It appears that in the increasingly complex world we live in, it has become an axiom of wisdom that one should eliminate toxic people from their lives. There are a myriad of memes and quotations popularised on social media to much acclaim. On the surface, this seems like a fantastic and simplistic idea to improve one’s life.
Toxic people are defined as ranging from those that spread negativity, to those that criticise routinely, those that play the victim, those who don’t care, those who are self centred and similarly clearly disturbed individuals. This category of toxic people is largely misunderstood. On the other hand, a different category of toxic individual includes people that waste your time, people that continue to disappoint or those that simply don’t care definitely deserve to be removed from ones’ circle.
The tragedy of the situation is that most toxic people aren’t born toxic. It is their experiences in life, the way society interacts with them that they become this way. They do not receive the helping hand they need from society to extricate themselves from their predicament. Abandoning these people makes them go further into their already toxic spiral and is no solution for society at large.
We should empathise with these damaged individuals for their journey to toxicity is fraught with all sorts of wounds – self inflicted as well as otherwise. Abandoning them and taking away their hope of redemption and a healthy social life has been a factor in multiple mass shootings. This isn’t to say we should ruin our lives and take the entire burden on ourselves as individuals – this is about society at large making an effort.
There are tribes in Africa that use collective love and compassion to uplift members that falter. The word Ubuntu is at the heart of this amazing practice which means ‘I am because we are’. The feeling of collective responsibility rather than individual responsibility. No one person can carry the burden for a toxic individual.
So perhaps we should keep our distance from toxic people to avoid gravitating into the spiral of negativity they are in rather than removing them from our hearts and minds altogether. Institutions and society at large should give them a direction so rehabilitation and reintegration into society is possible. Protecting the self is vitally important as is improving society overall.
