You could just choose optimism

"A cynic is never wrong, but an optimist is always right" is a saying my friends and I have. Chronic pessimists and cynics often see and say much truth about the world. But the optimists will succeed much more in their goals, business, relationships, and many other parts of life. They have a deeper set of values and philosophy that is more right, even if they get the particulars wrong sometimes.

There are tons of comments online that claim emotionally secure and mature people are ignorant or even irresponsible if they're not in perpetual anxiety about the world. The "you should be scared with the way the world is" type. Obviously, what they claim is not true, and it's very unhealthy. But someone who is emotionally secure understands they gain nothing from a neurotic debate online, so they don't call these opinions out. The opinions remain there, unchallenged, seemingly agreeable and prevalent.

Life entrenched in pessimism is also a bit contagious. Though I don't want to be unkind, I have to be honest: there is a limit to how much I can try to help someone with that mindset before they drag me down with them. Something I learned studying field medicine (and this isn't some secret in the first responder world or just general knowledge) is that you protect your safety first. If you arrive in a situation and add yourself to the casualty list, you are just not helping anyone: you get hurt, and you create more work. I think this applies not only to physical hazards, but also to emotional ones. One more depressed person in the world does not make it a better place for anyone.

It makes sense to exercise some caution, and most of our emotional brains understand that. This brings me back to the original point — it's hard for one to succeed anywhere if everyone's avoiding them (best case scenario) or being turned negative themselves (worst case scenario). Much remains to be said about the internet's role in this epidemic of negativity and various depressive disorder crises.

  > Astonishingly, these are often people that have suffered overwhelming personal tragedy.  

One was in a small plane crash, the other was a SEAL that went into Grenada. He had rather long scar on his neck.

Very positive people, almost, but not quite, devil may care.

And it brings to mind a line from an early episode from “The Expanse”, where a character nearly died and, later returned on a dangerous mission. About how he should have died before, and now he was on bonus time.

I’m not convinced folks can talk themselves into the mindset that may come from experiences like that. It’s old news, we’ve all heard it. But, most of us, seemingly, are unconvinced.

I do think that effort over time makes a difference here, though. I remember this from an interview with Ruby Sales that stuck with me (I don't know the origin of the phrase, but this is where I heard it): https://pca.st/episode/2240f0ef-004f-45cc-9e77-0a10b9905530

  I love everybody.
  I love everybody in my heart.
  And you can't make me hate you.
  And you can't make me hate you.

Personally I like to think about this in terms of the reward asymmetry. In most situations if you’re cynical or pessimistic and you turn out to be right, you don’t really gain much. If you’re an optimist, and keep betting or grinding sensibly, you’ll eventually be right and there’s much to gain potentially.

> Astonishingly, these are often people that have suffered overwhelming personal tragedy.

I remember once I got into a really nice conversation with a charming old guy in a coffee shop. He was markedly optimistic and he really left an impression on me. At the end of our conversation, I found out he was a Nazi death camp survivor.

i posit that the term optimism in its common usage conflates hope and delusion , hope being a subset of delusion that is consciously utilised in stimulating behaviour percieved to bring one closer to their goals , as opposed to a collapse of agency into pure fantasy disconnected from reality ... by demarcating these two concepts it is shown that optimism groups potentials both insidious and beautiful ... as usual, evidenciary of good and bad not being mutually exclusive ...

It’s an em-dash!

no one will stop me from being sad! How dare they!

I suppose that you have merely seen the text ;)

I like how positive you are about it!

Agreed. Also, sorry about the divorce.

And merely suggesting watching less trashy news brings cries of "Quit watching? Inconceivable!"

As an optimist that likewise doesn't watch the news. it is interesting the many traps of things of false worthiness people get caught up in.

"This deserves improvement" and "this deserves complaining and I will refuse to enjoy it" are two independent conclusions that don't need to come together.

I doubt think the article is doing the former, while you're suggesting that it can't come without implying the latter.

That’s the most boring story ever.

Blanket complaining about complaining without any reservation is hypocritical.[1]

It presupposes that all complaining is just to be negative. But people also complain in order to vent. And it isn’t just selfish. Venting can be cathartic for both parties.

There’s a psychological and social component to complaining. And denying that is just negative-nancy complaining.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43797763

It's not paradoxical to defend against offense with offense.

> Improvements rarely start with "I'm satisfied with this". Writing off complaining because one conflates complaining with misery is silly.

I've found improvements rarely start with complaining either. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that people I know that are complainers are rarely the source of improvements. They're usually too busy complaining about the situation and the proposed solutions to pick one.

Improvements most often come from a mindset of "this thing is not the way I want it to be, so what am I going to do to change that?" Sometimes "complain to someone with the ability to change it" is the right answer, but usually you have some degree of agency yourself and it's a lot more effective to exercise that agency than to get someone else to act on your behalf in response to your complaints.