The Anti-Life Equation - the contagious effect of negative people

Do you have negative or toxic people in your life? You know what I mean, the types of people who just suck the air out of a room and can rarely say anything without tearing others apart, or be condescending to so many around them?

I'm sure many of us have encountered people like this in our time in this realm. Sometimes they are strangers. Sometimes they are family. Sometimes they are co-workers.

The latter two can make things especially difficult, as the common advice you will hear from Buddhists or even Psychiatrists is to "remove toxic people from your life."

In fact, here is an excerpt from "Being Buddha at Work" by B.J. Gallagher and Franz Metcalf:

"THE BUDDHA DOESN'T mince words with his advice: avoid whiners, chronic complainers, and any other negative people.

Avoid them like the plague. Why? Because it's contagious. Just as a drunk wants you drunk, too, if you're going to be around him, so whiners want you to join in their whining. It's easy to get sucked into the negative energy of negative people-we all have frustrations and complaints about work, and sometimes it even seems like fun to join in the pile-on of cynicism and anger.

But don't do it. Resist the pack mentality that transforms these negative people into jackals. Run away if you must.

Instead, seek out positive people at work. Look for people who are up to something good and hang out with them."

They are right. It is contagious. How quickly when someone snaps at us or takes a condescending tone do we immediately place ourselves on the defensive, ready to strike back with our own comment or tone because we feel attacked?

I myself have fallen into that trap and reacted that way many a time, often times doing nothing to alleviate the situation. Instead, it just keeps the cycle of viciousness going, likely raising one's stress levels and blood pressure in the process.

Should we be forsaking our own mental and physical health because this one person will not let up?

I'm trying to learn from past snaps and take a more laid back approach. Sometimes, meeting a snarky question with a laid-back "good point," or "interesting question" can keep you from flying off the handle, the way our defense mechanisms immediately make us want to react. Sometimes it can make the person who is treating you poorly frustrated because they aren't getting to you.

Remember when on the schoolyard someone would bother you and your parents would say "just show them it doesn't bother you." Tough? Absolutely. In time, however, what is their point of going after someone who is not bothered by their attacks?

I don't know how familiar any of you are with the work of comic book legend Jack Kirby, but among the plethora of his creations was a character called Darkseid, an evil tyrant form a world known as Apokolips. On the fiery planet of Apokolips, with the exception of Darkseid's minions, all people are enslaved and hope has been wiped from their minds.

In those tales, Darkseid was always on a quest for what was referred to as "the anti-life equation."


The Anti-Life Equation is the equation for total control over the minds of sentient beings, and is the reason that Darkseid sends his armies to Earth, as he believes part of the equation exists in the human subconscious. Naturally, he often runs afoul of the likes of Superman and other heroes. Various comics have defined the equation in different ways, but a common interpretation seems to be that the equation is a mathematical proof of the futility of living.

They want you to give in to their own anti-life equation, abandon your  hope for a brighter tomorrow or life and be miserable with them.

But you don't have to. You can resist.

It will be tough and there will be days that you feel like giving in or lashing out.

Do not.

Let them choke on their own hate. They feed off your despair and without it, you will force them to starve.

Wake Up

Buddhism comes from the word 'budhi,' meaning to wake up, thus the reason Buddhism is the path to awakening.

These bits of graffiti caught my eye on the way to work on several mornings, and it made me wonder if these graffiti artists knew they were, in their own way, spreading the message of Buddhism.

We can walk through this life asleep very easily. It is only when we can take it upon ourselves to stop, look around, and wake up to the world around us that we can truly evolve, truly awaken, and truly be happy and know who we are.

"Wake up, Sheeple," indeed. :)

"Oh, Magoo, you've done it again!" OR the true gifts in our lives

With the holidays comes all the classic Christmas specials that I loved all my life, just as many before me have. You know the classics I'm talking about - the Rankin Bass Stop-Motion Rudolph, Frosty, Charlie Brown.

Well, while skimming across channels this past week, my wife and I came across an obscure animated holiday classic on the Canadian channel. (You've got to love those Canadians, they air the best stuff this time of year...and don't overload you with these 'new' holiday specials that are all CGI and no heart.) But I digress...

That obscure Christmas special I speak of was "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol" from 1962. That's right - Mr. Magoo had his own version of a Christmas Carol, with him playing Ebenezer Scrooge, no less.

Now, why am I mentioning all of this back story? Because during one of the songs (yes, there were song numbers), Magoo as Scrooge sings the following line once he's learned about the wonder of generosity:

"Ringle, ringle, coins when they jingle, make such a lovely sound. Give them away and nobody can rob you. "

Well, I've had this one lyric playing around in my head ever since and it really got me thinking. Scrooge learned a very valuable lesson that day - that the items that some of us value so very much, to the point of obsession - money, the latest electronics, etc - are absolutely nothing once we leave this realm, aside from becoming the target of some underhanded grave robber.

That thought doesn't even need to apply to after our deaths. Think of, unfortunately, how many terrible robberies and burglaries we hear about in the news on a daily basis. So many of the times, what do we hear is taken? Money, electronics, fashionable, expensive items.

Remember a ways back we talked about giving things away? Well that song lyric sort of triggered that memory and line of thought for me.

I think Magoo and Scrooge were really on to something.

Hold onto and cherish the things that are truly important in this life - your family, your spouse or significant other, your children, your pets, your friends - all the things that bring love into your life. Therein lies your true value.

As Harry Bailey said in "It's a Wonderful Life" - "to my brother, George. The richest man in town!" Not because of any wealth he had accumulated. After all, he was practically broke, with three kids living in a run down old, drafty house. But because of the lives he enriched simply by being a giving person.

It's not about objects we can have. That just becomes fodder and targets for the jealous and unsavory who want to take it.

Cherish and appreciate those LIVES that you've touched and touched yours. That feeling of love is something nothing and no one can take from you, in this life, or after.

I can't think of a better gift this holiday season than that.

Love to you all.

I'm a Soul Man

I've been thinking a lot about the soul lately.

I can't quite say with any certainty what's brought this on, but it's certainly been on my mind quite a bit.

I think of those family and friends who have passed and I wonder, what has become of them?

Every time I look out my window and see my 93 year old neighbor, I get filled with a sense of dread for the day when he will no longer be there, washing his dishes and waving.

I was raised Catholic, and with that came the belief of heaven, the afterlife, your soul ascending, etc, etc. The older I got, and the more I learned beyond those small walls of catholic school and church, the harder this became to accept - at least in the way it was taught to me.

Don't get me wrong - I believe in something - an essence, a life force, a soul. Whatever you want to label it, I truly feel there is something in each of us.

And I often times find myself frustrated that the same people who want to insist upon me their so-called "correct" beliefs of heaven, hell, etc, etc, maintains that idea of a soul...and yet, they also want me to believe that the soul is only found in that of human beings?

I call spiritual B-S.

I take one look at the world around me and it becomes increasingly clear that there is a life essence inside each and every living thing. The next time your dog looks up at you and stares in to your eyes, I'm sorry, but there's no way you can tell me there is not a soul in there. Sure, they may not act like you (a human), or communicate like you (a human), but that's because they aren't human.

But why in the world does that automatically make some people believe that they can't have a soul? It's not only quite preposterous to me, it's also quite egocentric. How can you try and convince me of the existence of a soul and afterlife, etc, and then have the narrow-minded and self-important point of view to say 'but it's only for humans, you know.' Hogwash.

This universe is made up of so many unique and individual beings - all connected to each other in some way. If you are alive, there's something in you, something deep inside that makes up who you are - whether you're the 93 year old living next door to me, or the cat sitting on the sidewalk as I walk by, or the dog running down the street to say hello to me, or that tree in the front yard.

I know this entry seems more like rant than a reflection, but I feel like I just need to get it out and into words, even if those words are a bit rambling.

I believe in the soul (or the essence, or whatever name we'll use today), but I believe in it universally.

So the next time that pet of yours looks up at you, the next time that tree you love to sit under moves in the wind, or that cat on the street meows at you - take a look deep into your heart and you might just feel the connection I'm talking about, and feel the life force, the soul, that connects all of us, human and non-human on this wacky little planet called Earth.

Thoughts bad for your mind and bad for your body

The following is an article I came across from a website called LiveScience.com. The reason I'm re-posting it here (with full credit to its author, Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer for LiveScence), is because when it comes to living a life influenced by Eastern Philosophies, one of the common threads is always the connection between a healthy mind, a healthy body, and a healthy essence/soul/being.

Buddha discovered early on that a healthy body and a healthy mind were linked, as noted in one of my earliest entries on this blog. With that in mind, this article points out seven negative thoughts that can be harmful to your health. Take note, and with it, shake off the negative thoughts on your way to a healthy mind, a healthy body, and a healthy being. :)

From LiveScience.com:

"7 Thoughts That Are Bad For You"

By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Senior Writer

Our personalities do more for us than determine our social circles. Temperament can impact a person's physical health.

"The idea that behavior or personality traits can influence health is one that's been around for a long time. We're just now getting a handle on to what extent they do," said Stephen Boyle of Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina.

From those with a chill demeanor to the completely frazzled types, mental factors are ultimately tied to physical health. And while a highly neurotic person might deteriorate more quickly than others, not every character trait will kill you. Some might even boost lifetimes.

Cynicism

Cynics who tend to be suspicious and mistrustful of others, a character trait that scientists refer to as hostility, may have an increased likelihood of developing heart disease. "These aren't necessarily hot-headed people, but people who are more likely to read into people's behavior as some hostile motive," Stephen Boyle said during a telephone interview.

In a study of more than 300 Vietnam veterans who were healthy at the study start, Boyle found that those who scored high on measures of hostility were about 25 percent more likely to develop heart disease.

Boyle and his colleagues think that hostile individuals might experience more stress, which can cause spikes in an immune-system protein called C3 that has been linked with various diseases, including diabetes. In fact, the participants with higher scores on hostility showed an increase in these proteins while the non-hostile men showed no such increase.

Lack of Meaning

If you lack a sense of purpose, your stay on Earth could be truncated. A study involving more than 1,200 elderly participants who didn't have dementia at the study's start found that those who indicated having a high purpose in life were about half as likely to die over the study period, which lasted up to five years. The results, published in the June 15 issue of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, held regardless of a person's age, sex, education and race, along with level of depression and neuroticism.

"Persons with high purpose readily derive meaning from and make sense of the events of their lives, and likely engage in behaviors and activities that they deem important," said study researcher Patricia Boyle of the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center in Chicago.

Some other research has suggested that people with a higher sense of purpose may have different levels of stress hormones, better heart health or improved immune systems, though more research is needed to firm up any of these biological mechanisms, she said.

The opposite also holds: "The findings from our study suggested that people who no longer set and work actively toward goals or enjoy their day-to-day activities (how they spend their time) are those with greater mortality risk," Boyle told LiveScience.

Fretting

People who are highly neurotic -- constantly worried and anxious, and prone to depression -- die sooner on average than their chill counterparts. And a recently reported study of nearly 1,800 men followed over a 30-year period suggests that's partly because neurotics are also more likely to smoke. Perhaps having a cigarette eases anxiety, said study researcher Daniel Mroczek of Purdue University in Indiana, adding that such a short-term payoff might not be worth it if it kills you down the line.

Lack of Self-control

Late for appointments? Can't keep your desk organized? No self-control? These seemingly benign qualities could take a toll on your health.

A review of more than 20 studies and nearly 9,000 participants revealed people who are conscientious -- organized and self-disciplined, as opposed to impulsive -- live two to four years longer than others. Study researcher Howard S. Friedman of the University of California, Riverside, suspects the boost in lifetime can be attributed partly to the fact that highly conscientious individuals are less likely to smoke or drink to excess, and live more stable and less stressful lives. The study is detailed in a 2008 issue of the journal Health Psychology.

Anxiety

The jitters can put a strain on your noggin, research suggests. Compared with the highly frazzled, individuals with a mellow demeanor who are outgoing may be less likely to develop dementia, which can be caused by Alzheimer's disease and other illnesses. The claim is based on a study that followed more than 500 elderly individuals for five years. Among the outgoing extroverts, dementia risk was 50 percent lower for participants who were calm compared with those who were prone to distress.

Gloom and Doom

The gloomy, inhibited person is not just at a disadvantage socially, but also physically.

A preliminary study of more than 180 patients suffering from peripheral arterial disease (plaque buildup in the arteries) showed participants with so-called type D, or distressed, personality, had an increased odds of dying sooner than other people. Type-D people are more likely to experience negative emotions while at the same time hold in their feelings.

The researchers, who detail their work in the August issue of the journal Archives of Surgery, suggest the personality type is linked with the body's immune system as well as stress response system.

Stress

Whatever you do, don't let this list worry you! Research is showing that prolonged stress can be deadly, and if it doesn't do you in, workplace stress can increase your chances of heart disease, flu virus, metabolic syndrome and having high blood pressure.

A study of nearly 700 Israeli workers found that those who experienced job burnout (when work stress becomes unmanageable) were nearly twice as likely as others to develop type 2 diabetes, in which a person's body becomes resistant to the sugar-regulating hormone called insulin.

And while a job promotion might boost your income, it also stresses you out. British researchers recently found that when people get promoted, they suffer on average about 10 percent more mental strain and are less likely to find time to go to the doctor.