Poisoning The Positive! There is a tendency to find some reason to distrust compliments or friendly moves from another party. Everyone has friends who like them and will act friendly and make encouraging or complimentary comments towards them. With distorted thinking,the positive point of view or positive observations about us from those well-meaning people will be overlooked or neutralized by thoughts like "They don't mean that" or "They are only trying to make me feel good" or "They don't really like me"or "They are flattering me because they want something." So, in some way, a positive remark is relegated to a position of unimportance and is quickly forgotten. In this way, the well-meaning remarks are stripped of their value in helping you to correctly evaluate yourself by the standards of those who know you best. On the other hand, if someone unimportant to you, not even a friend and maybe not even an acquaintance and therefore someone who couldn't possibly know you or what you are like, make a derogatory remark, your feelings are hurt; you take it almost as if it was a fatal blow; you can't dismiss it from your mind; you rehearse it over and over; you believe it to be true and you allow it to ruin your day or even many days. You have poisoned the positive feed-back from those who know you best by dismissing their opinions in favor of a negative or insulting remark by a person of lesser significance in your life. Why does one play such a game? Well, none of us can adequately evaluate ourselves. We are dependant on the observations of others. If so, why then don't we say "thank you" when we are complimented and ignore the negatives of people of lesser importance in our lives? It's probably because we don't like ourselves and evaluate ourselves incorrectly. We know all about ourselves and while we would like to think that we have no blemishes or faults and that we approach perfection, we have failed to accept ourselves with imperfections and so we tend to let put-downs hold us in their grip and poison the positive. As people improve, have more respect for themselves and like themselves better, they can refute the poison and let the positives enhance their good feelings about themselves. Eleanor Roosevelt stated, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." The moral is: Don't start a personal duel with one other person, because the rest of the world will pass you by while you are distracted by the duel.