A little something for you to stew on. Imagine three people who are all giving (and receiving) positively. Let’s picture them thusly:
+1 +1 +1 = 3
Now let’s imagine a similar scenario where one of the three people is negative and is taking but not contributing anything. Perhaps they don’t think they need to contribute, perhaps they are self-absorbed, they may not care at all.
+1 -1 +1 = 1
See the difference just one negative person can make to the final outcome? The other two people would have to double their efforts in order to achieve the same outcome as if the negative person was giving normally. And that is what happens when just one negative person is allowed within a chain.
With that in mind take a good look at the networks of people in your life. Look at all the extra workload which is generated by negative people who are not giving as they should be. When just one person is negative then everybody else they are connected to has to pay the price and carry the extra burden.
It’s easy to become distracted by reasons, ideas, justification, et cetera. The important thing is to stop wasting resources feeding the negativity and instead to have each person playing their positive part. When every single person takes the responsibility then the end result is much better with less stress.
Work smarter, not harder!
Thanks for the reminder :)
I like this example, but i would like to add something to the equasion.
The elements or people in this example seem to be isolated and very sovereign. In reality however we start up with a lower energy level than 100% and we are draines by the negative element even more. And unfortunately this results in that people - although they would be positive elements under normal circumstances - become a negative element themselves. They change color like in the tablegame reversi.
So sometimes + 1 - 1 + 1 = -1
I think the problem is obvious, the more negativity there is the more effort need to be made by the positive elements just to get to ZERO, just tu neutralize the negativity. And than an additional plus effort to change the polarity into positive.
I think its a good idea to think about it and first of all to choose a color and work from there. I like to use the analogy of reversi because it shows brilliantly how “working smarter” affects the change of the attitude of people.
Its good to know on which side we´re starting to work and where we are heading.
I believe that it is best to always start simple. In my example I simplify each element so that it is easier to understand it. To meet your example, if somebody is at 40% then they would be represented by .4 instead of 1. Then the sum would make sense.
In a more realistic equation each person would be a variable and you would witness how the positive and negative shifted dynamically. There could be a real-time animated graphic to represent shifts in the energy. I’m not really into flash over-the-top presentations, I like to simplify and then leave the individual to go as deep as they wish.
I’m glad you brought up Reversi logic, as that is what I will be touching upon next - how to convert negativity into positivity.
Totally agree, Flora: the more positive we are, the happier people will be. Smiles bring more smiles and change lives. It is a give and take thing.
It may be pretty easy for most of us to be positive, especially when we have a relatively happy life. However, we cannot ostracise negative people because we all belong to that group at some point. There are many people who have to work hard everyday against their depression, bad mood or negative nature, not against distractions. And no matter how smart they are, it is definitely a hard job for them. They probably don’t let themselves go, they don’t feed negativity consciously, it’s just that there are traumatic and terrible circumstances in life that some people must go through which makes the human nature react in that particular way. Sometimes, it is not easy to find the mental strength to solve and cope with things that may go beyond our limits.
It is then when we have to make a greater effort, even when we are not in the mood for that. It is in our hands to make life easier to those who need it by throwing a helping hand. As Mark Twain says “The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up”
In the end, we all need a helping hand at some point in our lives. Unfortunately (or fortunately, who knows!), life is not Mathematics.
I would contend that although life may not be mathematics, mathematics does certainly play a role within life. It is an underlying aspect to many elements in life and it is always true.
When I had depression and was scraping the bottom I did not have anybody else to help me. I realized that nobody could. Only I could pull myself up, and in order to do so I needed to make sense of what had happened so that it would be less likely to reoccur in the future. Subsequently I have moved ever forwards, rarely looking back and never relapsing.
I found that truth is a powerful tool for development and self-improvement, and I see mathematics as a form of truth.
This does not mean that I go around talking mathematics and structure all the time. I can also be quite random and spontaneous, or positive and giving without apparent reason, expectation, or ulterior motive. Just because.
I believe both the sphere of the mind and the sphere of the heart and soul have their place. Too much mind can lead to becoming tied down, drained, depressed; and too much heart and soul can lead to becoming directionless, ungrounded, and way out there!