Talk About What’s Good
Oh internet, fetid firehose of information and unwashed humanity, you so confound and delight.
If you plug into the pipeline and crank the valves fully open you get poleaxed first by the volume of content, then by the raw negativity of the content. If you think that your contact time with that negativity doesn’t change your outlook on the world you’re being naïve. You are what you consume.
I’m not going to deny that a fine appetizer of schadenfreude or a butter-ladened dessert of partisan bile is fun for you and it can be a nice treat. Nor am I suggesting an Oprah-style giveaway of Pollyanna glasses for a trying time (“YOU get culture blindness!” “YOU get culture blindness!”).Roblox Free Unlimited Robux and Tix
Life can be difficult.
Art creation can be difficult.
Excel spreadsheet creation can be difficult.
Making/finding/keeping money can be difficult.
The question becomes: Why sit in the filthy bathtub of the difficulties you face, or the frustrations? Life becomes opera. You talk about how hard the day is going to be over breakfast, you suffer ever sling and arrow of outrageous fortune all day at work, and then you come home to complain about how hard the day was before going to bed.
That’s just not worth it.
Change it.
Break the cycle.
Talk about what’s good.
If you’re stuck in a loop talking about how bad work is, talk about how awesome your new church fellowship is. If you’re frustrated by the stupid people talking about TeeVee Show Y – don’t bash on TeevVee Show Y – advocate for something you like.
The pinnacle of this sort of negativity is of course “Westboro” “Baptist” “Church”.
“W””B””C” stands around telling you what they and their god hates, what they stand against, but do you have the first clue what they stand for? You may believe that crafting your public persona in relief by your disdain for the things that others like (or my be “pop”ular) is a clever twist of your intelligence. But in reality you’re not doing anything more than playing cultural “W””B””C” and you don’t even have the decency to misspell a sign.
Advocate.
Advocate.
Advocate.
When the Great Accountant in the Lake comes by at the end of the fiscal year and tallies your billable hours? Try to have spent as much time talking about things you like as whining about the things you didn’t.
Like this a lot. That is all.
Sometimes you need righteous anger to make the changes, though. Motivate people. We didn’t get rid of graft and break the cycle of corruption in our city government by talking about the good aspects of the former city manager. I yelled a lot on a blog about how bad it was, and people who were angry about it ran for city government and got elected, and voters who were angry about it showed up to vote for them.
Now that things are better with a new CM and things are on the up and up, we’re having a hella lot harder time motivating people or ourselves…
I think negativity can be useful, in balance with other things.