Does anybody else feel this way? How do (or don't) you tackle it?
I was a new employee doing on-the-job training for an even newer employee, while we were trying to meet a deadline. We were the only two people working on this project, in the middle of rural NM, out of cell range, and having to improvise. He kept making suggestions and I kept explaining why they wouldn't work. Suddenly he point-blank asked me why I said no to everything. I had a moment of clarity where I realized that I didn't even want him to be right, for no good reason except my ego. I apologized, horrified, and have been forever grateful for the wake-up.
After that I started to notice that pattern elsewhere. The best way I've found to interrupt it is to ask myself "what if they're right" and/or "in what way might this person be right that I may not have considered"?
And it's the same story – some colleagues that have been willing to speak honestly about how my attitude can affect them/the team.
Team diversity (and teammates bold enough to speak up) are great!
Nowadays I try to tell myself that no one is perfect, especially me. Expecting oneself to be correct all time is actually egoistic even though the end result turns out to be being humble and having self-doubts. To fail or to be wrong is natural. My boss even encourages me to fail sometimes, to be comfortable with the possibility failure. I am not saying that I am doing these things by default now, but at least I make it a point to try.
There's also a great question to ask yourself even before those: is it worth it?
A lot of times just ignoring improvements you can see/sense is the right call. Every time you bring up a suggestion (whether it is to a teammate or to yourself) your are affecting the environment in ways that can compound. For instance:
- You may break the creation flow, interrupting the far more important "advancing to the greater goal" by perfecting a middle-step that matters much less and can be easily corrected afterwards if need be.
- You are de-valuing your future suggestions/feelings, because the more stuff you bring up, the less weigh they get in the long run.
- You risk lowering your teammate's confidence / degrading your relationship (just like you were doing in your story).
If you are one of these people who just cannot "let something go", what you can do is write that thing down. Just make a note "revisit X thingy" and come back to it later when the rest is done/clear. This should allow you to actually move forward towards the "big picture" with a clearer mind (i.e.: without having that thread stuck wasting effort on what you just "ignored").
Finally, if the issue is important enough that it requires solving to advance, another great attitude is to ask yourself "how can we make this work?" instead of stopping at "this doesn't work because X".
Propose things even if you can see they don't completely solve the issue. This fosters a collaborative building attitude where you can fill in your teammate's blanks and vice-versa. Simply stating what doesn't work shuts down idea sharing and limits the team's creativity to that of the individuals, instead of the (oftentimes much greater) sum of the team.
I used to be hypercritical in code review, but I started instead just taking note of small things that didn’t really matter and fixing them myself during downtime.
I feel a little mixed on the solution. On the one hand it has the junior devs less afraid of me and more willing to actually ask for help. On the other hand they’re not learning from some of their mistakes. Life is full of trade offs though.
There is a difference to saying no to everything of course, but part of the negativity in tech is that it is earned.
That means, trying to explore what the other person might know that I do not. What data or knowledge I am missing could have lead that person to the view or position my fast thinking labeled as wrong?
Rarely, it does happen that I had more context or data, but those are outliers. In general, by adapting my behavior from thinking "wrong!" to thinking "what does this person know that I do not?" I am able to have way more productive conversations.
I try to keep a balance and not go too far into the happy happy sunshine all the time mindset either because "toxic positivity" can also come with it's own set of problems, but overall I think just being more likable and charismatic and having genuine connections with people in life helped my mindset a ton.
This has made my marriage difficult at times, and I've realized that I need to change this. What I need is not a how-to book. I need a really really compelling why book. I unfortunately have yet to find one and envy people who naturally care about that stuff.
I also would prefer not to get judgment from people who don't understand why I can't humble myself, as that happens sometimes. I've tried forcing myself to be humble and continue to try every day (I'm married!), but it would be so much nicer if people could convince me about things rationally instead of expecting me to respect their opinions for no reason other than the relationship can become negative otherwise. Of course, we live in reality, not what we wish was reality. So I suppose I will just continue with struggling to figure this out until I hopefully get the answer, knowing full well that it would actually be pretty useful if I could be a more positive and likeable person. I'm actually going for counselling this week for the first time, maybe the professionals can figure it out for me!
Either you value collaboration and the opinions of others, or you don't; there's not much that you can do to reason yourself into or out of it, since it's not really a rational position.
I find dialetheism[0] to be a fulfilling model of mental gymnastics for this 'humbling' you refer to.
Because you do. The only thing you will ever really have is the reality you can impact around you. So take charge!
Your job isn't just your day job. It is to run and push the planet along a good direction as much as you can, because it is literally your planet. These are all your people.
So learn to "use" people to your best advantage by learning what makes them tick, how to communicate and motivate, how to encourage and help even the people you only see once.
Be a great world leader from the perspective that you are objectively at the center of your world and you really do have the ability to move needles. So move every one you can.
When you do consciously act to move needles forward it's very motivating and self-affirming.
Get the most good out of others and yourself for this planet you own.
I just looked him up on Wikipedia and my first impression is he was a very original/independent thinker. :)
I came to that view unconsciously at first, before I recognized it explicitly. It never made sense to me to not care about my net impact carrying on after I die, since it is pretty clear I am going to die, and very soon relative to our home the universe.
Caring about the whole planet, and measuring my self-worth based on that, seems like the only sensible response. And it isn't in conflict with being self-interested at all, it really maximizes self-interest objectively speaking.
My impact will be all of me that survives but it will go on subtly for a very very long time! Go me, lol!
Off to Amazon to get Stirner's book.
I very much agree with your position! I came to a similar view, which I only acknowledged in my explicit deconstruction of my beliefs. It's taken me ages to reconverge; Camus, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Stirner finally gave me the confidence to declare: "fuck it, I am my impact, and I'm proud of what I do right."
It's really the most life-affirming philosophy I've found, it helps me walk the fine balance of empathy (tending to self-destruction) and self-interest (tending to dread isolationism, nihilism).
I'd love to keep a dialog as you read Stirner! Let me know if you're interested, I'll give you a line to reach me at :D
It's also important to remember that we are animals of habit and change. Valuing collaboration is a habit; sports are a great way to build and exercise it. I'm personally very fond of rowing. There's little else that matches it for enforcing collaboration.
Last, have you ever had an interest in psychedelics? LSD lit a fuse of empathy in my skull, and a lot of this has developed naturally (but not easily nor simply) from my relationship with the absurd.
Only your own life can be that book, you just have to re-read it and see where it went wrong, by your own standards. It’s very good that you’re not humble and can draw clear lines (afaiu), but along with that you have to check flaws in your reasoning and only draw lines where you can see the canvas clearly.
professionals can figure it out for me
A smart move, but be careful to not “outsource” it to them. You are the decision maker, because you are the one responsible (as in “will experience all of the consequences”). They will just go home and eat their dinner.
That's the key point. I think about the worst-case scenario as well, it is important. But as long as it does not kill me or leaves me with lifetime super negative impact, I am not spending too much time on it, because it is an inefficient use of my time and brain bandwidth.
The reason is that statistically things turn out fine, usually not perfect but 99.9% not worst case. And most of worse case scenarios are avoided _not_ because _I_ considered and avoided them. Differently said, even if you start with 5 potential really bad outcomes, after a short while 2 or 3 become irrelevant anyway because circumstances.
Being ready for the lucky and positive upside is more efficient in the long run in my experience, and much more pleasant along the way.
It feels like a superpower to me to be positive when I look at all these sad and negative people who don't even realize how much _they_ are hurting themselves, not the circumstances around them.
First, our society now is (IMHO) suffused with despair and its second order effects, such as anger, on an extraordinary level. I stopped reading/watching/listening to that stuff a couple years ago, unless I absolutely had to (99% reduction) and, it was a gradual process, but I not only left it behind but gained perspective on it - what once seemed overwhelming is now just a (dangerous) absurdity. Despite the presumption now that humanity is doomed to corruption and despair, there's generations of more positive stuff to read/view/etc from, you know, about 4-5 years ago - crazy things like optimism, belief in the possibilities, hope, justice, freedom, etc.
Second, just promise yourself no more rants, hyperbole, etc. Promise you will write constructive things. It will take some effort at first but you'll find there is far more to say (and that the rants have no value). Any time you find yourself in rant mode, stop, which leads to ...
Third, find healthy outlets for yourself, activities that, when you are finished, you feel better and healthier than when you started. (Otherwise, it's not much of an outlet, is it? But we all pickup unhealthy ones before we know better.) Exercise is a simple one.
Most importantly, by far: If you don't understand your emotions and have compassion for them, they will own you. If you find yourself with any unrelenting emotion, figure out what you are really feeling negative (or whatever) about - you probably are just redirecting that toward an easy outlet (someone on the Internet) rather than the real target that you don't want to face.
The toxicity every day news is spreading is very energy draining.
1) Never read opinion/editorial. For one thing, it's almost always ignorant and deceitful (and if you spend your time reading news, you'll be better informed than the opinion writers). It's designed to inflame you.
2) When you see inflammatory rhetoric - hyperbole stands out - go on to something else. It's provocative to trap you. Overcome the urge, build the reflex to click away, to see it as BS, as sophistry.
That's a habit, and it's a pretty annoying one if you're living with someone who does that, and I have lived with a few who did. After dealing it with for a long time I finally came up with that response to clearly point it out but I added to it by telling them "Anyone can walk into a room and find something to bitch about but Shit flows both ways and I can do that to you, so you need to stop doing it to me or expect I'll return the favor."
They always deny they do it and that anyone can do it to them. So then I'd wait a few days and when it was far from their thoughts I'd walk in and find something to bitch about them with. And after I did that I tell them "Now you see how easy that is."
The immediate goal is to get them to see they're a chronic bitcher and it works at least to the point where they stop looking for shit to bitch at me about because they know I'll return the favor.
The larger goal though is to get them to see that they have a choice in how they view the world around them. One can also walk into a room and look for what is good to be found there, and if you make a point to do that you're negativity will diminish pretty quickly.
But you have to give yourself a kick in the ass when you find you're being negative and purposely look for something positive. And you'll almost always find something positive if you do that. After awhile that is what you start looking for first.
I sincerely hope this helps.
They'll readily recognize how rude you're being while simultaneously not recognizing you're doing to them once what they've done to you dozens or hundreds of times.
If someone has this mindset then in my opinion there really is no way to enlighten them. It's a character trait that runs deep. I think best to accept that you don't want this kind of interaction in your life and minimise contact as much as possible. It's certainly better than stooping to the same level.
An HN example might be bug reports. Bug reports are not being negative, they're being positive, trying to help fix an issue by pointing out it. The same is true for feature requests. You might not like the request but it's arguably a positive thing to get the info and possibly be presented a new idea.
I'm recently semi-addicted to the "Not Just Bikes" youtube channel and it is arguably all "bitching about stuff". But the goal is clearly to raise awareness of the what most in the USA take for granted.
I often try to look for the positive, but it often feels like learning to accept shoddy quality. Hey, this food tastes nothing like the real dishes but at least I was able to afford to go out..... Doesn't help the fact that the food was bad. Hey, this item I got from amazon is bad quality, but at least I'm privileged enough to have been able to order??!? It's hard to see how not being negative here is a net positive.
Weak, frustrated and attention seekers ? I often view them as people in fear of something that enjoy the reflex of negative / toxic behavior just to get a reaction from their environment.
It's not the easiest to come neutral and honest about how you feel, bored, lonely, scared, or to ask for friendly interactions taking others into account. (I did that too, now I try to stay relaxed and cool)
I believe a lot of this comes when people contrast online and offline discussion. In the (classical) online world and pseudonymous users, interchanges are (theoretically) more detached an less personal. That make the tone seem pretty raw at times.
But there are countless legitimately bad developments in tech, aside from giant corporations tying in the open source community and trying to make it more "professional". Huge advertising platforms indirectly threatening freedom of expression, scam artists selling NFTs and some crypto currencies. This is a fundamentally bad development that isn't really comparable to what we had only 10 years ago. At least if we are talking about tech, I believe there is quite some reason to be negative about developments so I don't mind it getting to people and I think acknowledging that you are disappointed is healthier than just to proclaim to be happy now. And in that case I don't expect people being friendly, that would be an unrealistic expectation.
Firstly, make a habit of seeing the full picture of something you’re evaluating or judging. This might be the ‘other side’ of the story (someone else’s perspective), the benefits of something you’re criticising that you’re otherwise missing, or an understanding of the worth of something you might be defending.
Secondly is to recognise the benefit of positive thoughts (like goodwill towards others) on yourself and the people around you. You may like to add some intentional practices here such as what’s referred to in Buddhism as loving kindness (‘metta’) meditation or performing generous acts. The uplifting in mind state you get here will incline you away from a lot of criticising and judging.
Principally though the goal would be to get to a point where a build up of negativity is not occurring for you and there’s no need to vent, but getting there is practice. It is great that you are reflecting on this and looking for another way so best of luck to you!
If want to be as frequently correct as possible, then your "negativity" is strength. The issue with this strategy is that it will prevent you from engaging with the real world the way that positively thinking people do. You will take less chances, since you realize the probabilities of failure are so big.
Positively thinking people are kind of delusional. They try to ignore the ugliness of reality and focus on the positive side of things. However they are the risk takers. They might fail a lot but at the end of the day they are the ones that succeed in changing reality for the better.
Both ways of thinking have their advantages and their drawbacks. As far as I can tell, it really depends on the type of person that you are.
You can step back and identify the negatives and the positives of a circumstance or plan, weigh them (quite literally in a table for anything complex, it really helps), and set a course of action based on that. Then you price in the risks of negative consequences, while aiming for potential positive outcomes in the future.
Otherwise, being super negative and not trying to change one's situation sounds like distress, and seeing only the positives to a potential course of action sounds like folly and risky planning.
I also think that this can be trained. There were times when I was really negative about everything, but I developed a habit to notice when I was experiencing this negativity, and try to identify positives too, to balance things out. It did give me a lot more agency.
However there are strategies that both ways of thinking can adopt to improve their experience / performance in the real world.
Optimistic people can try to see "both side of the coins" and not miss underwater rocks.
Pessimistic people can adopt a defensive strategy where they minimize risk to the point that they are willing to take it.
Two side notes: You can be smart about it in both situations. Also in both cases you should take out the emotional toll.
From your link, "Depressive realism is the hypothesis [...] that depressed individuals make more realistic inferences than non-depressed individuals [...] [Critics of depressive realism argue that] depressed individuals are thought to have a negative cognitive bias that results in recurrent, negative automatic thoughts, maladaptive behaviors, and dysfunctional world beliefs."
The critics would say that depressed people have unrealistic world views, which causes depressive symptoms. This matches with my own personal experience (e.g. when I felt convinced I could never be happy for a while after I got dismissed at my job, which was convincing at the time but turned out to be totally wrong).
However, I do think you can be pessimistic without the emotional toll as you say; but that doesn't sound like a depressed person, if this person can still excel at motivation and doing hard things.
My bottom line is: I just don't believe in the depressive realism hypothesis just to focus on the first bit, but I agree with the take on pessimistic realism.
Most things to be negative about are not actionable. Maybe in the old days, you could be stressed out about a tiger in the area or an upcoming war and it'll literally save lives. But today, you can be stressed out about Trump or COVID-19 and it'll probably change nothing. In fact, COVID-19 impact has been worst where people are most panicked about it.
There's also where it becomes grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression. This is not realistic nor useful.
Optimism is a filter. You don't purposely blind yourself; you focus on what you can have a lot of impact on. You can turn the filter on and off (provided it wasn't installed stupidly in the first place).
>But today, you can be stressed out about Trump or COVID-19
Stress has nothing to do with it. I can agree that stress rarely has application in our modern day lives. You can be a stress-free negative thinker and also it is possible to be a stressed positive thinker. (positive thinkers fail more, it is possible for that to have an impact on people)
>becomes grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression
Again, none of these are necessities to be a negative thinker.
>Most things to be negative about are not actionable.
That is correct. It is undeniable that negative people are not very effective in our world. Even further - all negative philosophies and religions (Buddhism, stoicism, western pessimism, etc.) focus people on enlightenment and perfecting the person's inner world. A monk has zero interest in changing the world at scale.
However it seems to me that there are certain practicalities about negative thinking. You can be smart with it. If you take it at face value - negative thinking is kind of a superpower, it allows you to think what can possibly go wrong and frequently you more cautious than you had to be. You can use that to minimize risks and if successful - you can take actions, because the risk is no longer that high.
I was traveling with some friends, doing my usual complaining every day, when one of them finally asked me to please shut up. At first I was offended, but shortly after realized what I had been doing. Committed to stop doing it there and then.
Because I've been there, I'm now conscious about others having this trait. For many people I think it's an attempt at socializing. Commiserating is an easy way to bond, but if you can't temper it, you just come across as an annoying complainer.
I wrote about this on my blog, and even made a flowchart for what to do when I feel the urge to complain. That particular post is not in English, so I won't share it here.
Not sure that's the reason, but I've become pretty much the opposite in many situations. At times that made people think I don't care, but I just don't think it helps to complain about things everyone already knows about.
It's in Faroese, which isn't supported by Google Translate. Good luck. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
While the disciple hesitated, the master immediately offered to help.
The disciple was in disbelief as he saw his master break his vows by carrying the woman on his shoulders. He couldn't contain himself and a few hours removed from the incident he began to voice his resentment to condemn what had just transpired.
His master replied, "I set her down by the river. You are the one still carrying her."
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23097504, Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life (2020)
Imagine knowing how the world ends and thinking it’s awful when you’ll be alive to see it. Will the oceans drown everything or will it become an oven / steam room. What a mystery and the answers will be revealed to you and only you.
>"Plus some people have made loads of money while we watch front line workers basically dying doing their job."
Yes, that is terrible. But to be really honest, I haven't really thought about it much because none of this directly affects me. I don't follow the news as much, and I'm not close to any front line workers. It's abstractly terrible, but I haven't turned negative because of it.
>"Meanwhile the summer heat was just too much and we're watching the planet die."
I vote in favour of parties who support climate measures, but besides that, I'm not in a position where I can do meaningful activism to enact policy changes to materially curb climate change. In the meantime, I don't believe my personal behaviours make too big of an impact on the environment, in comparison to emissions and waste from major companies, countries, and militaries, so I don't feel guilt about my actions. The rest is not up to me.
>"All the while we've been restricted from seeing work colleagues, friends and family."
I don't miss my old work colleagues, and have actually gotten along really well with a couple new people who I've only seen once in-person (rest via text and video chat). I only really have one or two friends. I'm not too close with my family.
So in short, I don't really think about most of these world issues. The biggest issues directly affect me, via working from home and restriction from seeing others. For the former, life is returning to normal at work. For the second, I learned to be happy by myself, and I'm a lot calmer because of it.
(generic you, not accusative you-you)
I cannot claim to be the epitome of positivity though. I have to work on my views of people in general. Anti-Vaxxers and climate change have left me with deep emotional cuts, consider it weltschmerz.
Are you by any chance driven by outside 'pings'? Extrovert people that rely on direct feedback from others really had/have a bad time. Maybe this realisation or thinking about it may help you understand why you are feeling this way. In the end, every negative situation e.g. a global pandemic, need some form of personal resilience. How to get there is unfortunatley on you to figure out.
I find that getting enough sleep, eating healthy (including breakfast), limiting caffeine, stretching, avoiding social sites, and just doing "healthy" things makes it easier to respond positively.
A bit of self promotion now. I made an app called Positivelys to help make positive thinking a healthy habit. It's simple, you make a note of positive moments no matter how big of small throughout the day. Then go back and scroll through your own feed of positive moments to give yourself a pick-me-up. I made this for myself and do think it helps. It was also a fun experiment using Rust to make apps.
iOS https://apps.apple.com/us/app/positivelys/id1498984121
Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cultivated...
I decided to study my own mind using mindfulness meditation and self reflection.
What I found was the following:
- If I am focusing on negative things my subconscious mind will feed me negative thoughts and emotions.
- My subconscious mind runs wild but it will often give me what I ask of it if I clearly express what I want in a definitive, firm and polite manner.
- Negativity is a viewpoint and all viewpoints can be changed and challenged even if they are the default.
- Often I am negative to give myself a way out and protect my ego from being damaged.
- What I consider objective truth is a lot of the time just opinion.
- When I am trying to persuade others of something often it is an expression of a desire for control.
- When I find myself using the word "should" it is often the ego expressing its desires.
- If I feel negative it's often the result of some underlying feeling or internal struggle that I haven't addressed.
- I like being around people and most people (who are fun to be around) don't like hanging out with a negative person no matter how smart that person is.
- Ignoring negative feelings doesn't make me a positive person. Acknowledging the negative thoughts/feelings but choosing to focus on positive feelings instead makes me a positive person. Doing this places negative thinking in its proper function I think. As a sort of alarm/warning system of potential negative outcomes that may occur or have occured.
Ultimately if you find yourself being overly negative then just ask yourself why. What is the motivation? Is it context specific? If I just stayed quiet what would happen?
Also whenever you find yourself saying a statement like "that wouldn't work" or "I can't do that" challenge it with questions. Doing this will surely result in surprises.
I should be able to share in a few weeks, if you're interested can you send me a message twitter.com/shardinator and I'll send you an early copy. Else I'll post something here when it's a little more fleshed out.
The temporal bones are big plates of the skull your ears attach to, and a "process" in anatomy is a sticking-out part of a larger bone.
But I'm also simultaneously a jolly, upbeat, joky person who don't take myself or my rants too seriously. Humans are complex :P
There have been periods of my life when I recognized negativity was taking over to the point there wasn't much positivity or joy at all. During such times it takes pretty deliberate effort to cut out sources of negativity (for me it was hyperconsumption of news and social media - I cut most of it out) and introducing sources of positivity and joy. (for me it was trying to learn to dance at age 30, switching from a cave gym to exercising outdoors in the sun, and spending more time with friends instead of in front of the computer - I think those last two are huge, especially for the hackernews crowd who probably spend more time than others by themselves and indoors in front of a computer)
When I still get frustrated with things at work and elsewhere, a trick I use is to ask myself whether whatever I'm fussing over is that important in my life - overwhelmingly, the answer is no, I won't even remember it five years from now, and I can just acknowledge I disagree with it, it annoys me etc but just move along.
Like many others here on HN, I lean more towards the “intellectual” and “analytical” side of thinking. I was not very mindful of my emotions and how they influenced my thinking.
The thing about thinking is that our analytical minds rationalise our thoughts and hence our conclusions _feel_ rational. But what we don’t see easily is that our emotions define the axioms on which our rationalisations are based. That’s why negative thinking feels so “rational” and hard to get out of. If you don’t see this, you won’t see a point of coming out of it.
I went for a 10 day vipassana retreat and I have been practicising the meditation every day since February 2021. Through the meditation, I was able to finally perceive how much anxiety my mind was filled with in every moment. The anxiety produced all manner of irrational negative thoughts, which I used to believe in. With the meditation practice, I finally could “experience” the anxiety by “intercepting” it. Instead of letting it loose and producing all manner of thoughts, I “uncover” the anxiety and spend time with it. It rises up and tries to cause a mess while I let my breathing take its natural course, and slowly it fades away into oblivion. What is left behind is clear skies in my mind, and an insight that anxiety is just something that comes and goes. If not observed, it subtly creates a mess. If observed, it speaks its truth and goes away.
My negative thinking has not gone away completely, but this was a game changing insight for me. The fact that my thoughts are the equivalent of a madman’s rambling, and don’t need to be taken seriously, is very freeing.
Anyway, the main insight I wanted to agree with is the realisation that much of your self-aware cognition is more like mental froth.
Learning to observe your own thought processes is incredibly helpful and might help OP to understand their underlying mental behaviours.
During the retreat, however, I did experience more clear mindedness, and more compassion than before. There was a moment when someone’s behaviour irked me and kicked off a spiral of negative thinking (all very easy to rationalise by the way!). But I soon snapped out of it and felt compassion for that person and let it go. It’s a process.
This is spot on!
A lot of people call themselves "rational" when they are driven by unexposed anger or fear. Including fear of their own feelings.
Real rational thinking is the opposite of being an emotionless robot. It's about being deeply aware of our emotions and how they affect our though process.
Another “justification” that is often used is that anger is required to spur people into action else we’d be, like you said, “emotionless robots”. This is a false dichotomy. Negative and positive emotions are two sides of the same coin and lead to clouded thinking. Being aware of these emotions allows us to access the deeper joy and wisdom within us. Being mindful of our emotions doesn’t make us emotionless at all. Once someone experiences the clear-mindedness of not being stuck in a cycle of negative and positive emotions, it is hard to not recommend to others. It truly is very freeing.
Find your purpose, make sure it's ambitious, make sure it's equitable and helps people. When you are ambitious about your purpose you will be conscious of how little time you have. When you're overwhelmed with progress it's easier to mitigate negativity, you'll be too focused to chime in on the little stuff, or you will empathize for what used to annoy you, and realize you're ahead of the pack.
When men don't have enough ambition, negativity, hatred, jealousy may take hold because your subconscious self knows you can do so much more. Find your purpose and become laser focused on it, and everything else will fall into place.
“…pick a traumatic/wonderful experience you have had in life and work from there…”
In the end though I suspect a lot of it is just trial and error. Being open to new things and humble enough to learn them.
From observation sometimes the occupation/industry is just the medium. It’s inconsequential or the result of certain personal strengths, preferences or opportunities.
What is calling you? What is one problem in this world that you want solved?
That’s the first part. Finding the thing that really doesn’t sit right with you and you want to find a solution to it.
The second part is finding what you love to do. From music to video games to coding to sports to a hobby. It should be something that you would do even if you didn’t get paid to do it. Something that you’d still make time for it even if you had another job doing something else.
When you find those 2 things you combine them. Get really good at what you love to do, and then allow your calling to drive you. Eventually you will be able to create change for your calling through what you love to do.
The closer you get to your purpose the more you’ll start to see the world is actually a program controlled by your thoughts.
It’s important to be honest to yourself about everything.
A lyric I love: "it's so so sad to be happy all the time." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vth-n34LK8E)
There is no easy shortcut or royal road. You'll have to do the work to develop the required metacognitve skills.
To that extent, what worked for me was to look within. What was I not expressing, and what was I covering up with the negativity and sarcasm? Ten years later and I still have my many moments, but I know how to deal and I know what works for me. My ego doesn't get in the way of my awareness although I still tend to be too hard on myself. I guess what I'm saying is I found more of 'me' through that, rather than just 'positive me' or 'negative me'.
Before looking into how to deal with it, it might be worth talking to a counsellor or a therapist to see what the 'why' might be, and then you have something more specific to work with. A good coach would also do the job, especially if this is more about habit and not stuff from the past. All of these people are professionals who will be able to hold the space for a useful conversation about those things.
That way, you can also avoid the trap of finding new and novel ways to repress the negativity, which can very well guide you towards a mindset of toxic--or forced--positivity.
It's also important to remember that negativity in and of itself isn't inherently bad. Anger, sadness, frustration, and so on are seen to be 'negative', but the solution isn't to banish them or fix them, it's to acknowledge them and deal with them in a healthy way. The feelings are there for a reason.
When I was a much more negative person, most people told me I was wrong. As I got older, had more experiences, I became less negative and more empathetic, I try to put myself in other people's shoes, and guess what; most people still say I'm wrong for that. I kid you not. If I try to find the good in something or someone, people act like I'm using some sort of tactic on them by doing so. It's crazy. All the time, if I disagree with someone but I decide to not damn them but that they will change their mind, others will jump in and say that I'm just "pretending to be nice". It's not enough that I think someone is wrong; I have to hate them for it, for some reason.
To handle negativity, you have to stay sane, and to stay sane you basically have to start ignoring how people perceive how you act out your morality. You can be the kindest, gentlest person in the world, and hordes will be ready to make you out to be wicked. If you can stay sane, you won't be too negative, and you won't be too positive.
I'm known to be a very cynical person. Have been since I was a kid.
It's never really ever been an issue because I've known how to balance my interactions. However I noticed when I became a lead, that some of my team members were emulating me.
However they were emulating the incredibly cynical side of my communication, and glossing over the constructive criticism and thought I'd put in to my communications.
Suddenly, everything started spiraling into negativity. Code reviews, feedback on work, repsonse s to cool new tech...
Off hand one day, one of my team mates mentioned how they were trying to emulate my critical approach but were getting resistance, where I was not.
I started analyzing it with them and realized that I'd inadvertently fostered a negative environment. My own communication wasn't negative, but people often cling to the cynical because it makes them feel stronger.
You see this everywhere. From hot takes dismissing new things, to people tearing media to shreds like CinemaSins etc ... It's easy to be negative and cynical.
Anyway since then I've tried to try and be more positive in my posting to outweigh the cynicism. I'll still provide the critical feedback, but I try and push more positive words in, and I see it having a good impact on how people around me also compose themselves.
Anyway point being...I think it took seeing a reflection of the worst of me, to have me try and work to put forward the me I thought I was putting forward.
Just complaining when you feel negative about something isn't the appropriate response though. It's the easy reponse but it's not productive and won't remove negativity in the long term even if it feels good to get a good rant out.
Listen to what negative emotions you have and form actions to remove the negative stimuli.
Yes, but... it might not be the thing you're currently being negative about. If you're finding yourself negative about many things, or often, then it's probably a more persistent circumstance. (Maybe you hate your job, or your apartment, or....)
> Listen to what negative emotions you have and form actions to remove the negative stimuli.
Yes, absolutely. Two more tips for doing this: you don't have to finish (you don't even have to be able to finish); and you can find the smallest step and do that one (maybe just the once, maybe more than once).
IMHO, throughout it all, it's sliiiightly more important to cultivate emotional self-awareness than it is to actually resolve anything. Resolving things is linear growth; cultivating emotional self-awareness is compounding growth. Resolve things as much as you can while maintaining the self-awareness, and over time, I would expect to see substantial changes.
+1 on embrace it.
For the former, if i feel like ranting, I ask myself: "so what are you going to do about it?"
If you are annoyed about (whatever issue), the healthy thing to is to take some minimal action - feed the homeless/go vegan/call you representative/go protest. Take some action in the physical world that gets you out of your house. That's much healthier emotionally - our bodies are not meant to handle getting angry and being idle about it -thats emotionally damaging. Also it's a bit hypocritical.
If you are not prepared (or can't) do anything at all, then you should not let the issue bother you.
For the latter, I think some people have a 'debating persona', they might argue passionatly and negatively, but day to day they feel fine and positive.
Safe to say that when you try to 'debate' a person that does not enjoy it, they will get annoyed.
It might be worth going to an actual debate club to scratch this itch, you will typically find you have to eat some humble pie, and that's healthy too.
Overview of Psychological Distancing : https://positivepsychology.com/psychological-distancing/
Self-distancing as a Mechanism for Processing Negative Emotional Experiences by Lena Etzel (Warning: PDF) : https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/campuspress.yale.edu/dist/a/12...
Self-Distancing as a Strategy to Regulate Affect and Aggressive Behavior in Athletes : https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.5720...
It’s not abnormal to have a negative mindset. This goes back to our caveman days of having to think about the worst case scenario for everything since it was literally life or death.
I suffer from a negative mindset as well, and have found that therapy has been useful. Some things that worked for me:
As soon as you wake up, think or write down three things you’re grateful for. I found this very difficult at first, but it can be something simple: the sun is shining today
Think/write down 2-3 things that you will work on today to see the positive in - there’s usually a silver lining there, but you have to look at it hard, and honestly
Don’t watch the news. There’s never anything good there.
Cut back on social media. I went into a deep depression in 2016 and it was fueled by Twitter. I deleted every social media account I had, even LinkedIn. In fact, this HN account is the only thing o have now, and I mostly lurk.
Remind yourself that you can’t control other people - only yourself. Everyone suffers. Everyone can make bad mistakes and bad choices that may impact you. That’s a reflection on them, not you, so don’t let their choices and consequences live rent free in your head. You control you - that’s the best you can do.
Get adequate rest and exercise. It’s cliche, but those two things are the BIGGEST contributor to a healthier mindset.
Journal - writing stuff down helps me process negative thoughts and emotions. It can be cathartic. You may go through phases of wanting to write everything, and then nothing, and that’s ok.
Talk to a therapist. There’s no shame in this and it can help you understand where your negativity comes from and how you can change it.
Hope this helps. From another sufferer who’s still working on it himself.
Reality is boring: the bad parts of whatever are usually there for a reason, be it historical or goalposts that moved over time or lack of information/time/resources in general available at the critical point in time. But going through the gritty details of how the bad came to be is tedious work. You can sound just as smart for pointing out what's wrong and you can sound brilliant by signaling that imperfections make you angry.
It's just a bad habit for thought workers that you can overcome with attention and deliberate practice.
Have you tried writing a diary? I did that for decades. Yes, it's great to get the stuff out, but do you need other people to see it also?
Maybe try the idea of morning pages from the Artist's Way books - write 3 pages every morning on paper, quickly as you can, just stream of consciousness, don't judge or edit it, don't plan to read it again.
My counter has been to keep a reminder and a google form where I jot down 3 things I am grateful for. Just repeating this over and over made a switch flip: I catch myself noticing positive aspects of what I would otherwise consider 'objectively' negative things.
Bonus: I check this log every now and then and tell people I'm grateful for X or Y they did for me or if consistent enough I tell them I appreciate they are a source of X in my life. It's true, I'm not sweet talking them - I literally wrote down when it happened. This is the best material for birthday messages too - spreads the love.
Adding my "Yes and" here, because your tip most closely matches my own.
> Thinking negative thoughts ... is a habit you can break.
### How you talk changes how you think. ###
At some point, exhausted by my own negativity, completely out of ideas, I decided to just fake being happy.
I labeled everything "phenomenal". Like a catch phrase. Followed by effusive positivity. Yes, it started out as mostly sarcastic.
Imagine my surprise when I woke up one day, said "I feel phenomenol!" and actually meant it.
My transition took about 3 years. It was so slow and subtle, I didn't realize it was actually happening.
I've since some stuff which validates my own experience.
I'm not sure of the best way to fix this, as I'm working on it myself, but one of the things that helped is realizing that negative thinking comes from a voice in my head that interprets everything in a negative way. Just noticing and registering that negative voice has helped me be more positive.
Or find a venue where your negativity is appreciated and make it funny, George Carlin and most comedians have made a living out of complaining. People pay big money to hear their complaints.
If you’re not funny go into activism or politics. It’s constant complaining. Media too.
Product reviews, art / media critics, law. I’d guess half the GDP of the world is based on negativity.
Reframe your negativity as superiority. And don’t give your complaints away for free to ingrates on HN who are getting your complaints for free and not appreciating it.
Chronic negativity comes from somewhere, it has a cause; and then it becomes a habit. It's also a form of self defense, because it makes you less vulnerable.
Consider cutting down on mainstream media and entertainment, everything you consume goes somewhere.
Meditation works, but takes serious effort to get anywhere, because you will have to confront whatever is eating you from the inside.
Turn off all gadgets and sit or lie completely still with your eyes closed while observing the background track in your head for a while. Don't judge or identify, just observe.
Take or leave, and good luck!
There are times when you come across absolute perfection (limit of my cognition) and can't find any faults or negative aspects. I get obsessed by whoever built this thing, and often send them an email how inspiring their creation is.
Striving for perfection is one thing, as long as you realize it's not real.
Sounds like gratitude to me, which is always a good thing.
Agree. I've always been a new junkie. To my own detriment. I'm now even weening myself off of Hacker News.
To stay semi-informed, I read about current events a month or more after they happen. This mostly allows time enough for "slow boring" analysis, skipping over the hot takes and outrage machine.
If you wake up feeling unrested, look tired, struggle with energy or sleepiness during the day, or otherwise feel like something might be 'off', then it might be worth exploring whether or not you have a sleep disorder.
That could take the form of insomnia, OSA, or even something more subtle like UARS.
Not many sleep labs are good at evaluating patients, so I would recommend going to the Sleep Disorders Clinic at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center if you want proper diagnostics.
It was really interesting to put my own life through this perspective, because it made me realize I'm decidedly a hippy when it comes to all this. If you ask a nerd to dockerize their homelab, they'll probably write a Medium article titled "5 Things You're Going to Love About Docker!". If you forced me to dockerize my homelab, I'd probably write a long-winded blog post on a website that no longer exists because I unplugged the computer hosting it. Joking aside though, I think that negativity vs positivity is what drives constructive criticism in this field. Again, together these people can accomplish great things: the only way for them to be unsuccessful is by working alone or trying to play both sides when they can't.
Speaking of, the final 'subspecies' he describes is the lumpenprogrammer, a person so smart and technologically transcendent that no normal person could match them. These are your John Carmack's and Dennis Richie's of the world, people who understand both the fundamentals and implementation of technology so well that they can bridge the divide between the hippies and the nerds. Their opinions are more moderate, more tempered, and try to see things from an optimistic and pessimistic perspective.
Now, I'll never be such a programmer. I've made peace with the fact that I'm a hippie, but I still aspire to have a more tempered, glass-half-full viewpoint. In any case though, you should meet the harshest of criticism with the greatest of optimism, because that's the balance that keeps things going.
[0] https://betanews.com/2013/02/15/accidental-empires-part-8-th...
1. Finding an outlet and 'healing the wound'. Negativity is there for a reason. Things happened during life that made it necessary or even a viable strategy to solve some situations. If suppressed, or even managed (see #2), it will resurface either as anger/rage or physical illness. To really heal it I went to therapy and to group sessions with the firm goal of expressing my daily as well as lifelong anger and frustrations. One book which I like and can help start the healing process is "Letting Go" by David Hawkins.
2. How I express myself with others. Sometimes I really don't want to express this negativity, so I can use tools from the coaching world. I'll give a few examples: - assume good intentions. Be it with people you know or complete strangers, if you notice yourself being negative, first STOP. Then imagine the party you are negative about having the best intentions possible, and then re-write the mental story. For example, if you get cut off by another driver and notice you are angry at them, STOP (mentally) and consider that they are having a really shitty day and weren't paying attention. They made a mistake, a really honest one.
- ask questions to find out the other person's intentions. If you notice negativity in you about a person you know, consider asking them clarifying questions about the situation that brought about the negativity. For example, if a friend ghosts you, yoi might call a few days later and say, 'hey, did you see my text a few days ago? I was kinda bummed you didn't answer. Is everything ok between us?'
I hope this helps.
Could it be that these comments/blog posts are a bit of a release valve, helping you maintain healthier relationships in real-life? If so, I say great!
One thing I'd like to mention is that, perhaps you're a person with strong opinions. There's nothing particularly wrong with that. I also have pretty strong opinions, and I enjoy debating people (always with good humour). What you need to be mindful of is being overly rigid, making you unable to compromise with others. Do you find you have "rules" around interacting with people? It could be something like refusing to eat at certain restaurants for political reasons. This rigidity can have a negative impact on your relationships. It can be hard to self-assess these things, so once again it's worth asking family/friends.
I'd also just mention, a lot of these things - negative thinking, catastrophising, or rigidity - stem in part from anxiety. This is best addressed through some form of therapy.
So my only advice is to seriously take on the task of answering this question yourself. Get curious about yourself. Not intellectually, i mean observe yourself - thoughts flying by, sensations in your body. Maybe try doing it just before or after you post/say something negative. Maybe try writing to yourself or talking to yourself. Take it seriously and dig in to the question as if its worth answering - use all the abilities you might at your job too - planning, project management, writing, etc. I have found this approach to be more helpful than “consuming” information when trying to make any change because i can actually discover problems and formulate solutions that might work rather than sort of blindly cycling through advice. Sort of like building software - nontechnical people will sometimes just try or suggest buzzword tech or software, but any good engineer will work to deeply understand the actual problem they are trying to solve - the solution is often simple and obvious once you understand the problem.
As of general negativity, I think you should ask more if it makes your life worse, like the one you did here. It’s usually hard to see what it does to you, and is structurally hard to change. Personally I’m working with CBT to tackle that, because my negativity brings some issues (general distrust, decision paralysis, etc), but for some of my rants even a doctor says it’s okay, cause I’m just straightforward and sincere, I just need to see BOTH negative and positive sides, the latter I tend to skip as “expected by default”. In my experience, this entire thing really is too structured for a specific advice to help, but this one is general: make positive things explicit, as you make it for negative ones. That will balance out the perception of you.
E.g. remember your last negative reaction to/meaning about X and list 3-5 things which were good in X. Not that it makes ir “actually good”, it doesn’t, just isolate its good sides and spell them out. I took the liberty to check few pages of your comments here, and Meta VR seems to be a good start :). As much as I don’t believe a word they say, I can see positive things about this situation.
Just don't let your discomfort turn into anger or sadness. Do some research on things that are actual chemical downers and get them out of your life. Heck, having certain color photos on your desk will help some people. Environment is often a big contributor to our mood. I'm not talking some dumb crap fool yourself. I honestly mean find things that contribute to a good mood. I gotta admit being in the badlands for some reason puts me in an amazingly positive mindset for a long time. No idea why.
I became a more neutral person over years...I accept things as they are and don't complain about things were complaining won't have an impact (yes, stoicism played a role here).
I will be honest and say that I live in a well functioning country with a good job and a decent salary... that being said, so do some of my friends but they like to be negative and do negative spins on things.
There is an overall shift in people to be negative and to search for gotch ya moments. I accept it but I refuse to take a part of it, which means active self reflection as it is very easy to "go there".
Probably unpopular option, inspired by NNT, is to straight go to the "go f... yourself" when someone obviously is taking the most negative aspect of an opinion and is try to hook you for his own "gotchya moment". This cuts through the charade and illusion of respect when in fact the other person is not giving any.
Think about a typical way of solving a problem with a computer. Something doesn't work and you have a dozen of ideas why it doesn't work. The course of action is to inspect each idea, reject the ones that will not get you there immediately, and look at the acceptable ones with suspicion. Until one proves itself to be the right approach.
The problem is that this trickles down to everyday life. You get into this pattern of looking at things as problems to be solved. And if you know something the other person doesn't know - you want to correct them, because correcting them means that the task is completed and that you get some credit for the solution. So shooting down ideas and looking for a negative side of everything is the natural course of action. After all, when solving a concrete problem, rejecting a clearly wrong idea is just as good for moving closer towards the goal as coming up with a new idea that might be viable.
For me, personally, what helped is listening to people who speak very positively. One good example I found is a channel on youtube named Lux Pixul [1]. Adam (the guy that runs the channel) frequently does videos about motivation, procrastination, inspiration, and similar topics. But his approach is always very positive and warm. I reflect on how I feel when listening to people speaking that way, and it makes me want to imitate it myself, so that I can transfer the same feeling to others. For me - that helps.
And if you truly are negative or pessimistic about something, sit with that for a minute and try to figure out why you’re negative. And then work on those areas to make it more likely to succeed.
Writing itself is aggressive, and I'd posit that any sample of good comments is going to skew negative in perceived tone - or use implied negativity as a ground to the positive comments figure.
I'd even say the agreeableness that makes for sustainable modern office relationships is not a quality that makes for insightful writing. It can coexist, but it's a different skill, so I don't interpret good comments as negative. Predictable talking points, that's most of what one needs to know about someone, but original writing whether I agree with it or not is usually worth considering.
1. Understanding that negative voices are always louder and you read/hear them more frequently --> there's lot of positivity out there that you simply don't see by default. The world is not a bad place, but our experience is skewed.
2. Looking at negative posts with an understanding of biases and basic human nature. Often we argue just to get the feeling of being right. I've written a post about this: https://leadership.garden/how-to-stop-winning-arguments/
For example, if you have a thought "X is not going to work" then you can ask yourself: "What is the evidence that X has absolutely no chance of working?" and "What is some evidence supporting that X will work?". Then you can go back to the original thought and see that this statement might be more realistic: "X has a chance to work if Y and Z happens"
And try not to label things in absolute ways, as either black or white, but more as a shade of grey. Things are not either a success or a disaster. There is a lot inbetween.
Basically the book helps you dissect some of your thought patterns (mostly focused on the explanations you come up with for things that happen to you), and to steer them into a more positive direction where appropriate.
From what I understand (not an expert) there is some overlap with these techniques and what's used in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) when treating things like depression.
In terms of general negativity... I try to avoid social media (Hacker News is no exception) and instead I make a conscious effort to face-to-face talk to people and try new things. Trying new things especially. I find that I basically get a shot of euphoria whenever I do. Day to day life is like grinding in a video game, and trying something new is proving that I am the master of my life, not some architect.
Just my 2c.
Negativeness and anger are perfectly reasonable reactions to the wrongness of this world. It's not all bad, of course. There's plenty of good that we can enjoy. However, we must never forget the bad.
Anger is especially destructive in the short term. Negativity can absolutely drown a relationship in the longer term.
In both cases it seems useful to feel it and then let it go. It’s very real and relevant, I agree. Just not useful once it has been acknowledged.
In your case, try to nurture positivity instead of suppressing negativity. Perhaps write a blog post on something you are excited about. Or write more comments of the “Yes, and…” variety.
Why did you comment? What got your attention? Did your comment improve the situation? There's likely a pattern so look for it and decide if its worth keeping. Is it really you being you?
Why were you seeking out this negativity? Is this the best way to live? All the time you spend in negativity is time you are not spending positively. There's a significant opprtunity cost here.
Procrastination also often involves distraction. Negativity tends to come along for the ride as well.
I'm sure it's fair to say I get more downvotes than I give and give way more upvotes than downvotes.
S
And I can't stress it enough c̶o̶c̶a̶i̶n̶e̶ Lagavulin 16.
Does it bother you that other people may be content with things that you see flaws or risks in? Are they wrong? Do you need to make sure they are informed of the same problems for you to be at peace?
I learned that I shouldn’t suppress. I analyzed and unentangled the feelings that I had to get out.
I learned to be more generous towards myself and other but at the same time be more critical of ideas. They where too entangled in my mind before therapy.
Now I am much better critiquing and idea while at the same time being warm, kind, encouraging and funny towards myself and others.
Also, personally, accepting the blurry averages, and focusing on shared joy. Things might not be ideal but as long as people around are ok, then it's fine.
Other than that you can have some brain time off (deep zen craft, biking, hiking, swimming) these all helps reset your mood.
Luckily it is well studied and there are many old and new techniques that work for many of us with the most recommended seeming to be Mindfulness.
For me Visualization is also an amazing technique because if done right the brain remembers what we visualize so we can rewire our default thinking.
Try checking out Mel Robins her YouTube channel has a lot of great free stuff and her books are great as well. But if you don't gel with her style there are a ton of alternative people trying to explain more or less the same concept.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/579160-stunning-sur...
One way I like to think about it is: Will my comment make the project/thread better or worst? If it's negative and could make it worst then it feels easier to just keep it for myself, even if I know I'm right (or other good reasons for negativity)
I suggest you tackle the source of the issue, not the surface manifestations.
May be you have some limiting beliefs so deep that you don’t even realize them, maybe you have some level of narcissistic personality etc.
Good therapist and some degree of deep self inquiry might help.
When a negative thought occurs, ask yourself these two questions:
1> Is the thought useful?
2> How does it behave?
I got this from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvtYjdriSpM&t=60s
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I've found that negativity seems to be a required step in some self expression. Say you have an immediate strong emotional reaction to something you encountered, but to express your emotional reaction you start by phrasing it as a big long negative-sounding complaint or diatribe. Maybe you even have a good point in there, the point you're aiming at comes from a genuine place of wanting to make things better, but it just comes out negative and unhelpful.
Once the expression is articulated and externalized you can take a second editing step, cutting away all the useless bits -- accusations, overgeneralizations, unsympathetic or unconsidered viewpoints, annoyances that resolve outside the scope of the topic, etc. -- to extract out just the core of your idea expressed in a way that is at least neutral. The point is to rewrite it and shorten it until you and your imagined audience can no longer find a reasonable objection to it. That often means a gradual voluntary weakening of your statement or splitting it into separate statements, and maybe even talking yourself out of it completely. You can tell if you're doing it right by holding the original emotion in mind while you restate your neutral, edited version -- if it feels 'satisfied' then you've captured its intent; if it gets annoyed then you missed something and you're not done.
The key is that this whole laborious process doesn't need to happen out in the open right in the face of the person whose behavior you want to change.
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Think of the initial negative reaction as the inedible husk that surrounds a delicious fruit, something that's a pain to remove like a coconut. The fruit can't grow without the husk protecting it so don't begrudge the husk its necessity. But you wouldn't want to hand your friend an ugly unpeeled fruit that they've never seen and that they have to really work at to get to the fruit in the center. Heck, if it looks like too much work they may even throw it out without even trying. Instead, peel as much as you can yourself first and only present it to them afterwards.
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An initial negative / emotional reaction isn't bad per se, just that it isn't yet stated in a way that is useful to everyone else... so re-express it until it is.
Deliberate practice at saying something positive will help to rewire the connections.
Worried about looking obnoxious? Post under a pseudonym.
You know those games where you select the phrases you want your character to say, and certain phrases lead you to different scenarios ?
Games like Detroit become human.
All those choices form a tree where each choice is a branching point. What I've found in RL is that negative actions generally lead to smaller paths in the "choice tree", which is generally no fun and you don't learn and enrich your brain with new information. As in video games, I want to explore all the branches, but you usually can't repeat a choice in real life, so I end up exploring the biggest path that coincides with my preferences, which is the the one with the most content that I like and, coincidentally, most of the times, this is a path that has a good balance of negativity, positivity and neutrality.
So yeah, tldr is: I see some actions in my life as actions in a story branching video game, and I actively look out for actions that give me the longest path in the "action tree" of stuff that I like to do, that indirectly makes me a "balanced" but active person.
I'm glad I was of use.
Especially the part about writing down my thoughts about things and questioning / challenging my own thinking
I went through your recent comments and to me they appear neutral.
I should note that there is an opposite to this: toxic positivity. It's equally irritating when someone refuses to acknowledge the elephants in the room.
The biggest changes in how I have approached my tendency towards negativity are trying to practice acceptance, gratitude, and action.
I had to teach myself that there is so much to be gained by accepting reality, whether it was my preferred reality or not. Travel really helped me with this. When traveling, I find myself limited by missing context and language. And yet, it's so rewarding. Some of my best travel memories come from things that didn't go to plan. I also try to accept other people's perception. If someone thinks something is good, which I think is bad, I try to "steelman" why that may be before writing off their perception.
I'm not sure how I came to feel deeper levels of gratitude. I guess it's just that as I've gotten older, I've internalized a deeper awareness of how well I have it. I can still put myself in the headspace of a younger, more angsty me. If that person could see my life today, he would be dumbstruck. And I've also just learned the hard way that tomorrow is not promised. My luck can turn on a dime, so I need to enjoy what I've got, while I have it.
I've also tried to take more responsibility and initiative for the things I want to see changed. I try to live by a rule that if something is bugging me, I need to reflect on why that is, and decide if I'm going to devote my time and effort towards it. If not, I need to attenuate the level of attention I'm giving it. Action is as much about what I don't do as what I do. For the things that I am going to take on, I try to challenge myself to go the extra mile, whether or not I will be successful. I'm not a doggedly determined person, and so I don't always see the results I want. But every now and then, the payback is extremely worthwhile.
I believe that practicing acceptance, gratitude, and action has changed how I communicate. I still am very adept at pointing out problems. But that's not all I do. I think those other 3 things come out, as well, and I think that makes me a more balanced person to the people who have to communicate with me. I'm not going to be everyone's cup of tea, and I try to live with that.
Speaking of which, I try to be aware the extent to which the people around me can handle my unfiltered "realism". Some folks are right there with me. For the others, I try to prioritize how much realism they need to hear from me within an interval of time.
Another point, you have 3 large luggage. You can only carry 1, they are that heavy. You need to learn to only try to carry 1. What is that luggage called? Past, Present, Future. You can only carry the present. If you try to carry the past, you will constantly remind yourself of negatives in the past. You will get caught up in the past and not live the present. The future is even worse because you literally dont know what's coming, if you try to lift the future luggage you will break your back. Live only in the present, dont concern yourself with the past negativity. You just need to be positive from now on.