Do Not Be Influenced by Others’ Negative Opinions of You

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I have kept a journal for years. Today I opened the journal and found a quote that I had written down on July 4, 2002. I had written this quote down because at the time I had just gotten out of a relationship in which the person I was with had decided that I could do absolutely nothing right whatsoever. At that time I was reading a self-help book about recovering from bad relationships, and this particular quote had really hit me with tremendous gusto, because I believed it really described what I had been going through. I was sitting in my backyard in the afternoon after the breakup, feeling quite depressed but still looking hard for answers. When we are in the eye of the storm, we often do not realize it until someone tells us we are.

Emotional abuse is the systematic diminishment of another. It may be intentional or subconscious–or both–but it is always a course of conduct, not a single event. It is designed to reduce a child’s self-concept to the point where the victim considers himself unworthy–unworthy of respect, friendship, and the natural right of all: love and protection.

Inevitably, victims are made to feel guilty–made to believe the abuse they suffer is their own fault.

No one ever has the right to abuse you, whether you are a child or an adult.

Everyone deserves someone to be crazy about them–to nurture them.

–Unknown

What stuck out for me so much about this quote was that I had been told how awful I was for years. In the relationship I was in, I was told I would never be a good businessperson, never be worthy of respect in the world, never be a good father, and never be a good husband. These kinds of messages have the tendency to be self-reinforcing because the more we hear negative information about ourselves, the more we tend to believe it. I can remember that when I was in this relationship, all I wanted to do was escape emotionally and physically. Were I still in this relationship, you might find me as one of those lonely men who sit on a bar stool night after night somewhere. I’ll bet many of the men who crowd bar stools all over are emotionally abused. Somewhere in the backgrounds of many unhappy and unsuccessful people is some kind of emotional abuse–and it is probably ongoing in their lives.

The reason I am sharing such deeply personal information with you is that in some respects you yourself might be emotionally abused, and I want to offer you insight and support. You might be, or you might have been emotionally abused in a relationship, by a parent or relative, or by an employer. Someone around you, or some group around you, might be telling you that you are negative and incapable. For whatever reason, you may be led to believe that you are incompetent and unworthy. When I think about emotional abuse, I also think about our jobs and what many people experience in certain jobs. Many people simply are not appreciated in their jobs. They are told that they are doing a bad job, they are threatened constantly with termination, they are made fun, of and they are systematically passed up for promotions. As a result, they feel a constant sense of inferiority in their jobs.

There is so much happiness and success available for the taking in the world that whenever I see people extraordinarily unhappy with their lives and unappreciated, I want nothing more than to intervene with knowledge and guidance. In my life, once I got out of that abusive relationship, everything miraculously changed. I started excelling in my job. I became happier. My relationships with everyone around me suddenly became fulfilling. I met a wonderful woman who became my wife, and today I am living the life of my dreams. This all came from spending the majority of my time with someone who believed in me and supported me, instead of someone who was fighting against my dreams and me.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for your emotional and psychological health is quit a job. People who are abused and not valued by their employers should seek other jobs. Criticism can achieve a useful purpose and can motivate you to improve. However, there are also circumstances under which individual employees of various businesses are so severely and commonly abused that it rises to an extremely unhealthy level.  In these cases, the criticism actually serves to diminish the employees and it makes them feel as if they are not worthy of their job.

When you read stories about employees going on rampages, the story is usually about an employee who was systematically abused and was made to feel inferior by the employer. One of the reasons we often hear about this in places like post offices is that the employees there feel trapped, and they feel as if they have skills that would simply not be valued elsewhere. Given the good-size pensions postal employees receive and the fact that the pay is not that bad, postal employees often feel trapped in their jobs. If you had delivered letters for the past 15 years, what else would you feel qualified to do? If you are ever in a situation in which you feel trapped or abused, the best thing you can do is look for another job. No one should remain in a job or position wherein they are demoralized and feel inferior.

Whoever you are and whatever you do, you have skills and personality traits that are in demand somewhere. You need to do everything within your power to take advantage of these skills and traits, and to put yourself in a situation wherein you will be appreciated. You have skills and abilities that merit profound appreciation. You just need to be working for an employer that realizes this. The more positive news and affirmations that you receive, the better you will typically become at your job.

About a year ago I was at a conference and spent some time with a man who had apparently lost more than 50 pounds during the previous year, had quit drinking on a daily basis, had stopped taking stimulants on a daily basis, and had gone from emotionally withdrawn to incredibly happy and motivated. Since I did not know the person as he was before I met him, I was very curious:

“How on earth did you do this?” I asked him.

“I decided whom to spend my time with and whom not to spend my time with,” he told me.

When I thought about this statement, I realized that it was no different from the experience I had years earlier. People’s negative opinions of the world and about us can have a profoundly negative influence on our lives. This is especially so when we are not appreciated and loved.

Several years ago, I was working inside of a law firm and there was another attorney who had been there for at least 10 years.  I could not figure out why the law firm had kept him around so long–or why he had stayed. All anyone did was talk about how stupid this guy was and constantly make fun of him. The associates who had just gotten out of law school even talked about how stupid he was and made fun of him. The partners did the same thing. Despite the fact that the law firm was going through what seemed to be a full-time downsizing of laying people off and firing them, this guy was never let go. Incredibly, despite mergers and other events at this law firm, and countless firings, he is still there today. I figure that the law firm must just enjoy keeping him around to harass.  In actuality, this attorney is not that bad at his job. He is, however, someone who has tolerated incredible abuse throughout his career.

What makes this so incredible is that this particular guy was earning (10 years ago) probably more than $250,000 a year. He has since been promoted, and despite all the abuse he has suffered, he has continued to do very well in his job. I never understood why this guy tolerated so much abuse. From what I have seen, there are people like this in most law firms and companies. I remember another law firm I worked in that had hired a similar kind of person. There are people inside nearly every organization who are systematically made fun of and abused, while others around them enjoy poking fun at them. These people become like the court jester, and it is as if the organizations pile on them all of their issues and insecurities.

In addition to people who are directly put down and made fun of inside organizations, there are also people who experience a more subtle form of abuse.  They are systematically degraded and put down, their dreams crushed over and over again by their employers. In the years I have spent studying human performance and what it takes to succeed in a job, one fact that occurs to me is that there are situations in which getting out of this pattern of abuse can be extremely difficult. For example, if you are working in one of many American small towns, it is often very hard to find a job as good as the post office and with as many benefits. Despite having to endure various types of abuse (often by customers) many people stay employed in the post office year after year.

Recently I saw a special about General Motors and the problems this company has been experiencing for decades. As part of the special, they were showing the numerous suppliers and others scattered throughout the United States who were dependent upon GM for business. What made this so interesting was that the suppliers were often in small towns with no other employers, and in some cases a supplier might only employ a few people. I thought about this and what it would mean for someone who works for one of these suppliers. Some of the people that were featured on the show had worked for certain suppliers for 20 or more years.  They had lived in small communities that had existed for a long time, thriving on the income solely generated by the suppliers. In addition, many of the people working in these factories only knew how to do one thing. For example, they might operate a certain machine that makes bolts.

Imagine doing something like this for 20 or more years.Imagine still if you did not like your job and did not have any other skills.Imagine if the people at work were not nice to you and you felt abused.  Feeling trapped in such a position would be absolutely horrible.

You might be in a situation right now, wherein you feel as if you are being abused and not treated the way you should be treated. You might not feel appreciated in your current job. If you are being diminished and your work not taken seriously, you should probably look for a different situation. It does not do you any good to be in a work situation in which you are not appreciated and cherished for who you are. Two of the most important things you have in your life are your self-worth and your sanity. You need to realize that you are an important person worthy of immense and genuine respect.

Agree? Disagree? I don’t care, please tell me what you think by commenting below. I give free stuff away every week to the most thoughtful commenters on my site!

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Related posts: Concentrate on the Positive, Not the NegativeLearn Something From the Upper and Lower Class: Do Not Be Paralyzed by Others’ OpinionsPeople Around You Can Shape What Happens to You: Avoid the Negative Affirmations of OthersRun Your Career Based on Facts and Statistics — Not OpinionsAre You More Motivated by the Opinions of Others–or Your Own?Do Not Tell Yourself You Have Negative TraitsSummary In this article Harrison discusses why you should not be influenced by other’s negative opinions of you. You have skills and abilities which merit profound appreciation. You need to put yourself in situation wherein you will be appreciated. The more positive news and affirmations that you receive, the better you will typically become at your job. People’s negative opinions about you can have a profoundly negative influence on your life. The more we hear negative information about ourselves, the more we tend to believe it. It does not do you any good to be in a work situation in which you are not appreciated and cherished for who you are. Two of the most important things you have in your life are your self-worth and your sanity. You need to realize that you are an important person worthy of immense and genuine respect.

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People Around You Can Shape What Happens to You: Avoid the Negative Affirmations of Others

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Although there is a great deal of historical debate about the specifics, legend has it Hermes Trismegistus–one of the most important sorcerers of ancient Greece– had a tablet in his tomb with the greatest secret in all of history written on it. When the tomb was opened centuries later, it was said people waited with a sense of wonder for the wisdom of the tablet to be revealed. The secret written on the tablet was:

As within, so without;
As above, so below.

This statement has been made in one form or another by others, such as Buddha, Isaiah, Jesus, and Moses. Countless books and studies have been devoted to the meaning of this statement. If you take the time to understand it, I believe it will be among the most important you ever read. As I see it, this is the significance of this statement:

Whatever we believe inside of us becomes expressed in the world around us. Your belief about what is true is reflected by the world around you, its conditions, events, and circumstances. Simply put, if you believe you are successful, the world around you will manifest in that way. You will find yourself surrounded by the accoutrements of what success means to you, whether they include a certain type of car, home, mate, or even a jet. If you believe you are a failure, the world around you will manifest that as well. This will show in the form of recurring failures, whether in the form of financial losses, divorce, substance abuse, or poverty.

Whatever exists in your mind is also what will exist in your environment, circumstances, and physical surroundings. Your mind creates its own environment.

As humans, we have the ability to imagine things that do not exist and to create the world around us the way we want. We have the ability to attract the people and experiences we want. Similarly, we have the ability to repel circumstances we don’t want. No other animal in the world has this ability. It is an ability you, too, can use.

In respect to how we influence ourselves, it is important to understand the people around us also have the ability to influence us in a way that has a great impact on who we become.

I am about to share some extremely important advice I believe could permanently alter the course of your life and that you can use to change the lives of others. The best teachers and coaches practice this idea with their students and many times it separates the successful from the unsuccessful.

Understand your role in shaping your world, the people in it, and the occurrences related to it.Strongly believe what you wish your world to become.Build the power to make your imagination attract the forces that shape your environment the way you want it to be.Placing immense faith in what your heart believes, makes a phenomenal difference in your life and career.

I at one time was a reporter for my college newspaper, the Chicago Maroon. I was assigned a story about a high school senior who’d recently won the most prestigious science prize for high school seniors in the country, the Westinghouse Science Prize. The student’s teacher taught at a private high school on the University of Chicago campus. As I interviewed the teacher, I discovered several of his students had won this prize. In fact, despite the fact that only one of these prizes was given out nationally each year, three or four of his students had won over the past several years. After speaking with the teacher at length, I realized this was no coincidence. I believe the students’ success had a lot to do with the suggestions he gave them about what they could achieve. I remember probing specifically about why so many of this man’s students had won the award. Essentially, he said the following:

“Every few years, I have an exceptional student, and I start telling him over and over he is going to win the award. When I do this, most times the student ends up winning.”

I had a teacher like this in high school as well. After we had discussed colleges, and after I had decided where I thought I would like to go, he told me, “Then that is where you will go.” Incredibly, out of all the schools I applied to, this is where I ended up going.

Great teachers, great parents, and great coaches make people believe in themselves. They also make them take on the characteristics of what they want to achieve before they even achieve it. How is this relevant to your job search?

When I was recruiting, I had an uncanny ability to place people at the firms I believed were their best fits. Keep in mind I was not the one getting my candidates jobs; they were. When each person began his or her job search, I would say something like, “I am confident you are going to get a job at this particular firm.” I would keep repeating this over and over again. Despite the fact that (1) the firm might have been out of the candidate’s league in terms of their qualifications, (2) the person might have been looking at 20-plus law firms, and (3) I might never have had a candidate interview at that particular firm before, when I did this, my candidates often got jobs at these “target firms.” What was happening here? Why was this occurring?

When people start believing they are capable of achieving something, they begin to take on the form of what they believe.

When someone believes they are going to get a job with a certain employer, and really feels it deep down, things start to fall into place. I am not sure why this is. Nevertheless, I have seen it over and over again in my work as a recruiter.

Another thing I have learned as a recruiter is the importance of sharing positive news with people, not bad news. Building up job seekers and not sharing negative information about rejections works wonders. In fact, it is largely this skill that separates good recruiters from average ones. When I work with someone, I make sure to share inspirational and motivational information because I know negative energy and information will bring the person down. This is a basic yet essential skill I learned long ago, and it works.

Remember: You control your own mind. You control what you allow in and what happens within your own mind. If you let negative information in, there is a good chance the world around you will also become negative. If you choose to let positive information in, there is a good chance your world will become positive.
Your job situation, financial condition, health, social status, and friends are all a reflection of how you feel about yourself. This is the real meaning of what is “within” and what is “without” in your life. This is why it is extremely important you control your thinking in your life.

As a recruiter I have dealt with individuals who were fired from their previous jobs. People who are fired are often difficult to work with because future employers view them suspiciously. Basically, most employers feel these candidates are likely to cause problems in their next job. While it does not always come up in interviews, if someone is not currently working, a future employer is likely to wonder why.

I always tell my candidates to write down and memorize words like the following: “I was not fired from my job. I was a huge asset to my last firm. I am going to do even better in my next job than I did in my last. My last employer loved me!” Writing down and memorizing words like these can be a real asset. In fact, when people write things like this down, the subject of their having been fired almost never comes up in interviews.

This brings me to a very important point about your job search and your current job. In every company’s social network there are people who send out negative information about you, your employer, and others. Parents, friends, and others do this to us all the time, intentionally or not. When this happens, you need to understand this will influence you in a certain way. Choose not to believe this negative information. Avoid it. It can do severe damage to you and your future.

If someone tells you you’re not capable of getting a certain type of job or doing a certain thing you want to do, tell him he is wrong. I am often forced to cut off contact with people who do this to me. People who do this to you do not have your best interest at heart. Usually they are trying to maintain some sort of control over you or the relationship they have with you.

Protect your mind and fill it with positive thoughts about yourself. In order to reach your full potential, there is really no other way.

Agree? Disagree? I don’t care, please tell me what you think by commenting below. I give free stuff away every week to the most thoughtful commenters on my site!

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Related posts: Do Not Be Influenced by Others’ Negative Opinions of YouConcentrate on the Positive, Not the NegativeGravitate Toward People and Organizations that Appear to Have Good LuckSurround Yourself with Positive PeopleDo Not Tell Yourself You Have Negative TraitsAvoid the Envy of OthersSummary In this article, Harrison explains the incredible connection between the mind and the environment around you. To understand your world and the people and occurrences related to it, you need to first understand your role in shaping them. What you believe is what your world becomes. The power of your imagination, faith, and trust in what your world is like, actually attracts forces which shape your environment the way you think it to be. Hence, you need to avoid negative beliefs and people with negative influence on you. Placing immense faith on what your heart believes is what makes a phenomenal difference in your life and career. Harrison advises on harboring positive thoughts so that what you desire to accomplish is what you actually accomplish.

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The Danger of Judging Others

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When I was growing up in Grosse Pointe, a suburb outside of Detroit, I lived on a street where all of the other families were married, and my mother was the only single mother on the street. At some point it became clear to me that the other families in the neighborhood did not approve of the fact that my mother was single. Our next-door neighbors, for example, did not particularly like living next door to a single woman.

One time I was doing some work on my mother’s front lawn and the father of the family next door was fixing a flagpole, which was on the side of the house. His wife was standing there handing him screws and so forth while he was on a small stepladder. I frequently did yard work around my mother’s house because I wanted it to look as nice as the neighbors’ houses. I did this all on my own and, since I did not know what I was doing, I frequently did more harm than good. While many kids are forced to do yard work, I actually did it of my own volition. A few hours after I had started the yard work on this particular day, the couple fixing the flag pole looked over at me and frowned in disapproval as I was in the middle of screwing up some task. A few moments later, I heard the man say the most amazing thing to his wife:

“The reason we are so happy and have such good kids is because we are moral. We do not believe in things like divorce. Our kids will always do better than that sort of kid and always be much happier because we set such a good example.”

For a 12-year-old boy from a divorced family standing in the front yard of his mother’s house doing “voluntary yard work,” this was not an easy thing to hear. It was a sign that I was being excluded by people in the neighborhood and being looked down upon simply because my mother was single.

We had originally lived in another part of Grosse Pointe, in a house that my mother had purchased for around $30,000 in 1975. While we had been living there, she remarried, and her second husband, John, became very sick and died of cancer in the late 1970s. After he died, my mother received an insurance settlement of around $100,000 and decided that she wanted to use the money to move to a nicer neighborhood than we were living in at the time. The $30,000 house was in a white blue-collar, working-class neighborhood where our neighbors put on overalls to go to work in factories each day. The $120,000 house my mother later purchased was in a white-collar neighborhood where our neighbors put on suits to go to work each day. That $120,000 was probably the equivalent of around $500,000 back in the early 1980s.

One of my mother’s sorority sisters from college, Diane, lived a few doors down from our house. Her sorority sister apparently also did not feel comfortable having a single woman on the street; my mother learned of this from other sorority sisters of hers, whom she still saw around Detroit. These other sorority sisters also shared with my mother various insights of our neighbors and other acquaintances, which they had learned about from Diane. Although Diane did not tell us what she thought, and most of our neighbors never said anything about what they thought, my mother’s other sorority sisters were more than happy to pass on to my mother what everyone was saying about her. Pretty soon, my mother learned that our next-door neighbors, along with all the other “picture perfect” families around our neighborhood disapproved of the fact that there was a single mother living on the street. This was very hurtful for my mother to hear.

My mother acted as if this did not upset her, but I knew that it did. For her, purchasing a $120,000 house in a decent suburb of Detroit was one of the most significant things she had ever done–a lifetime achievement. She was very proud of this and wanted nothing more than to be accepted by our neighbors.

My mother also learned that certain parents in the neighborhood did not want their children coming over to our house because they thought it would be bad for their children to see a single mother. In my mother’s defense, she had never had a lot of boyfriends and so forth; in fact, she dated fewer than ten men over my lifetime that I know of, including my father. Nevertheless, our neighbors seemed to think there was something wrong with a woman being single and did not want this influence rubbing off on their children.

To their credit, many of our neighbors were right on, and as it turned out, going over to our house could have been a bad thing in many respects. My mother rarely got babysitters and I was home alone after school from the age of 10 or so. Moreover, because my mother worked all the time, she was tired at night, so even when she did come home from work, there was little supervision. Finally, my mother went out many evenings with friends and left me home alone. With no supervision, I got into trouble from time to time, doing things that young kids do, and, were I a parent, in retrospect I might not have wanted my children over at my house either. Nevertheless, this was something that hurt my feelings as well as my mother’s.

One evening when my mother was out, a woman across the street came over to my house and invited my younger sister and me over for dinner. I was excited, and when I showed up at her house for dinner with my sister, she gladly welcomed us inside. I was no more than 12 or 13 at the time and my sister was around 5. We were inside only a few minutes when the woman looked me up and down with disapproval and told me that if I wanted to stay for dinner at her house, I would need to go home and take a shower and change clothes. I was hurt by this, but I decided to run across the street, where I quickly showered and changed clothes. When I finally sat down at the dinner table with the woman, her husband, and two children, the woman told me to put my napkin in my lap. As I started eating she told me I was not holding my fork properly. She told me to wipe my mouth with my napkin. Finally, she said something I will never forget:

“If you do not wipe your mouth off when you get food on it, we will never invite you over to eat again.”

For the rest of the meal I sat there in silence and in fear. I was never invited over to her house again and whenever I saw the woman, she would look at me with disapproval. She made her disapproval of me known to her children: One time I remember her little boy was playing on our street and he said something like: “My mom says not to talk to you because you are trash! Ha-ha!”

We lived on a street that branched into two streets, and people used to drive by and throw liquor bottles and so forth at a large grassy triangular divider that separated the streets. It was not a frequent occurrence, but after three or four months, there would always be a collection of a few beer bottles on the divider and some broken ones in the street.

There was another woman down the street with a son and daughter who used to come by with a broom and dustpan to clean up the mess. Even though I had nothing to do with those bottles that had been thrown, I always knew that the woman thought I was responsible. In fact, she told my mother about it and was even angry at her. I had not even drunk liquor at that point in my life. This woman also had a son who was my age. He was very clean-cut but used drugs, which of course his mother did not know. One day, the son and a few of his friends were on drugs and they grabbed a skateboard off of my front lawn and took it over to his house, where they smashed it into pieces with a sledgehammer.

He and his druggie friends thought it was funny, but several of them told me about what had happened and who was to blame. I called the boy’s parents and demanded they give me the money for the skateboard (it was expensive) and they refused. I told them that several other kids had seen the boy do this. They told me they did not believe me, and I told them they could call any one of the kids who had seen what their son had done. They did call, and all the kids that were questioned told the parents that their son had been responsible for destroying my skateboard. The boy still denied to his parents that he did it. When the boy’s father called me up to tell me he would not be paying for the skateboard, I could not believe it:

“My son says he did not do it and, even though the other kids say he did, we believe our son. We are not going to pay for it.”

Living with a single mother meant that, at the age of 13, I often had to fight these battles on my own. However, even at such a young age I knew there was something very wrong about this. It just did not make any sense whatsoever that a parent would completely avoid taking responsibility in these kinds of situations, and would be so willing to look the other way.

When I was around 14 years old, I looked out my window and in the house directly next door to me I could see the daughter, around 17 at the time, having sex with her boyfriend behind a couch. Seeing this became a regular occurrence, as I witnessed it more than a few times. Within a year or so, we found out that the girl was not only pregnant but planning on having the child. She was not married and it was a real scandal of sorts. She lived at home and raised the child in her parents’ home–and she still lives with her parents. This was the same family that had judged my mother and told all of the other families in the neighborhood that they did not like living next to a single woman. Incredibly, this was the same family that was so vocal about how bad it was living next to a single woman.

A year or so later, the 18-year-old daughter of the woman who always cleaned up the intersection–who blamed me for the mess and whose son had ruined my skateboard–became pregnant. She too decided to have the baby while still in high school. In this extremely conservative (mostly Christian) area, this was almost unheard of.

The girl who was pregnant, her boyfriend, and the entire family were in the room when the baby was born. When the baby came out, to the astonishment of the white mother, the white boyfriend, and the white parents, the baby was obviously of African American decent. This was one of the largest scandals I ever heard of growing up.

To give you some background, Grosse Pointe, where I grew up, did not have a single black family, as far as I know, in the mid-1980s. Despite having more than 25,000 residents and being right next door to Detroit, which was more than 80% black at the time, Grosse Pointe was 100% white. It was really a unique place from the standpoint of racial uniformity. Furthermore, most of the residents in the city only associated with other white people. The city was so white that when our mail carrier changed one year and we got a black mail carrier, upon seeing a black man, our tame dog suddenly became ferocious because it had never seen someone with dark skin in its entire life. This was a very homogeneous group of people.

When I was in college, I heard that the daughter of my mother’s sorority sister a few doors down had gotten divorced and moved in with her parents, and had been living there for years. This was another real shocker. This particular family had been very devout Catholic and had even been somewhat discriminatory toward people who were not devout Catholics, or who did not follow all of their same rituals.

Then, when I was in law school, I was watching the television show 20/20 one evening and I saw a story about how the little boy who had called me “trash” when I was growing up, was in prison for raping some girls when he was in high school and living at home with his mother. The mother had long since been divorced. The story was about how his acceptance to the University of Michigan had been rescinded after they learned of the rape. I could hardly believe that the little boy who had been prohibited from even talking to me when I was growing up, was now in prison, and had destroyed his own life. I could also not believe that here was a mother who would not let her children even talk to me because I did not wipe my mouth properly while eating, and she now had a child in prison for rape.

What does all of this mean? For me, it is really unusual that in every case where the people were extremely judgmental of our family, the same things that they judged and excluded us for, came back to give them the very same sorts of identities in their own lives. Is this simply a coincidence? I am not sure if it is coincidence or if there is a deeper message to all of this. The message to me seems to be that if we judge others and exclude others due to these judgments, then these judgments may turn around and come back on us as well. It is also a sign that people are often hypocritical–nobody is perfect, no matter how hard they may pretend to be.

In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby buys a house in a prominent area of Long Island in the hope that he can get the girl of his dreams, Daisy. Gatsby had had an affair with the married Daisy five years previously, before going into the army. Following the affair, Gatsby fantasizes about Daisy and wants nothing more than to be with her. Because Daisy is in a world of extreme wealth, Gatsby believes that the only way he can win her is by being very wealthy. He does not confront her with his feelings; instead he tries to win her simply by showing her how wealthy he is. The message is that Gatsby believes that wealth and money are more important than the power of love.

In order to become wealthy, Gatsby engages in bootlegging. Across the bay from where Gatsby buys his house, live Daisy and her husband. Gatsby can see the green light of Daisy’s house from his window. He decides to throw numerous parties at his house, in the hope that Daisy will come by. Many people come to his parties, but Gatsby is not really friends with any of them, and they are just using him for his wealth and hospitality. Despite his wealth, Gatsby is never really accepted by the society in which he is trying to fit in.

One of the morals of the story is that love and happiness cannot be purchased, no matter how much money someone may have. In the story, all of the characters are controlled by money. For example, both Tom and Daisy are married and have a child; nevertheless, they both commit adultery. Daisy commits adultery with Gatsby and Tom with a woman named Myrtle. Both people try to find happiness with lovers and, despite doing so, they refuse to leave their spouses because of the risk of jeopardizing their wealthy lifestyles. While not being happy with their spouses, they also could not allow themselves to be happy with their lovers. The message is that happiness is not something one can buy.

Daisy eventually loses her respect for Gatsby, when she finds out that he is a bootlegger. Similarly, Tom, after having an affair himself, is angry when he learns that Daisy has had an affair. The characters in The Great Gatsby are all very hypocritical. The Great Gatsby is an incredible novel and, for me, it has always struck me as making three very important points: (1) that acceptance cannot be bought, (2) that people cling to status and in the process ignore the world around them, and (3) that people are often very hypocritical.

In my experience in growing up on that street in Grosse Pointe, I learned that acceptance cannot be bought; however, I also learned that people often cling to status while ignoring the world around them, and that people are often hypocritical. The fact that those people who shunned my family and me due to forces largely beyond our control, ultimately experienced the same issues in their own lives–this was something that was very instructive for me to see. The more we judge others for their circumstances, the more we are likely to suffer from those same circumstances.

Agree? Disagree? I don’t care, please tell me what you think by commenting below. I give free stuff away every week to the most thoughtful commenters on my site!

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Related posts: The Importance of SharingAlways Ask and Observe: “How Long Have People Been Around”Change Your ReactionsPhony Accident Scenes, Internal Affairs, Racial Discrimination, and Your CareerThe Danger of Driving Sharp BargainsArea 51 in Nebraska, Suicides, and the Danger of Comparing Yourself to OthersSummary In this article, Harrison explains that it is tremendously wrong to be judgmental about other’s circumstances. People often live the way they do, say the things they say, or act in a certain manner due to the circumstances that they are in. They should not be judged or be blamed for this in any way. No one really has the right to set a parameter for a person to be accepted within a group or society as a whole, although it happens so often. The greatest danger of being judgmental is that more often than not, it bounces back. No one knows what tomorrow has in store and anything could happen to anyone. Hence, you need to understand that no one is perfect and should possess the ability to accept imperfections in a considerate and kind manner.

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