Are You Bothered By The Negative Thoughts of Others?

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I have always been a strongly optimistic person and believe in positive thought and hope when there is no apparent way out (which is all too often for me). Consequently, I really do find it annoying and depressing to hear all the cynical, hateful, apathetic and uncaring attitudes of so many people out there that never do seem to end.

In a small way you might liken me to the drunk in the bar in the movie "Earthquake" who is still clinging to his stool and trying his best to hang on to his drink and take another sip, when all the world is falling apart around him. He never does give up until the whole buidling finally collapses around him and he falls off the stool. You might also compare my views to the child's story, "The Little Engine That Could" that my grandmother read to me as a child. Am I the only one who feels this way (along with Norman Vincent Peale) or is this an Aspie thing along the lines of failure to recognize the ulterior motives of others? Lets turn this into a poll.

Negative thoughts bother me when they are spoken by others about myself or when they are on the news, Lately, the media has been full of doom and gloom and that gets really tiresome. Do they believe in the self fulfilling prophecy? I hope not.

I sometimes think I project my own negative thoughts on others. When I think other people are thinking negatively, particularly about me, it does effect me.

The negative thoughts that people have about me really bother me to no end. I'm still very bothered by the negative thoughts that my supervisor has spoken to my face, yesterday morning. I've been doing chores as a way to burn off that negative energy. Part of my reason for doing all those chores was to also punish myself for having that stupid shutdown and crying in the first place. Every time I felt like crying, I'd find another chore to do, in order to kill those feelings. That's how much that Queen Bee's attitude towards me affected me. She should have just kept her verbally abusive comments to herself....b***h!

Hard to say really.

I avoid media because of the amount of doom and gloom, in particular all the negativity towards the vulnerable or poor of society, but the thing is as much as the fact society is full of the moronic hateful and ignorant...it doesn't effect me personally - deeply saddened at times by how the world is going, but it's still separate enough from me for it not to directly effect my cheery hopeful and optimistic nature. I still think there is enough good in the world, people who aren't rude morons, people who creature beautiful things, the tiny sparks of brilliance from one person which creates a domino effect of people doing something positive to help others around them...for every thing that frustrates me about the world there is something small but oh so beautiful to balance things out.

Negativity that effects me personally is other people's negativity towards me - less government and media negativity towards me as a working-class, unemployed disabled rocker...but more the negativity of those I come into contact with on a day-to-day basis, I don't care if people dislike me, but it does bother me that their dislike of me is based on ignorance towards me, when people cannot be bothered to at least learn a little about me before dismissing me as some horrible person.

I'm almost never capable of stating what I feel or see about things like you do here, pardon my negativity... I'm trying, though.

I also feel annoyed when I see others thinking negatively again and again. Strangely, the few occasions I've stated something negative about something they remember well, and in their eyes I'm the negative, despite they do it on daily (pardon, hourly) basis... I just don't understand this.

I used to be bothered by negative thinking of others more when it was directed towards me rather than towards anybody or anything else, but today it is the other way around. I don't like negative thinking in general, it has the potential of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and to tell the truth, in most cases they are simply superfluous outpours with the purpose to help the person practicing it to get rid of the feeling of imperfection, and thus it is considered a narcissistic way a self-protection imho, a lie in itself. However, most people seemingly like to do it. I try to accept it, and I only try to change this attitude gently when I see it is appropriate and I presumably have a chance to succeed. I've decided to care more for my family members and close friends in this respect.

If I'm in a really good mood negative thoughts of others don't bother me at all. However I'm not a very positive person myself. I'm trying to change that and to adopt a positive attitude. So negative thoughts of others bother me a lot when I'm feeling negative myself but trying to keep a positive attitude because then it takes so much more effort to stay positive myself.
Did that make any sense?

Miserable people do annoy me as usually they act in such a pessimistic manner to attract attention. I abhor attention seekers.

If it's an enemy, I don't care. If it's anybody else, yes it bothers me a lot. If somebody even vaguely close to me seems to feel that I've wronged them, then it haunts me, even if I know they're incorrect. If a friend is in pain, it affects me quite strongly.

Well I'm not naturally positive, so I guess that's a bad start!
I can tolerate it if the negativity is within reason. If someone says "I hate my life" over something trivial, whether jokingly or not, I do not tolerate it as there are some people with real problems.
I'm not sure, OP, if by your definition of "bothered", you mean "concerned" or "annoyed" at other people's negativity.

Since I learned to banish, they bother me less.

Also, people should really ask permission before praying for or about someone else. Your positives may come across as negative to another person.

What about all the long faces down at the mall! Ha! So wrapped up in doom they cant even make an effort when they go out, and appear cheerful for others and kids around them.

Such disrespect does not go unpunished

Hooray for the smilers

It is not the thoughts of another person that bothers me; it is the actions upon those thoughts. No one can know for certain what another person is thinking, even if that person claims to be speaking their thoughts in complet honesty. The mind is the final refuge.

Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone......strange, I always thought it shouldn't be like that. Smilers are great, as long as they're sincere, but have a heart for the unhappy.

Well said... I guess I should have added other options such as negative thoughts that people have about onesself as opposed to negative thoughts that people have about others.

One thing that bothers me to no end are not so much the negative thoughts that people speak about me to my face (which is rare) but the negative thoughts that people say about me behind my back, yet still within my hearing range. I have had to deal with this endlessly throughout my life and to me it shows an NT cowardice that I simply cannot stomach. I may have accidentally recorded a 5 minute audio clip of such behind the back comments about me last night but have not had time to find out exactly what it says yet... I wanted to stop in here first.

A few more adjectives that I should have added to the list in this post to go along with cynical, hateful, apathetic and uncaring are the words judgmental, intolerant and hypocritical.

I really don't care what other people think along as they are not thinking about me .