If it looks like a duck...
One of my readers recently wondered how to spot a person’s true colors. Her main issue involved people who project their own negative thought process onto us — and into our lives. She asked. “How do you know when to stay and when to walk away?” This interested me, as I have tried several times to write about ridding ourselves of negative influences that invade our space. I’ve never been happy with my results. Dare I say that I always thought that I came across as too “negative.” Sure, I write about taking out the garbage in our lives metaphorically, as in the trash man cometh and the trash man taketh away — but negative influences are sneaky and can be difficult to identify. If we can’t classify something as trash, it’s not easy to throw it away. Plus, not all negativity can be eliminated as easily as some of the other trash we collect. In some cases, the best we can hope for is to recognize a negative influence, then limit our exposure so that it won’t take over our lives. So, h