. . . of Criticism. Your Life Depends on It!These Carriers will usually remain dormant until you share with them one or more of your most precious dreams. I do not advise bottling up your dreams, but please take precautions; don’t let yourself become infected!
Five ways to recognize a carrier:
- Once activated, Carriers often delight in telling you, “It cannot be done.”
- Particularly infectious Carriers are especially earnest in expressing why you can not do it.
- Carriers will often compare your work, negatively, with luminary figures or theoretical ideals of the past.
- Carriers will explain to you that you don’t have the skills, the talent, the potential, the time, the resources, the support to make an attempt at accomplishing your dream.
- Carriers will believe, as they put their foot upon your throat and tell you that you are worthless, that they are doing you a favor.
The stakes are between life and a living death. How do you protect yourself?
- You can listen to a Carrier, but once you recognize one for what it is, you must not believe anything it says applies to you. Period.
- Avoid future contact with Carriers, if at all possible.
- If the Carrier is a close friend or family member, do your best to restrict your conversation to politics and religion. Leave your personal dreams out of it.
Seriously?
- It is better to ‘waste’ your life in pursuit of ‘impossible dreams’ that you are passionate about than to take the path of least resistance and never know what you might have done or been.
- Never give up. Talent is nice, but not required to succeed in any field. It’s guts and determination that count in the end.
- Let the things you are intensely interested in be your guide.
Are you a Carrier of the Zombie Plague? Stop yourself from spreading living death! When someone tells you of their deepest dreams, remember that none of us knows the heart, determination, passion or untapped ability in another person. Whatever you do, please don’t crush them and think you are doing them a service. Instead of imagining everything that could go wrong and probably will, imagine what your friend will need in order to accomplish their task. You don’t have to lie to them. Let them know what tools you think they’ll need and what skills you think they need to develop. You’ll be innoculating yourself and your friends against the Zombie Plague. Inspire yourself and your friends to live life.
Note: This is a post I wrote a while back. It has been moved around quite a bit. After, an old friend mentioned how helpful it actually was to her, I decided I should repost it here.
