Avoid Negative People

It’s a proven fact: You become like the people you spend time with. So pick and choose very carefully who you have around you. Their effect can be either positive or negative. Choose the positive people to spend time with. Life is too short to spend it around negative, small thinkers who are dangerous to your dreams.

Charles J. Lewis

Many years ago I was helping an executive get her work space and files organized.  She shared her office with one other person who was organized.  The company policy dictated that office doors had to be open at all times.  Throughout the day there was a parade of people making negative comments. "You're getting organized? Seriously?  Why bother?"  "Oh I see what you're doing, Regina, just moving things around the room." "Hey, Regina, come back in two weeks and it will all be just the way it was when you started!" There was in fact an office pool as to how many days the new order would last.  

It was early in my career and I had no clue this scenario would repeat often.  It happened in homes as often as it did in offices.  At home the comments were in fact more open and cruel.  We're so free with our words in intimate situations, aren't we?  If you have negative people in your life and you can't avoid them because they sign your pay check or you are married to them, here's my organizing advice.  Don't talk about how you are going to change your ways or get the environment in shape.  Just do it.  And then keep it going.  No one can argue with visible results.  They can only trample dreams.

The image above is an iconic one in Eastern philosophy.  The lotus flower can bloom in the filthiest water.  It's beauty and grace rise above the muck.  The metaphor is that no matter where you are you too can blossom and thrive. Remember the lotus when you doubt your organizing efforts because of the critics in your life or the ones that live in your head.