Drain Me!!!

In the recent past I've started to take an interest in energy. Not the gas and electricity bill type of energy, more the energy exuded, or not exuded by particular people.

I've never considered myself to be a deep person, I'm not spiritual nor do I look at things in a very meaningful way. Except those pictures of Britney Spears on that night out. Like most men I looked rather deeply at those and felt a strange connection, a kind of stirring and that feeling of warmth and friendship.

Britney aside, I've become increasingly aware that different people exude a different sense of energy. Some people can fluctuate on a regular basis; one minute they ooze with positivity and enthusiasm and the next minute they make you feel more miserable than an Indian cricketer.

The types who fluctuate on that regular basis are rare. Most people are one or the other. Up in the big positive league or down in the "depressing all the time" lower levels. I don't know why it's a phenomenon that I've only become aware of recently, maybe other people have known about it all their life, but it's changed the way I evaluate and judge people.

As I plunder and drum my way through my life, with a sort of wide eyed child like enthusiasm for all the things I'm passionate about, I discover and learn things. This has been a big discovery for me and I like it.

I know that I want to be one of the positive ones, one of the optimists and motivators, a person who can portray a zest for life and make people smile. I also know that I don't want have many of those energy "drainers" in my life.

These are the people who make me feel as is they have sucked the energy out of me with their own misery and suffering. You know them don't you. Those ones who just moan, who don't seem to be able to say good things about life. I've got about three or four of these chaps in my life now, they usually mean well but, after spending about a minute with any one of them, I feel as if I've done ten rounds with Leonard Cohen.

That's why I don't like to rant and rave much. The blogs I read, the people I choose to mix with, the music I listen to and the people I love dearly are those that make me happy and make me laugh. Everyone can have a spell of feeling down, just not an extended spell.

I'd never paid much attention to it before and had thought that there are some people who are just a bit negative and depressing. But they're worse than that. It's the ones who, when asked how they are say something like

"Not bad, work's totally busy and I'm really tired"

It's all delivered with a long sigh and a feeling of doom and gloom and makes you wish as if you'd never asked. Why? My only answer to this is that it's because it's much easier to moan and talk about bad things than it is to enthuse and talk about good things. Criticism of the negative variety is easy and cheap. Constructive criticism and positive ideas are much harder to come up with but so much more powerful.

I've got friends in my life who are massive sources of inspiration and positivity for me. They're people I've learnt much from, who have infectious enthusiasm, not to be confused with stupidity, and the types who can also act as role models for me.

My newest aim is to find more of these fellows and to try to take an accurate measurement of their positivity rating as soon as possible.

Positive energy is good. Energy drainers are not.

Out.