How does it matter what people say-2

A few months ago I had written a blog titled “ How does it matter what people say?”.
I wrote it so casually and so easily. That was because it had nothing to do with me. I in my supercilious style was being all preachy and full of wonderful insights. It was so easy for me to remain detached and offer advice and tell Sue how it is the people’s perspective and just by saying something nasty about you they are actually living out their own inadequacies. Humans have a tendency to belittle others when they themselves have unmet needs.

It all sounded so easy when I was preaching. Today however, I heard things about me and it actually upset me to no extent. I was rather hurt and I could not hold back my tears. I felt, I had done no wrong and I did not deserve this negative talk.
Why is it that we get so affected by what people say?

We could easily call it human nature. We are all social beings and have an inherent need to belong and be accepted. When we feel our acceptance threatened we feel insecure and fragile. We want to be revered, we want to be acknowledged, loved and accepted.
I was telling my daughter about contractive vs. expansive speech and thinking. It has been shown that when we receive or give compliments our whole being rejoices and expands (metaphorically) and on the other hand, talking ill or hearing ill about ourselves leads to a contraction in our energy field. This emotional turmoil eventually manifests in the form of physical illnesses.

Why then do we still indulge in gossip and negative talk? Why do we rejoice in spreading malicious rumors about others? Even though we have the ability to practice discernment, why do we still choose to inflict pain on fellow humans? Why do we insist on destruction? Why do we indulge in malice?

Is that also human nature?

I guess the survival of the fittest promotes elimination of competition. How do we humans compete? Either we go about killing each other in the name of religion, territory, ideologies or sects or we spread malicious, rumors and hope that the object of our scorn gets eliminated from our circle of friends.

So does that mean that humans are a vindictive, malicious, vengeful race focusing on elimination?

History has enough proofs to show the demonization of humans. Wars, both past and present, Hitler’s gas chambers and more recently 911 and the war on terror. Also the very public ridicule and eventual killing of Socrates, Jesus, Gandhi and anyone who has stood for a cause goes to show that humans are an afraid bunch. We use might and force and sometimes surreptitious strategies towards fulfilling our own ill formed dreams.

I remember reading Lord of the Flies by William Golding and thinking to myself, how could a bunch of perfectly normal children be capable of pure evil. So is it true that given the right or actually wrong circumstances we could all stoop towards anarchy?

I know I have digressed from my so stated subject, but the more I think about the more I get convinced that humans are not really bad. It’s just that negativity gets more publicity. How many of us knew about Schindler but all of us knew about Hitler?

I read somewhere that only 6% of the world population was really evil. The rest are generally good. So for every 6 bad people there are 94 good ones.

So I can rest assured that for every one person that talks bad about me there will be at least 15 who will talk well of me. Well, even if it were not true, that’s my story and I am sticking by it
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Mark Twain said that “the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about!”

So I shall let the momentary feeling of unease pass me by and continue to focus on seeing the glass half full. The world does look pink through rose colored lenses so my recommendation! Let’s all go and buy rose colored glasses.
So it really should not matter what people say. I will choose to hear what I wish to hear and choose to see what I wish to see.

Like my mother used to say, “ If you have nothing nice to say, don’t bother saying anything at all.”

Luv/luck/Happiness