Spread Joy + Dispel Crappy Attitudes

Dec 4

In my eclectic background of growing up in a small town in rural Ohio, moving to a large city, working at a hospital, art studio, yoga studio, security company, and marketing company through the span of many years, this is what I have learned:

It truly does not matter WHAT you are doing. It matters WHO you are around and how they influence those around them.

Can you name any places you have worked or existed where there hasn't been at least one person in a group of otherwise pretty miraculously marvelous people whose demeanor was SO awful that it ruined your entire experience?

It's not the person that sucks necessarily, but their bitter, foul, ultra-negative attitudes.

This is my work.

To seriously look assholes, bullies, and not-nice people in the face and say: straighten up your shit.

These are the stereotypes of the egomania and BS I strive to dispel:

1. People who, in person, talk about themselves in the third person, typically a first and last name reference used in a condescending manner: I'm So and So, don't you know?

a. This is the first red flag that you've met someone who has leaped off the deep end.

b. Not in discussing esoteric philosophy do they use the third person, as in, "I wonder what dies and what, if anything, continues after my death. Who am I? If we are all allegedly made of the stuff of stars and are cosmic energy radiating from temporary bodies during this lifetime, who is this "Kelli Schaffter" that exists and what of her is eternal?"

i. Though these types of sentiments are getting closer, nah.

ii. An example would be leaning over to another human being and admiring my own work, saying, "You know who created that? Kelli Schaffter." A smile, a wink, another reference or two, "It's so Kelli Schaffter. Kelli Schaffter likes it. Kelli Schaffter gets it."

1. People that are convinced, literally, that they have been wronged by nearly EVERYONE they have encountered.

a. These people's high turnover rates and LONG list of people to walk out of their lives with articulated reasons that to others are quite sound gets chalked up to their constant victimization. "This person did so and so to me. This person did too."

b. These people bring BAD energy into the places they enter, and you can pick up on the amount of anxiety, stress, worry, anger, and pent-up resentment bubbling in the other humans around you directly due to that person. Maybe they're stressed about other things, but this person is FOR SURE affecting damn near everyone around them in a way that breeds anxiety, fear, or revulsion.

c. This person either truly does not notice, or truly does not care. Or, absolutely gets off on treating others like complete shit so they can feel better about themselves.

It was funny when I wrote my very first essay on Peace to the People. I had four different people reach out to me and sarcastically say, "Haha. I wonder who that was about." The article was really about no one person in particular. My own tendencies included. I'm no angel.

These people I speak of are composite characters; they are common tendencies I have noticed in myself and others as an ordinary person living life for many years around others.

These are observations that are nothing special: commentaries and public service pleas for more kindness and less bullshit in the world.

Mere musings about the human condition.

I have truly a slew of characters in mind when I write of these real-life, examples.

A CEO walks into a car repair shop and aggressively slings his keys on the counter towards four employees.

He makes a comment about his $100,000+ car and outwardly notes that they probably don't have a car like his.

They receive the overwhelming energy of this inflated ego.

Their eyes squint, the skin of their foreheads constrict, and they proceed to then talk down to him.

He walks out of the shop mentioning their negative attitudes.

No. Shit.

I consistently watch these types of people be the absolute reason people treat them like shit.

Instead of looking someone in the eye, smiling, and warmly greeting another human being, these people are curt, clipped, and cold.

They might start off their communication immediately with "constructive" criticism or a negative observation.

Perhaps they directly insult you, or they say something VERY sweet though intuitively insincere with the most disgusting sing-song voice that you just. Cannot. Connect with.

YIKES.

Be REAL, people.

Be KIND in as many circumstances as you possibly can.

Again, I am no angel.

As I was drafting this several months ago, I asshole….