R U Negative or Positive - you be the judge!

In recent times I have been somewhat curious about a particular aspect of human behaviour, and fascinated by the ease and speed to which we seem to adhere to the negative aspects much more than the positive, permit me to explain.

If I say to someone a comment like, "get a life" or "no, the dress doesn't look good on you" that single comment will distort considerably every other positive comment I make for some time. In a similar yet different context, I have been offering praise to people, genuinely, and when I have done, they spend an inordinate amount of time justifying why my reasoning is flawed, and try to convince me I am wrong. For example, I saw a mature woman whom I know and respect and said to her "____, you look great today!" and for the next 15 minutes I stood there listening to the fact that her dress was from Katies (a female clothing store here) and that it was only $10 but she appreciated the comment, but in reality she had just pulled it from the dryer and had not had a lot of time to iron it, and then there was the beetroot stain that had not been fully removed and proceded to show me and on and on it went as I stood there listening to the constant stream of dribble trying to understand what motivated this sort of response.

Have we forgotten how to accept warm and genuine praise?

A friend of mine is married to a wonderful lady with a PHD in multi lingual philosophy and is an international key note speaker and has even authored two books thus far in her field. She agreed with my thoughts and then added, that there are people whose culture is not "allowed" to receive praise without putting themselves down, almost as though it is important to make themselves lesser than the one who compliments. I found that interesting, but she agreed with my observation that I do not understand why people do that, as we wondered how such a situation could ever be taught or imbued by a nation or culture to begin with.

Another person fascinated by the topic also offered that there are many people who were subjected to a host of traumatic things growing up, she was one such individual, whose early childhood experiences have not only helped shape but downright condition and define her adult responses now. Another interesting insight. We all universally accept that it is easier as humans to embrace with reckless abandon any bad or negative comment about us, and instantly become defensive or angered or even dejected, and yet when a compliment or word of praise is placed in our direction we almost dismiss it as baseless.

What is this that causes us to do this and feel this way?

I do not offer all the answers, and as I found and discovered we all have different influences and yet even with cultural differences expressed, we still feel similar. I accept praise with a warm and gracious thank you when it is offered in my direction. I have found a particular excitement when praise is offered in my direction when it comes from a person who in my mind has a "weight" attached to their comment. For example, when I have photographed some rock bands, artists and media personalities who have had literally thousands of images taken of them, and who have seen many of them, then turn around and say to me that my pictures are very different and that they love them. That is gratifying and so that separates their comment somewhat in my mind, and without allowing it to elevate my pride or ego, I simply feel the depth of that praise even more.

To further illustrate the point of my post, when a comment is passed between people often without understanding the full sentence or true meaning of what was asked, we take offence before asking for clarification first. Someone once asked me when I worked in a retail store, "which is the best video recorder" (that tells you it was along time ago) I then said "well that largely depends on what your needs, and budget are". The man then said "Are you being rude to me?" I answered simply, "I think if I was sir, we would both be in no doubt about it!" and the perplexed look on his face wasn't sure whether to take offence or not, but within a few sentences I explained further, he bought the product with a smile and became a regular customer. To further clarify this, people generally ask blanket statements that rarely actually state what they want! I want the BEST video recorder! we had 30 on display ranging from $299 to $2,999 so what possibly is the best? NOT the most expensive, which is why I think a good person whether in sales or basic communication can identify accurately WHAT a person really wants and provide it.

A friend said to me the other week that "the future Craig will be for the communicators". He had resisted the speaking circuit being an authority in his field and he is getting now almost $10,000 for a two hour booking. He said "I used to think that was obscene, but I have learned that people yearn for individuals to clarify and communicate what they want and are willing to pay well to get it." I need to learn how to speak better in public, $10K for two hours speaking. I would be a millionaire in no time! Ok, yes I will keep dreaming!

I digress, my mum got back from interstate recently and then when I dropped her home from the airport said, "gee they didn't even water my plants" (the plants had started to wilt) and then went inside and said, "they locked both locks, I only lock the bottom one", and then added "Gee you think they would have put a meal in the fridge for me to help me out" THEY referred to people who were looking after her home while she was away. I asked only one question of her, "did you communicate that to them?" to which she responded "no I didn't", as the impact of what I said fell lightly upon her, she then laughed. I then added, that many of the problems of relationships of many descriptions has a lot to do with what we expect others to know and what we actually want them to know. As I said that, I could see this smirk on her face as though she was thinking, here is this man, my son no less, telling me how to live! (the look said it all!) Our lives could be much better if we changed one or two things. I also said that I would have locked both locks as well if I was asked to look after her house. It is as though she was looking for the negative, rather than thinking WOW, my house is still safe and wonderfully comfortable to return to, thanks to the people who gave the house that lived in look during my absence. I offer this example not to criticise her, but to illustrate the point of this post.

I try each and every day to count the actual things or blessings I am grateful for. I don't always, but there are so many things that happen on a daily basis, often the smallest ones, that unless I reflect on them at the end of the day, my life goes by faster and faster with lesser and lesser meaning. Like the feeling I had NOT to drive when the traffic lights turned green the other day as a car from the right hand side sped through their red light and would have collected and possibly killed me had I gone straight away. I am grateful for so many inconsequential things. Like ripples in a pond that spread outward to fill the pond, each of these seemingly disconnected comments and events helps to form my life. I am grateful for the many private emails I have been sent by friends and people I had not even known read my blog in support of the negative aspects I addressed a few posts ago, and I am so thankful for you all.

I hope that from this post if there is anything to be taken away from it at all, is my hope that we choose more actively to be positive and look to the lighter and kinder aspects of life. I heard a statement the other day that I have not been able to get out of my mind, "Don't sweat the small stuff!" and yeah I agree. I have started to try and de-clutter my life from not only the temporal possessions but also the emotions and beliefs about myself and what I thought was important that simply is not.
I want to be a more effective communicator, so that the richness of my life experience becomes better and richer for me and those with whom I associate.