If we happen to be a negative influence on others by discouraging them what should we do?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So if people expect us to help them but then we find that often the inputs that we give them are negative.
That we caution them. We discourage them to do certain things. Then what should we do in such a situation? Should we just not give negative inputs? Because we say that we should not be around negative people and we are becoming like a negative person for someone else.
And or should we try to help them by changing ours? What should we do actually? See when we say that they are negative we should not be around negative people. The word negative can have different meanings. Sometimes somebody who is protective can also be called as negative.
If somebody wants to invest a lot of money in some share which is risky. Somebody tells you, don’t put your money there, you may lose everything. Why are you being so negative? That may not be negative, that is protective.
That person may feel it negative because they are too attached to that idea, too infatuated with the idea. But sometimes negative can actually be destructive. We want to do something enterprising in our life and somebody always says, what if this goes wrong, what if that goes wrong, what if that goes wrong.
And then they kill our inspiration to do those things. So we have to calmly, maturely evaluate what kind of negativity is it? Is it negativity that is protective or is it negativity that is destructive? And in general some people by nature are more positive, some people are more negative. And it is not always that positivity alone is good and negativity is bad.
Some amount of negativity brings caution. And some people are simply optimistic. They are in English called as Pollyannish.
Pollyannish means they are just unrealistically optimistic. They don’t consider dangers. In life there are dangers and we have to take risks no doubt.
But we should take calculated risks. We should use our intelligence. Like they say, look before you leap.
We have to leap. And leaping requires optimism. But looking, if I leap and there is a ditch over there, there is no point in leaping over there.
So I have to look also. So there has to be a proper blend of resourcefulness, of adventure, of positivity as well as caution. So some of us may have this more inclination for adventure and less for caution.
Some of us have more of an inclination for caution and less for adventure. And that’s fine. If somebody is more adventurous, the voice of caution will make them take adequate precautions.
Somebody who is very cautious in the voice of adventure will tell them don’t paralyze yourself by being too negative. Too much becoming over cautious. So a balance has to come.
And sometimes by using our intelligence and sometimes just by our experience in life, we learn this balance. And then if we feel that we are being negative too much, then we can tell them this is what I feel. But you can take other people’s perspective also.
Don’t make my perspective as the only basis for your decision making. I am seeing things from this way and that’s why I am saying this, this, this. But others may see from other way.
They may see some other things. That’s why when we have to take many decisions in our life, we cannot take them based only on our perspective. Ultimately we have to take the decision.
But we need other people’s perspectives also. Not just anyone else’s but people who are close to us, people who trust us and people whom we trust. So people who trust us means not that they accept everything that we do but people have trust in our basic character, in our basic goodness.
Otherwise they will just attack us. What a foolish idea. You are a big fool.
Then we will become disheartened. You are a good person, you are intelligent but this you have not thought about yet. Think about it.
So in general when taking a decision, that person is responsible for taking the decision. And others can provide inputs and it’s always wise to take inputs from different people and then do our own thinking for making a decision. So if we are generally the voice of caution in any situation, then people will also understand that and we can also tell that.
Generally I am a little risk averse person. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. That’s just the way some people are.
So you can take other people’s perspectives also. So we have to make sure that our risk aversion doesn’t make us too fearful and completely non enterprising but at the same time we don’t have to deny our nature. If caution is our nature, that’s fine.
We are cautious and we prepare and we take steps carefully. Some people are more adventurous and then both kinds of people are there in the world and both kinds of people are needed. But both kinds of people need to complement each other.
So God has made different people different and that is so that we all can work together. We can complement each other. So we are not meant to see through each other.
See through each other? This is your point. We are not meant to see through each other. We are meant to see each other through.
See each other through means in life all of us face difficulties and we are meant to help each other go through this life. Go through the difficulties of life by helping others when they need in an appropriate way. Does it answer the question? Thank you.
Thank you. Now we just move on to our next program. Our next program is