Let your smile be your umbrella!

I was having a bit of a whinge today about some people that have been getting me down lately. I know, I know, hard to imagine me having a whinge about something, huh??
So Paul, my boss, told me that I should write about it.

It's not a bad idea really, because writing about things does seem to help. It must be that the act of putting them down on paper blogper gets them out if my head.

Anyway, aside from the lying and the broken promises mentioned previously, there are two other...let's call personality traits, that get to me.

The first one is negativity. At the moment, in my job, I am facing a bit of it. Not because I suck at my job (I'm hoping!) but because things aren't working the way people want them to, and as the public face for some of these things, I cop a lot of their opinions.
The trouble is, when people are constantly negative around me, it really brings me down. Because I'm a naturally positive person (or at least I was once!), it can be hard to be around people that can't find the good in anything.

Those of you that know me might wonder that if this is the case, why I am with Anthony? He is a fairly pessimistic old soul, and he certainly projects a serious gruff image to the world, but I can (mostly) deal with his brand of negativity. Sometimes it can be a good balance Tony over-the-top-ness!

And let's face it, he (and I) both have some cause to be negative. In fact, that's one of the things that gets to me when people are being negative. Sometimes I just feel like telling them how good they've got it, that they can't even begin to imagine what horrible feels like...

It's more of a problem when there is more than one person carrying on. It's contagious! Before I know it, I'm going along for the ride! It takes all my strength to pull myself out of it.

The other thing that gets to me is people that are constantly singing their own praises. I truly believe in giving credit where credit's due, and sometimes these people are very clever or talented, but by god I get sick of hearing about it! Especially when I know that there are 5 other people who are just as clever, that are just getting on with it. Of course they don't get the recognition or the accolades (what's that saying- the squeaky wheel gets the most grease?), but that doesn't mean they're not as good. Or better.

I could go on I suppose, but that's really all I wanted to say. I guess I'm being negative myself, but it's nice to get it off my chest.

And here's my challenge to you. Pick someone, at your work, or in your street or somewhere, and either do something positive for them (bake them a cake, smile at them, wash up their coffee cup). Or give someone some recognition. Tell the boss about something good they did, or write them a thank you note. Then please, tell me (and my readers) about it. Let's spread some happy vibes around, see if we can't turn those frowns upside down!! (that one's for you Paul!)