We are over halfway through the month of October and in preparation for my yearly Holiday Explosion followed by medium sized breakdown I figured why wait till Spring to do some cleaning. October seemed like the perfect month to take the garbage people out of my life. I am not talking about waste management services, those are angels in disguise. I’m talking about actual garbage posing as a person you may want to have in your life. We all want to be better, stronger, happier people. To lead us into this, here is motivational mad man Dan Peña to tell us how the people in your life effect your overall ability to be successful:
Now, I am not advocating cutting off all the people in your life, I am just encouraging you to sort them out differently. Like things that we have had for a long time some of it is garbage, some can be recycled and some can be composted to provide a natural nourishment even though it is gone. The most important is knowing what is garbage, that’s what needs to be removed immediately for health reasons. Here area few types of garbage people that must be removed.
Garbage
- Those Who Can’t Celebrate You
I have made this mistake more than once. This is the person who will first disguise their insecurities with “not wanting it to go to your head” when something good happens for you. As this goes on you will notice that you are never able to celebrate your accomplishments with this person. Anything that happens for you evokes either jealousy or fear that you will outgrow them. Unfortunately, by doing this they don’t realize that you already have. It’s harder now to be optimistic than ever before, have people in your life that not only celebrate your successes but help you dream and work for things you never thought imaginable. The person who won’t allow you to feel good about the amazing things you are doing is trash and needs to be taken out of your life can. - The Argumentative
This trash can be the most exhausting trash to have in your life. People who want to argue are usually people who just can’t admit when they are wrong or have trouble being flexible about anything. Which if you are bringing up the same thing over and over and nothing is changing this person does not respect you. Also, arguing is a sign of stupidity and we should all surround ourselves with people on our intellectual level and higher. Stupid people like to argue because it is the only way they can feel dominant. The smartest people can disagree, discuss and then still disagree but gain an understanding of the other person. The bag of garbage that is this person will decrease your ability to focus on good things or be happy as you spend too much energy arguing. Throw that trash out of your life! - People Who Think You Are Trash
Here is the confusing part, you’ll be trash to someone too. Whoever it may be, they may be wrong or maybe just not right but some people make us into trash. If you think you are trash to someone who just hasn’t come to grips with it, throw them out first. Laying in a pile of trash only makes you dirty too. More often than not this person has projected something on you, making you believe you are not good enough. People who are frustrated that you are not doing what they want will make you feel like you are a bad person, you are not. They frequently want to tell you how you feel or what your intentions are when you already know that. In a similar sense if someone is not into you, get them out of there too, being desperate and chasing is not attractive or helpful in relationship balance. Someone who thinks you are anything but great is trash, get them out of here! - The Compensation Seeker
There are people who constantly need to be compensated for everything. Being acknowledged is one thing but this person only does things to get something they want out of you. People should be in your life because they want to be and they appreciate you for who you are. Take care of those ones when you can, do not feel obligated to take care of them all the time. Real friendships reciprocate these things naturally. The most important part of this one is the negative compensation, this is the person who when frustrated with you will do something to get you back. You decide you want a break from the relationship and they immediately sleep with someone to hurt you. This trash is the reason Ross is everyone’s least favorite character. Basically anyone who threatens you, they are trash take them out! - Anyone Who Doesn’t Make You Feel Good
Let’s just stop wasting our time pretending we like people or denying the inevitable, that way you can focus on the rad people in your life and strengthen those relationships or find the new ones that will actually work. I have spent countless hours playing in the trash when I could have been recycling or happy. If someone makes you feel bad about yourself, what you are doing or needs something to make themselves feel better clean them out of your life can!!!
Recycling
Not everyone is trash, some people can be re-purposed, some can even be up-cycled. These are people who maybe have been used up in their original capacity but can now be used for something else. Examples of this include a co-worker that can become a friend, a friend that can become a lover, an ex-husband can become a parenting partner or your friend’s cousin can become a sexual learning experience. The best way to recycle is to first determine if it is trash or not, then recycle it as something that is much better for your environment than creating more trash for yourself.
Composting
These are the things that are completely lost, they can’t come back or be used for anything else but they will be a part of your environment forever. Allow them to nourish the new growth in your life. The good parts of them will be fuel for the next steps and the bad parts just disappear. These people may be those who have passed on, relationships that may have ended because of reasons outside of trash (i.e. timing, location, other complications), friends that are taken down distant paths from you. Absorb the good parts and forget the bad ones. Know that trash cannot be composted it just sits on top of everything until you throw it out.
October is the month to get the trash out of your life so you can focus on the upcoming months of family and friends and people worth your energy! I am excited to enter November with an empty life can, there is too much crazy happening not to! Think about it… or you can just see this as trash and throw it right out of your head dumpster. We are all just trying to make our carbon assholeprint smaller.
Here is a short meditation I made specifically for October. Now that you are starting to sort some of the garbage people out of your life listen to this to relax you and help you finish the month out strong.