You can’t get away from toxic people because the world is quite literally filled with them. Eight out of ten people you will meet along your journey will only have a place in passing. Nearly half of those individuals ought to have no place in your life at all.
We can all certainly name at least one individual -- if not more -- in our lives whom we understand to be a bad influence.
Someone who always manages to help us lose faith in ourselves, to always look at the downside of things and to lose sight of the life we wish to lead.
Having the right people in your life is everything. In contrast, having the wrong, toxic individuals in your life ruins everything.
Be very careful of the people you allow to be parts of the life you live, as those individuals become more than just that… they also become a part of you. Or rather, they take away those parts of you that make you, you.
1. Your will to pursue your dreams.
Toxic people are as dangerous as they are because they’re capable of ruining your life from several different angles, simultaneously.
Such individuals make it nearly impossible to be yourself, to feel confident in making your decisions, and to take swift action. They fill up your schedule with nonsense.
They make you feel unsure of yourself and the way you’re living your life. And more often than not, they make making poor decisions too easy.
Toxic individuals drag you away from the life you want to be living by either making you believe such a life is impossible or by convincing you that you won’t have to work too hard to achieve it. Neither could be further from the truth.
2. Your self-understanding.
Regardless of whether the toxic people in your life are acquaintances, coworkers, close friends or family, they will make finding yourself that much more difficult.
Life is more about excluding certain things and people than it is about hoarding all the experiences that you can -- especially this day and age.
Once upon a time, it made sense for us to try and get our hands on everything. These days most things are too accessible.
Toxic people fill your life with unwanted thoughts, emotions, encounters and unpleasant memories -- memories that linger on as you run over the unpleasant scenarios in your mind.
The more you spend your thoughts on trivial things, the less time you’ll have to get to understand yourself.
The only way to do that is to interact with the world in a fashion you deem meaningful. Toxic people make focusing on what’s most important to you incredibly difficult.
3. The person you are meant to be.
Not all people will add to your life -- most will only take from it. Toxic people never give, as by nature, they are unable to support positive energy or life.
Instead, they hold you back from doing the things you want to do -- things you really want to do. The things that are most important to you. Toxic individuals make accepting the person you are and understanding the person you need to be, impossible.
They drain from your soul the version of you that would make you happiest. The worst part is that this person does and always will exist. And the longer you keep him or her bottled up, the more miserable you will believe your life to be.
4. Your purpose.
Purpose is only purpose when it's acted upon. Otherwise, it’s only a dream.
Dreaming is essential to human life. Believing you can have a safer and better life is the only thing that keeps people going. You can only dream for so long, however, before reality kicks in.
It’s easy to dream when we’re younger. We’re naive and know little of the world. Everything is a possibility and our capabilities have no boundaries.
Unfortunately, unless we turn those dreams into purpose, by acting on them, the dreams either become tainted or forgotten.
Dreams give you hope. Purpose gives you the satisfaction of finally being in the process of bringing those dreams to fruition. Toxic people always manage to take you off your path -- even if only by taking up too much of your time.
5. A healthy version of reality.
The world that we "see" is really only an interpretation of the world that exists. The things, places and people we fill that reality with have a great impact on the way we see the world.
Bringing toxic people into your life is often as detrimental as it is due to the fact that toxic individuals breed toxic thoughts, beliefs and theories on life.
They see a twisted reality and then do their best to drag everyone else around them into it. They’re alone and lonely in their reality and want reassurance that others see the world as the dark and unhappy place it is.
Be careful how you mold your reality, as it is the one reality you’ll have to live with.
6. The chance of bringing the right individuals into your life.
Toxic people are entirely ego-driven. They believe themselves to be more important than the rest of the world and believe that it only makes sense that they use up everything and everyone around them.
Such individuals are bloated, taking up too much space in the lives of those they are closest to. They expect those around them to treat them as the amazing individuals they believe themselves to be.
Toxic people will take up so much space in your life, you won’t get a chance to build meaningful relationships with people who deserve to be a part of your life.
People can only maintain a handful of meaningful relationships at any given time -- there isn’t enough time for more. Chances are that the toxic individuals in your life are holding you back from creating mutually beneficial friendships.
7. Any hope of success.
To be successful in life, you have to have focus. You have to understand what you want and -- more importantly -- why it’s important to you that you achieve it.
Toxic people make both focusing and understanding your motivations much more difficult.
Success doesn’t come easy -- regardless of what you’re trying to achieve.
Life comes with countless distractions and detours. Your job is to minimize wastefulness and maximize efficiency -- something basically impossible when you have wasteful, inefficient and egotistical people in your life.
8. Any hope of happiness.
Toxic individuals are, by nature, unhappy individuals. Regardless of how they may come off, when you get to their core, there is little more than spite, regret, sadness and hatefulness.
They see the world in an unpleasant light and do their part to add to the unpleasantry; they already believe the world to be a miserable place… they can’t imagine how their adding to it could make much of a difference.
The world is what you make it out to be. According to some, it’s horrible. According to others, it’s magical. What’s important is that you’re happy with the life you lead and the decisions you make.
The first of which should be removing all those people in your life who make you believe happiness only exists in fairy tales.
9. A Happy Ending.
Everyone wants to have his or her own little happy ending, yet few people are willing to do what it takes to write it.
Everyone seems to believe that life is governed by outside forces -- that the world and the other people in it decide our fate. In part, that is true. It’s all about who and what you allow to affect you -- who and what you allow into your life.
For you to be happy having everything you ever wanted, you first have to learn to be happy with having nothing. It’s really about appreciating the simplest, most overlooked things in life. Most of all, it’s about the people you surround yourself with.
Surround yourself with good, loving individuals and you will never fear failure, never fear ending up alone or being indefinitely lost.
The right individuals make a happy ending inevitable. Toxic individuals will convince you that happy endings only exist in fiction.
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