-peg calls is that I can easily adjust the volume and pitch simply by swapping strikers. And that’s not all. Once you really know what you’re doing, these calls produce, in my opinion, simply the best turkey tones. Like many turkey fanatics, my go-to call is a diaphragm. Through this wonderful

The clever part is, his comment isn’t entirely a negation, but a gentle sowing of the seeds of doubt. That’s how some Boomers fence; little flicks of the sabre tip, thin shallow cuts.

People would come up to me on the street and say, 'I just want to thank you for being so brave!' Why am I so fucking brave? I'm not going off to fight in a war! I'm not running into a burning building to save kittens! What are people going on about? I'm brave because I'm just ME?? Because I dare to exist as a plus-size woman in Hollywood?...They wanted me to represent for women of a different body type, and the way they kept going on about being 'brave' made me wonder—gosh, how many negative comments were these women getting about their bodies in their daily life? What was the negative commentary running in their own minds?