Negative People

Just like annoying people, negative people are everywhere. They come in different shapes and sizes. They can be someone you meet for the first time or they may live under the same roof as you. Negative people are real and they are a little bit more advanced compared to annoying people. Negative people can leave serious damage to your wellbeing. They are extremely toxic and they can really play with your emotions. BUT, of course, only if you allow them to.

The thing with negative people is that they love company. The saying "misery loves company" holds true to these types of people. I decided to write about negative people because I realised just how big of an impact they can make in my life. To be fair, I can definitely understand the mindset of a negative person. When things don't go our way, or traumatic events keep happening and we keep getting tested with things that we hate, it is absolutely normal for a human being to become negative and fall into a self-pity party and everything else that comes along with it. I can definitely speak for myself on that one. I think when I was living in Kentucky and went through circumstance after circumstance, it took a heavy toll on me because I was not prepared. By that I mean, my brain could process what I needed to do during hardships, but my heart had no idea how to react and how to handle things. Thus I fell into a spiral of negativity and only now am I trying to find that light at the end of this dark tunnel.

A lot of the time, seeking knowledge and learning about the deen only reaches us at a surface level. It never becomes skin deep for many people. We learn about what is permissible and what is not. We learn about Allah's Punishments. We learn about HOW we should look as a Muslim. We learn about everything and anything. Of course, seeking knowledge and learning about the deen is essential in one's journey to becoming a better Muslimah. But often I feel like we forget that the journey is not just at an intellectual level. A lot of the times we just learn and that is it. We do not know how to react when things get rough or go wrong. We learn about tawakkul, shukr, and sabr but when we are faced with reality, we are lost. Getting to know about Allah and learning about the deen should not just stay in our brains. It needs to penetrate a little further than that. It needs to reach our hearts and our souls.
This was something I learned only as my sixth year as a Muslim. I never truly understood what tawakkul and sabr was until I dug a little deeper. I still am struggling to learn how to use these three things to help me get through the present and the pain.

So, I can definitely say that I understand where the negative person's perspective is coming from and why they are the way they are. However, we must remember that Islam is not meant to make us into miserable people. Allah does not want us to live in misery. We are supposed to attain happiness in this life as well- despite what a lot of Muslims think. I am still trying to find that balance and I realised that there are just some people in my life that can't stay in it because their negativity brings me nowhere but down. Just because someone has suffered a great deal in their life and they do not know how to deal with the aftermath of it, doesn't mean they need to drag me along with them on their journey of "finding thyself." Remember, you are not obligated to stick around. Being civil is obviously a given, but when you find negative people leaving scars instead of soft footprints in your heart then remain a fair distance.

People who make excuses for everything, who try to tell you that you can't do it (subconsciously or consciously), who try to tell you that your situation may never improve so you need to just 'deal with it', who do not encourage you in a positive manner, and who suck all your positive energy from you are people you need to be wary of. When you feel worse rather than better about yourself after spending time with these types of people, you know there is a problem. People should never bring you down and even if they do so unknowingly, you really don't need that in your life. I have had on several occasions had to deal with individuals who have made me feel what I mentioned in the above. At first, I thought it was me, but then I realised time and time again that it is just the way they are and it has nothing to do with me. So for the sake of my own wellbeing, I decided that I could no longer make room for negative souls in my life.

It has nothing to do with you being selfish, you are just taking care of your own wellbeing. Putting your own wellbeing first before anyone else's is the only way you can be a good Muslimah. A lot of mothers think that putting their children or family before their own wellbeing is what they are supposed to do. But when you look at these mothers, they are the ones who are truly suffering. They take out their frustration on their children and their spouses and in the end, the home becomes a war zone more than a peaceful retreat. So taking care of our own wellbeing is extremely important, and do not be afraid to put your mental sanity first before anyone else's. In order to be able to worship Allah properly, we need to be in a state where we are not distracted by the negativities of life. When we surround ourselves with positive people and work on our own selves, then we know that we will not settle for anything less.

Being negative is often times easier than being positive. Being positive take a lot of effort but it is not impossible. Some people think that being negative is just being "realistic." I think there is a fine line between being realistic vs. being negative. Being realistic is telling yourself that everything will be OK and hardships don't last forever. What goes down, must come up and the tunnel is never always dark. On the other hand, being negative is self-pitying everything that has happened to you and using that self-pity to live your life. Even though you think you are being "realistic" you actually are just dragging yourself and others down into a darker hole. Being "realistic" does not mean that you show no mercy to someone who is vulnerable and feeling hopeless. Being "realistic" doesn't mean that you can't say "everything will be ok insha'Allah, don't worry." Being "realistic" doesn't mean that you need to let others see life through your negative eyes. Being realistic means seeing the glass half full and not half empty. Being realistic means being positive but not overly positive.

Nobody will ever understand each other's deep struggles.
Negative people are they way they are for a reason. They choose to be that way. We all have a choice. We can choose to feel sorry for ourselves and bring people down with us, or we can choose to uplift ourselves and bring people up with us. It really is our choice in the end. Just as Allah has given us the choice to choose between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, happiness or sorrow; we have a choice. Nobody is ever forced to be the way they by external circumstances unless they allow themselves. There are countless inspirational stories where we see people with debilitating disabilities or individuals who have lost so many loved ones they can no longer count and yet these people are the very ones who inspire us and show us that happiness is possible. It takes practice, it takes a lot of trial and error, and it takes a lot of patience and duaa - but it is possible with the help and guidance of Allah.