Have you seen “Hell on Wheels,” one of the original new series on AMC?
In a nutshell, it is set just after the Civil War and a confederate soldier is looking to exact revenge on the Union solders who killed his family in cold blood.
If you haven’t seen it, and especially if you like westerns, it’s really something to behold. Great characters, fascinating story line set in a rarely depicted time in history.
My wife recently got me sucked in and now I’m a big fan. In a marathon, they ran every episode ever made prior to the 9 p.m. premiere episode of the second season, which turned out to be 11 hours of television.
Since we have the DVR set to record every episode we had them all, and I started watching it. I was hooked immediately
Many hours later over several days, I was pretty much up-to-date. As part of my newfound enthusiasm for this show, I looked on the AMC website to see what information they had about the cast and characters and I found an episode-by-episode synopsis, complete with comments from fans.
In one online discussion, people were raving about how much they liked the show, the story, the acting, the actors and so on. Then someone wrote something to the effect that “the story is not original, it’s been done before,” and proceeds to name a number of shows/movies with a revenge theme.
Ok ... and the point of that post is, uh ...
There is no point. That person’s sole purpose was to throw a wet blanket on everyone’s enthusiasm and excitement.
He (or she) is what I call a “toxic” person because they try to poison things around them for no other reason than this: they can.
And the really sad thing is that many of them don’t even realize that that’s what they’re doing.
It’s just habit. It’s just the way they think. It’s just the way they are.
Do you know people like this? I think we all probably do. It think it’s pretty sad that someone finds pleasure in or feels the need to say and do what they do. I feel sorry for them.
The real danger here is that this toxicity spreads. Negative opinions, or pointing out the bad side of things when it serves no purpose, is just plain mean and unnecessary and it affects those who hear the negativity.
If you know toxic people there are three things you can do:
1. Try to change them into non-toxic people.
A difficult and time-consuming challenge, although certainly an honorable quest with poor potential for success.
2. Ignore them.
This is a challenge -- at least it is for me! Sometimes the toxic people are really in your face and they are impossible to ignore. For the others, well, let me put it this way ... if a skunk releases its scent nearby, could you ignore it? Why would you want to??
3. Avoid them.
This is my advice. Steer clear. Do your best to avoid being near them or exposed to them.
Your stress will go down and your life will improve.
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Edited by Jody Smith