I have been wanting to address this question for sometime now and since there are so many people trying to persuade all of us to avoid negative people I felt maybe now would be a good time to wade in.  Or, would that appear to be negative?

Everyone knows someone who maybe deem to be a negative person.  I know I do.   It seems there are a growing number of people who do find it hard to see anything positive in anything.  However, sometimes someone appearing to be negative really could be a person who has something positive to pass on to others.   To arbitrarily discount someone who is deemed by others as being negative really does not seem to be a positive approach to being positive.

I frequently see posts on Twitter or Facebook advising all of us we should completely avoid negativity, avoid having negatives in our lives and stay completely away from negative people.  I will strongly agree this is a good idea, since being surrounded constantly by negativity could be rather tiring but so does being around people being only positive for positive sake.

From the many people I know who succeed in life and business they seem to balance their positive and negative attitudes.  Plus, I find what one person deems as a negative person is sometimes seen as a positive person by others.  So, in this case, would the person who appears negative and surround themselves with people with negative attitudes be surrounding themselves with people who they deem  positive?  Hummmm

So what does it really mean when someone tells everyone to surround themselves with positive people?  I understand the pretense they base their advice on and I concur, being positive, or appearing to be positive, does make a better impression to others.  However, the concept of surrounding oneself with only positive attitudes is simply mindboggling.  How does one get any constructive feedback on something they are doing WRONG if everyone around them is positive and will not be open with anyone since it would seem they are negative?  Seems this advice could bring about insanity if followed.

I have always found it interested why people feel telling everyone to only surround themselves with positive people is productive advise.  What really would be better advice is to tell people to surround themselves with Real people.  I could see something positive would come out of that. 

Granted people who can’t see anything but negative do get as tiring as those who stay positive all the time so they don’t appear negative.  Those who can take the negative and roll it into being positive are the people you want surrounding you.  Those who can take a positive and review the negatives are the people to learn from.  Those who can do both are the Real people who make life worth living.  They see things as they really are and uphold a standard to what they believe in..be it negative or positive.

I learn more from people who are negative since they seem to want to explain the issues surrounding their negative where as the person always positive just wants to stay positive and move away from anything appearing negative.  There is not much to learn from someone who keeps changing the subject to keep from being negative.

I would say hanging around real people would lead someone to finding answers to their problems and learn how to avoid a few along the way.  I enjoy surrounding myself with real people and enjoy hearing what they have to say..be it negative or positive.  I learn something every time I speak with someone.  Sometimes I learn to leave them be and other times I learn to invite them into my community.  Real people can teach you something.

Let me know how I can help.