One of my friends has this peculiar habit of trespassing into people’s personal life and passing comments on their eating habits, dressing sense or the way they carry themselves. Sometimes this becomes quite ridiculous one.

It’s disturbing to see him get upset over other people’s matters which actually have nothing to do with his personal life.

 I wonder why somebody should get a bad mood due to the reason that his next door neighbour Mrs Sinha has recently started wearing jeans. Why should someone’s choice of dressing affect a third person’s mood is beyond my understanding.

Not only this the other day he almost picked up a fight with Mrs Kapoor, another friend, over the issue of getting food home delivered instead of getting the same cooked at home. The day after this incidence I politely asked him –“Gupta Ji, why were you so angry yesterday over Mrs Kapoor getting pasta home delivered?” He tried to tell me the disadvantages of outside food, like how they badly affect health, how they dent our pockets etc.

 I tried to tell him –“Mr Gupta, getting food home delivered has become a way of life these days. Someone may adopt the practice someone may not. It’s a personal choice. We all are free to take our own decisions and act as per our own choices.”

The facial expressions of Mr Gupta alerted me that I must end the discussion right there.

The above is just an example. Actually there are many Mr Guptas in our society. We are surrounded by such people who consider they have right to be judgemental and their verdicts are to be accepted.

These are the kind of people spreading negativity in our lives. They demoralize us, sometimes to the extent of shaking our self confidence.

Recently, I saw an instagram post of Neena Gupta, veteran actress holidaying in a foreign destination. She looked stunning and I was impressed.

The actress, now in her fifties, acted in the recently released block buster ‘Baadhai ho,’ which has been highly acclaimed for its contents and her acting as well. Like any other normal human being she must have proceeded to a holiday after this huge success. I was utterly disappointed at the number of negative comments on her instagram post for wearing clothes which, according to the trollers, are not appropriate for her age!

The above instances are part of ‘criticism for unconstructive purpose’. Gossips or criticism are in human nature. But spreading only negative views originate from a place of jealousy, unreliability or misinformation or may be some deep rooted dissatisfaction.

Instead of searching negativities in anything or anybody around us if we start exploring the good in them it will attract a farfetched result not only in our mindset but also in family and society, and the ‘good vibe’, as the young people say, will come back to us.

My message through this write up is – live life to the fullest and also let others around us live their lives to the fullest.

Try and explore good things in people around. Human beings are full of errors. At the same time everyone has some good quality also. Let start talk about that good things. Let all of us live…

Maitreyee Hazra is a bank officer in Ranchi and the views expressed in the article are her own.