These days, anyone who doesn’t get along with someone else, immediately labels them as “toxic.” But being toxic isn’t just about disagreeing with someone or not vibing with them. A toxic person is someone who drains your energy—after every encounter with them, you feel utterly exhausted, like a walking corpse.

So, a toxic person typically displays some combination of the following traits. Otherwise, it’s likely just someone you personally don’t like for your own reasons, and you’re slapping an easy label on them:

📌 No matter your mood or mental state, they always stick to their own tune and try to force it on you.
📌 They never take responsibility for their actions—in fact, they often blame you for something they did.
📌 They twist facts to make you feel confused, insecure, guilty, or like you’re “going crazy.”
📌 They lie, break agreements and promises, and are generally unreliable.
📌 They often stir up tension or create chaotic situations.
📌 They act like the victim (passive-aggressive behavior) or outright attack you.
📌 They’re jealous of you and see you as competition.
📌 They constantly criticize or mock everyone and everything and never stop complaining.
📌 They use emotional blackmail to make you feel guilty, aiming to manipulate you.
📌 For the same reason, they often bring up “what could go wrong”: illnesses, robberies, accidents—anything that instills fear in you.
📌 And finally, they’re masters of hypocrisy: suddenly they’ll be all love and compliments just to confuse you further and keep you from seeing their true colors.

If all this reminds you of someone you know—a friend, acquaintance, or relative—run! And if you’re stuck having to deal with them, cut contact as much as possible and set clear boundaries.

By soothing your inner conflict,
by sacrificing the impulse to express
your anger, your negativity,
with a slap, a look, or offending words,

by not seeing the other person
as an enemy,
but sometimes even with compassion,

this kind of behavior leaves an imprint
on the soul of the other person,
but also on the universal soul,
and the world instantly
becomes a little bit better
than it was before…

 

You may declare yourself to be “ignorant” after you have already learned

and “self-taught” after you have already been taught.

Or eat with your hands, after you have immersed yourself in the study of savoir vivre.

Wittgenstein notes in his Tractatus:

“My propositions elucidate in the following way:

anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical,

when he has used them—as steps—to climb up beyond them.

(He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.)

He must overcome these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.”

In conclusion:

the purpose of every action and thought is to transcend them.

In order to transcend them, however, you must first conquer them.

Or in other words: profoundly comprehend them.

Beauty goes through time ignoring its interventions.

It shines through a fragmented column of the Parthenon,

through icy drips,

fiery remnants of dead stars,

a ray of blue light

or through a handful of all-gold sand

-fragments from the beginning of the existence of things.

Beauty bears no fruit,

nor does it reproduce itself.

It is eternal.

— Alexia Iliadou —

Don’t fall into the trap of being afraid that you may repeat what others have already said and done. We all repeat the same things over the centuries.

What matters is your perspective, your interpretation and the way you present them.

– Alexia Iliadou –

To push or not to push yourself?

Anyone who puts too much pressure on himself gets overwhelmed and eventually sick. Whoever does not push himself at all, never does anything.

“Αll in good measure”, said the ancient Greeks. But this is not achieved by acting averagely. Acting averagely is called mediocrity, not good measure.

Good measure is an internal process, an understanding and an acceptance, or vice versa: a continuous inner conversation and ultimately a balance between what you are and what you want to become.

 

What are your limits?

Pushing yourself too much, means you exceed your limits. But what are the limits? And who determines them?

The limits are set by resistance. When there is no resistance, there are no limits. You can move infinitely. If someone has already done what you want to do, then external conditions allow it, resistance in the outside world is beatable. Isn’t that right?

That means, your limits are set within. They’re mostly a construction of your mind. Whenever you say “I can’t”, you set mental barriers, mental resistance, which come to become your physical reality.

 

What is good measure?

So, what would be good measure then? Especially in the usual case that you believe your limits are physical ones and so is the resistance? Push yourself to the limits or not?

Good measure would be then to speed with unrestrained desire, impatience, passion, exactly as if you were driving in order to meet someone you’re in love with, without however jumping the red light or causing an accident.

Passionate but alert. This is a good measure.

For me and many others, 2020 has been very creative.
When your daily life is ruined, you can grumble – as if something would change by that -, or channel your energy into something:

📍 … you always wanted to do and have been always postponing.
📌 … completely new that you accidentally discovered in the chaos of the internet.
📍 … a revealing dream that you saw and yes, you remembered it! Since you didn’t have to wake up shaken by the alarm clock to go to work.
📌 … an idea that you envisioned while idly watching Big Little Lies or Lucifer…

Not to mention the introspection that we all did, willingly or not.

The pandemic will come sooner or later to an end, but the time it has offered us in order to deal with ourselves, has been invaluable.

So, I don’t think that 2020 was a wasted year, on the contrary I see it as an absolute win!

And I’m sure that all this momentum that was created this year, will soon become visible, in economics, in arts, in sciences and everywhere else.

Possibly, someone is bored with your company or bothered by your behavior and doesn’t feel like meeting you often. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the other person isn’t interested in you anymore or doesn’t like you.

I know how that sounds, how outrageously honest! But… you also feel that way about some people, don’t you?

When, of course, you are on the receiving end of this apparent avoidance, you get angry. People tend to believe it’s always the other person’s fault.

Which qualities make you boring?

So, perhaps you should stop and think, why this is happening.
Is it possible that you’re actually boring?

Could it be that you don’t:

• …keep up to date with what’s happening in the world, society, public affairs, science, arts?
• …ever read, don’t know anything about anything?
• …have any hobbies and interests?
• …evolve over time?

Or could it be that you:

• …constantly talk about yourself? or even worse
• …gossip and judge all the time? or
• …are constantly nagging, aloof or bad-tempered?

All of this can make you incredibly boring. Even annoying…

Which qualities make you annoying?

Another possibility is that you don’t respect the wishes of others, their peculiarities, habits and choices. And at the same time you may demand that others respect your wishes, habits and choices and even admire your peculiarities.

You may also be constantly trying to impose your absolutely questionable opinions on others. And at the same time never listen at all to others’ opinions.

You may also:

• smell bad,
• have a negative energy,
• use bad language,
• have disgusting habits,
• create tension.

And so on… You know perfectly well, what makes someone undesirable!

Conclusion

Simply be the qualities you seek in others. Become like those you are happy to meet.

Or accept that you will often fall victim to your own bad Self. The Self that everyone -as if they previously agreed- avoids.

And so would you…

 

Whatever we want to do in our life,

in the beginning requires self-discipline.

Τhat is, to force yourself to do it,

until it becomes a habit.

People who by nature feel “free” and hate “discipline”,

sacrifice true freedom on the altar of accidentally acquired habits.