Okay, so on the surface the above quote doesn't seem to make sense. If there was positive, then it wouldn't be a negative event. Not so, something CAN be negative, yet still have some positive aspects. If the negative outweighs the positive, then it is a negative event. Even so, there is likely some positive from the event, and if there is, you should try to see it and profit from it.
A very personal negative event for me was my wife's death. No matter how hard I try, there was more negatives tied to that event than positives. While that is definitely true, if I think about it, there were some positive aspects too. Since it is personal, I don't want to get into this example too deeply. Suffice it to say that my daughters were removed from a situation where they were seeing the sufferings from addiction up close and personal. Midnight trips to the police department or hospital, while I tried to help Sharon, have become a thing of the distant past. That is the only example I will use here. Another negative turned positive that I will talk about involved the treachery of a friend when I was younger. On the surface, treachery of any type would seem to be a negative. The long-term repercussions of this one, though, were so positive that in hindsight, it would have been better if it had happened sooner than it did. So what's the story? When I was younger, I had a friend who was very manipulative and self-centered. It was hard to see though. You had to have known him for quite a while and seen it happen in a repetitive manner to notice it really. You see, this guy was always nice and friendly to people while he was with them, but as soon as someone annoyed him, he would work behind the scenes to make sure that person wouldn't hang out with the group as much. He would do it subtlety. To one person in the group, he would start to say negative things about the person, saying that that they had said something bad about the person behind their back. This was not always true. A lot of times the "negative" comment was usually only a part of the full thing that was said, with key pieces of information missing such as a qualification or a context. Next he would set up things to do and conveniently forget to invite the person he was mad at so that everyone who usually hung out together would be there except for the person he was mad at. He would then say he couldn't get in touch with him, or couldn't get an extra ticket or any number of excuses on why that person wasn't there. After a while, once people were enjoying themselves, he would say something like see how fun this is without so and so being here...trying to reinforce that things were better when that other person wasn't around. This went on for a while before I noticed it. Once I saw it though, I noticed that this behavior happened in cycles. For a month or two it would be one person who was getting the treatment. After a while, that person was let back in and another person was getting the shit treatment. All of it seemed to be designed to keep him at the center of the group and give him undue influence over who was in or out at any given moment. Once I figured it out, I started to distance myself from the guy, although that wasn't always possible since most of my friends hung out with him too. All of us had been friends since junior high school. We were all still partying together after college too. The event that changed everything happened soon after I got back from college. A bunch of us would usually get together to go out barhopping on the weekends. We lived at the Jersey shore and the bars were always packed on the weekends. We were in our mid to early twenties. During the week we all hung out together as well, and we often hung out with a group of girls that were slightly younger than us. It was good because while they were all above the age of 18, they were below 21 years old, and couldn't get into the bars. We liked that since we could hang with them during the week, but not have to worry about buying them expensive drinks at the bars on the weekend (all of us were working our first jobs and no one was making lots of money yet). Anyway, one of my friends started dating one of the younger girls, but was keeping it kind of casual. He'd still go out to the bars with us on the weekend, but he wasn't actively hitting on the chicks while we were out. My other friend was back to his old tricks and trying to stir trouble within the group. He let slip to this guy that I was interested in his girl friend, which wasn't really true. I liked one of her friends and was working on her. My friend knew this and told me on the side what the other had said. Well, that made me smile, because the guy stirring up all the trouble had told me earlier that he liked the girl the other was seeing and was calling her later. I kept quiet about the whole thing but just watched to see how this thing was going to play out. Later that night, I saw the sneaky guy get on the phone. Soon after he complained of a headache and said he needed to go home. Now back then, all of the bars had cover charges, so we had all paid to get in. It had been his turn to drive so the rest of us could get drunk without having to worry about DWIs, so we all had to leave when he was going so we could pick up our cars. I suspected what was going on, so I told my friend to hop in my car and that I would drive. Instead of going back to the bar though, I drove around the corner and parked the car so we could see my friend's street. Now just so you know, I am not naming names here for a reason. This all happened long ago, and I am sure the people involved can recognize themselves. I am not certain wives can, though, so I will keep all names out of it. When I stopped the car, my friend turned to me and said, "hey, what the fuck are you doing?" I said "dude, you know so and so has told you I am not really your friend and that I am after your girl." "I am going to show you that not only is that not true, but that he is really the one that you gotta watch out for." "I am cutting ties with him as of tonight. Sit here for twenty minutes or less and let's see what happens. If I am wrong, we'll go to the bar and I'll buy you a couple of rounds for your time. If I'm right, you'll see him for how he truly is." You see, this friend thought this other guy was always on his side, even though nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact, the other had been actively trying to get him out of the group behind his back for months. Well we waited five minutes and sure enough, the other guy's car went by the street and up to the other corner. My friend looked at me and said "okay, what's going on?" I said "If I am right, he is going to your girlfriend's. Well he looked at me in shock and couldn't believe me. I said "Watch." and pulled out to follow the other. When he got to the corner the other guy made a right hand turn and sped off. My friend gave a sigh of relief and said, "See he is going in the opposite direction." I said "The liquor store is in that direction. Let's just go and sit across from your girlfriend's apartment. We sat there for about five minutes before the other guy came walking up the street with a 12-pack in his hand. I will leave that story there. Needless to say, that was the last I spoke with that guy. As far as I know, that was the last that a number of people spoke with him. Many of us always felt that if you couldn't trust your girls around your friends, then they weren't really your friends. As far as I know, anyone who was there that night, never spoke with him again. So to tie it together, what positives came from this? Well, to start, the guy whose girlfriend cheated on him went on to meet another girl who then became his wife. Meanwhile, a negative force left my life and my friendships improved with all of the other people who used to hang out in that group. You see, this guy had multiple negative gossip going around about a number of people. Once that influence was no longer around, everyone got along better. Thus, negative situations CAN have positive outcomes. Just because you may not see them now, doesn't mean they are not there. Only time will tell!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
September 2021
Categories
All
|