I bet everyone around here knows at least one mean person. Usually is that grumpy face in your office, the person that always has something to gossip about others or who never agrees with anyone else.
Less likely, but sometimes it happens, you can have a mean person in your group of friends. They can be among your people because they have always been part of the group, since you were kids, or maybe because they are someone else’s sister or brother and everyone in the group tolerates all those nasty remarks or attitudes.
I know, I know! That person is not very likable, and you try to stay away from those negative vibes as much as possible. You avoid that person to the extent that you barely know his/her story. You know they are always mean, they are always complaining about everything, never smiling, and more often than not, they do or say bad things about you or someone around you. Knowing all this, you have created a layer of protection against that person and you are not interested in finding out more about them. They already have that label and it’s enough for you.
Well, since life isn’t always easy, we can extrapolate and conclude that someone else’s life can be complicated to understand from the outside. The same thing happens with that mean person you avoid whenever you can.
If only we could read someone’s pain in their eyes or their hairs. But it’s not always like that. Even more, those mean people are using social media as a form of creating a new, happy life, a sort of modern alter-ego. Or, they can go on the opposite side of the story, where a mean person doesn’t post anything on any social media channel, or they don’t have or use social media.
Of course, without knowing someone’s history, without walking in their shoes, or speaking honestly about themselves, it’s challenging to create authentic relationships with them. The labels we put can be very shallow.
My life experience and my practice as a life coach have taught me that happy people are never mean. Happy people are too busy to live their beautiful lives. They are busy with achieving their goals, and almost always, they want to help others. They want other people to feel the same happiness. It’s the sad, unhappy people that are always mean. They barely find enough strength within themselves to fight their own battle. How can we think they have some room left in their tortured souls to say something nice to someone else?
Have you ever thought that maybe your grumpy boss has been raped when she was a teenager, but she never had the strength to talk about it with someone else? Or, have you ever heard that the lonely guy in the left corner of your office lost his fiance 15 years ago in a car crash, and he lives with commitment issues? He’s too afraid to make friends because he doesn’t want to lose people anymore.
Not to mention that colleague that always takes weeks off unexpectedly and leaves the team uncovered for the deadline. How would you react if you would know that every vacation she takes is due to a miscarriage? She already had five unwanted abortions and she struggles with her pain.
You might say that your life hasn’t been that easier, but just the fact that you’re here now, reading this article on a coaching blog, tells me that you want to change your story.
And if by any chance, you just realized that you are not happy either, it’s a good sign. I am here for you; to help you overcome the challenges you’re going through. By the end of this journey, you’ll have learned how strong you are. So strong that you’ll feel on yourself that happy people are never mean.