A conversation with my neighbour

​I had an interesting discussion with one of my neighbours this morning. I was walking Stella like I always do, and we always say hello to Tony. Stella likes him and always wants to stop for a petting. He’s gutted his house and is slowly renovating it. Today he had a friend with him. We stopped and got talking. He told me that the place had been rented and he owned another rental property a few doors down. “That’s wonderful” I said, “it’s a great business to be in”. "No" he said "its really bad, especially these days". And then he started…he started telling me all the things that are “hard” about renting and all the “problems” he has had over the years. He was really on a roll. I stood there thinking “alright – I need to get away from you, or I need to butt into your rampage of complaining to make you stop”. Trust me, I wanted to walk away, but he’s a nice guy and he just wouldn’t understand that, would he? 

He told me how previous tenants had trashed his place, and the teacher in me said “yes, but they’re not all like that, are they? I’m sure you’ve had some pretty good tenants as well?” – trying to get him to look at things more positively. “Yes” he says “but you get those who don’t pay rent on time…it’s a nightmare”. “Then why do you do it?” I said, “why not just sell all your rentals and be done with it?”
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“Well, no” he says “I don’t want to do that” and I’m thinking okay then stop being so ungrateful. I wish I could teach you that this sort of glass half full mindset is what is creating problems for you. If you send out a vibe that says “tenants are bad people” then the Universe/God will respond by saying “okay, here you go let’s prove to you that you are right”, because what you think about comes about. God/the Universe does not respond well to complaining.

​Here I was – ostensibly a stranger and yet this man spewed all sorts of negative thoughts about the people who contribute to his prosperity all over me. And I thought, Oh my, I wonder what the rest of your life is like. Then I said to him “don’t you think all things given, you are still ahead in the property game?”. I was expecting him to finally say “yes” but instead he shook his head – I got a feeling that he was going to keep going on his negative rampage and I really didn’t want to hear more of it, besides by this time I was convinced that I could not make him look at things positively, so I gave Stella a nudge to get her walking, and started taking a slow step forward indicating to him that my visit with him was over, and as I left I couldn’t help saying “you know I own a couple of rental properties as well, and as far as I am concerned when you own rentals in the end you are always ahead”. 

​He wanted to say more, but I knew that he was not ready for me. He was not asking me to help, and over the years I have found that the only people you can teach are the ones who are ready to learn – no point in speaking to deaf ears. If I had said to him “but I have never had any issues, and have always had amazing tenants”, I think I would have just got myself into an argument – no point in that. I know when to walk away lol!

​So many people spend their lives wondering why they get the short end of the stick. Intellectually they understand the power of positive thinking; they even understand the power of gratitude, but in their day to day lives they practice complaining and negative thinking. Just because you want good things to happen doesn’t mean that you are thinking positive empowering thoughts. In fact, if life seems like a struggle it is certain that you are spending more time complaining and less time appreciating what you already have.