Reposted from: http://elitedaily.com/life/toxic-people-new-year/879975/

Written by Paul Hudson

Photo by Theo Gosselin

Can you believe that it’s already December? This year has flown by in the blink of an eye and we’re on the verge of yet another year — a year full of possibility.

What you will accomplish next year greatly depends on the people you surround yourself with. Or, in other words, it greatly depends on which people you decide not to surround yourself with.

When bringing in the new year, be sure not to bring all your garbage with you. Leave these toxic individuals in 2014; you’ll feel much lighter, allowing you to get a great running start on the year to come.

1. The people who make your life more stressful.

Stress isn’t necessarily a bad thing — in fact, it’s what you make it out to be. If you believe stress is bad for you, then it will be bad for you. If you use stress as the motivator it is, to motivate you to act, then stress can actually be rather healthy.

However, you should aim to only be stressed by situations and not by people. If you have people in your life who are constantly managing to stress you out, that’s your mind telling you — and trying to motivate you — to remove them from your life.

Life is stressful as it is. You don’t need someone making it more so.

Reposted from: http://lessonslearnedinlife.com/UngkZ/heres-to-the-lonely-people/

Reposted from: http://lessonslearnedinlife.com/UngkZ/heres-to-the-lonely-people/

Reposted from: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/upshot/the-divorce-surge-is-over-but-the-myth-lives-on.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=pay&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000&kwp_0=6241&_r=1&referrer=

Written by: CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

When Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin “consciously uncoupled” this year, ABC News said it was the latest example of the out-of-control divorce rate, “50 percent and climbing.”

When Fox News anchors were recently lamenting high poverty levels, one of them blamed the fact that “the divorce rate is going up.”

And when Bravo introduced its divorce reality show, “Untying the Knot,” this summer, an executive at the network called it “a way to look at a situation that 50 percent of married couples unfortunately end up in.”

But here is the thing: It is no longer true that the divorce rate is rising, or that half of all marriages end in divorce. It has not been for some time. Even though social scientists have tried to debunk those myths, somehow the conventional wisdom has held.

Despite hand-wringing about the institution of marriage, marriages in this country are stronger today than they have been in a long time. The divorce rate peaked in the 1970s and early 1980s and has been declining for the three decades since.