I started this blog 16 months, hoping to develop my writing skills, connect with smart people around the world, and create a new income stream.

By those standards it’s been a success. But more importantly, I’ve learned a lot. Namely, after 266 posts on the subjects of self improvement, motivation, and productivity, I can say without a doubt that life is completely and utterly pointless.

That’s right. PickTheBrain is throwing in the towel. If you need me I’ll be embracing hedonism, sloshing around in my own vomit, and doing absolutely nothing to further myself or the human race.

Why? The top 5 reasons are as follows:

1. You’re going to die. No big shock here, but do you realize how many people fail to grasp the consequences of this? Even if you live some awesome life, make a ton of cash, and go down as the great person ever, all your accomplishments will eventually go to some undeserving brats and people will exploit your words and ideas to further their own selfish ends.
2. Working is hard. I mean really hard. And it just never seems to end. It’s just one thing after another. More more more. If there’s no way to win life, what’s the point of trying?
3. Most people are terrible, the others are faking. The more good I’ve tried to do, the more people jump up to insult me. And it works. That stuff really hurts. I’d rather be on the dishing end of trollish insults.
4. Vice is nice. Really, it feels great. Have some pain? Take this. Feel guilty? Drink that. Indulging is the one act that has never let me down. It always delivers. That’s more than I can say for the law of attraction.
5. Civilization is doomed. The human race has been around what, a million years or so? And this is where we are? It seems like the only developments have been new ways torture, enslave, and incessantly bicker with each other. Let’s hope that giant meteor headed for earth doesn’t get deflected by the sun’s gravitational field

Wow, I feel a lot better now. Or maybe it’s the liter of Jack Daniels I used to wash down a Wendy’s Baconator.

Difficult people are a fact of life. At home you can avoid them by surrounding yourself with agreeable people, but in the work place most of us don’t have that luxury.

While your natural tendency may be to avoid them at all costs, it’s better to deal with them in a thoughtful manner. This is crucial to your career. If you develop the ability to work with anyone and handle the tough nuts, you’ll be the natural choice for promotions and leadership positions.

The following are some suggestions for resolving potentially awkward work situations. Just remember, if we can learn to effectively deal with difficult people our work life will become much less stressful and far more enjoyable.

Self Confidence

When our lives are made difficult by unsympathetic and dominating people we can quickly lose our self-confidence. To avoid this it is important not to value the opinions of negative people. If we can maintain a self confidence and self belief then it will be easy to ignore the criticisms of difficult work colleagues. Self confidence will not be built by heavily criticizing the difficult person. Self confidence comes through remembering our own positive qualities.

Should You Find a New Job?

Sometimes the people we work with are so awkward that we want to move and get another job. This is a difficult choice. The first thing to remember is that if we move jobs, there is a high chance we will meet similar problems, just with a different set of people. If we keep moving jobs with the hope of finding an office full of saints, we will be continually on the move.

The first thing is to try and deal with the situation; we need to be detached from the awkward person as much as possible. However, if we have really tried everything possible and work is still making us miserable, then is it worth considering a new job. We spend so much of our waking time in our job that we can’t allow unpleasant people to spoil it.
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Depending upon our life experiences, each one of us has a different definition of abundance, much of which is learned during childhood. We are taught at an early age to either want for nothing or yearn for more. We learn how to react to those who have much more than us, and we develop our thoughts and attitudes about sharing with the less fortunate. We decide which things we hunger for the most, many times based upon those things that we lacked early in life.

As we grow and develop, we are constantly bombarded by messages regarding wealth, power, money, and greed. Magazines, newspapers, television, and movies all express society’s thoughts regarding such matters, and as time has progressed, we have developed into a more materialistic society. More emphasis has been placed on the ownership of elaborate possessions and such things as spirituality and family values seem to have been cast aside.

This sets us up for great disappointments, since we are taught that we can never have enough. It leaves us striving to reach an ambiguous and unattainable goal – to have “enough.” Yet there is never any definition of what enough truly is.
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Has this ever happened to you?

You’re happily going about your day when, out of nowhere, someone criticizes something you say or do. Suddenly you lose focus and can’t stop thinking about what they said or wrote. You know you shouldn’t be bothered, but knowing doesn’t help you stop thinking about it over and over and over.

In the past I have spent hours, days even, thinking about even the smallest of critical comments. It still happens to me every so often, but for the most part I have learned how to effectively handle it. I guess you could say I am a sensitive person, and truth be told I don’t think there is anything wrong with this for the most part. However, being sensitive to criticism is a major problem if it causes you to lose focus on important tasks or makes you stop acting in a certain manner due to fear of being criticized.

Since putting myself “out there”, in particular with my blogging, I have had to implement a number of strategies for dealing with criticism. And for the most part these strategies have worked well. That is not to say I don’t still feel the sting of criticism, but for the most part I don’t let it hijack my thoughts or stop me from acting in my normal manner.

Understanding Criticism

To effectively deal with criticism, it is important to first understand that there are different types of, and reasons for, critical comments.

It is not always about you. The truth is, there are some angry, jealous and insecure people in the world who are critical because… well…. that’s just the way they are. That’s not to say that sometimes they are not critical for good reasons, but other times it is just a case of you being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It is inevitable. Recently I read how Drew Barrymore was criticized by some people after donating $1,000,000 to charity. To me, this just shows that when it comes to how we act or what we say often we are caught in a Catch 22. That is, we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

It may be justified. We each have our imperfections, and this means that sometimes we do something wrong or say something stupid. When this happens, any criticism we receive may be well justified.

How to Handle Criticism

We now know that not all criticism is the same. The key is to be aware of what type of criticism you are receiving and then act accordingly. The following are some strategies that I find to be effective:
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