You’ve probably already guessed correctly–they’re both thinning.

While I can’t do anything about my hair, I can actively try to remove most of the negativity in my life. Spot a negative comment on social media–just ignore it. But what if it really ticks me off? Use that handy feature where you get to block all futures posts from that source. What if the irritating comment is made by the actual “friend”? Snooze ’em for 30 days. Three snoozes on the same friend? Just unfriend them.

I’m touching on this topic because I violated my own rule the other day by commenting on someone’s complaint.

No need to get into names, but let’s just say this friend was a former high school classmate. After one of the reunions, we became Facebook friends and it’s been fun to see some of our other classmates show up in her feed over the years. Really, I don’t remember much about her other than what she looked like back in those days, and that embarrassing moment at our 20th reunion when we bumped into each other in an elevator. She smiled and said, “Tim!” and I said, “Karen!” and that wasn’t her name.

One of the few things I did know about her is that she is a die-hard Dodger fan, the team I have returned to as “my club” with the legacy of disappointment that has become Seattle Major League Baseball.

Last week, she made a post that I understood was a “shame on Dave Stewart”, the former Dodger pitcher who was part of the team during their 1981 season. Apparently there’s a reunion coming up to celebrate that team, but Stewart was refusing to take part of it because of how the team was handling the Trevor Bauer situation.

Her post made it sound like Dave Stewart was wrong about shaming the Dodgers organization. I made a “consider the source” comment and put the link to the story of that time Stewart was arrested for trying to pick up a prostitute.

I never should have done that.

She went straight to, “Oh, Tim Hunter (and included my name so it would go everywhere), picking up a prostitute and beating up a woman are not the same.”

What? Where did this go south? Was she saying I was defending Bauer’s actions? Huh? So, now I’m defending myself. So I had to respond.

I commented, “Your words, not mine. I wasn’t making that comparison.”

I don’t need to relive the conversation because I’m not letting it take up any more of my energy or time, but after a couple of rounds of pointing out to her that the Dodger organization had already suspended him–twice—pulled his merchandise from the store and canceled his bobblehead night, but were awaiting a final legal ruling before doing anything permanent, I realized that she was on a vendetta and nothing I could say would make the issue right in her brain.

As I mentioned, I just don’t need that in my life. I ended up spending 15 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back and once you steal time from me, all I can do is to make sure you don’t do it again.

This morning, there was an awesome post of a dog snuggling with a fawn. I just stared at it and then watched it play again. I felt good. It was positive. That’s where I want to live. This isn’t the same one, but see how something like this makes you feel.

My youngest sister and I had a chat about this very thing last night. She’s trying to do the same thing in her life–shut out all the negative influences and simply enjoy what’s good out there…and you can. The negative will always be out there, but it’s up to each of us individually to block out as much as possible. I’ve mildly pursued doing this in my life over the years, but now it’s become a passion and I’m loving the results.

Positive inspires positive. Negativity can take over your life. Just ask that former Facebook friend, whatever her name is.

Tim Hunter