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Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#181

Post by qorrect »

zem wrote: post #156
donatj wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are one of these people who just cannot "let something go", what you can do is write that thing down. 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…

when you make those small fixes, send them to the junior devs to review

Brilliant

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#182

Post by raxxorrax »

agumonkey wrote: post #179
raxxorrax wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you differentiate someone bringing forward criticism from someone being frustrated and an attention seeker?

There are obvious signs: the lack of politeness, urgency of expressing themselves first, not giving you space to talk, tone, and also the adequacy of the issue at hand. When people go mad for small secondary issues you know. Or when there could be 100 different topics to discuss, some good, some bad, but only the bad gets mentioned.

I can accept a lot of different tones. I have my problems with secondary theaters as well, but that is to be expected. Different people care for different topics. And while civility is a tool to prevent topics getting personal, I believe it needs to be balanced with directness in a discussion, which can be perceived as rough.

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.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#183

Post by cybernautique »

roeles wrote: post #180
cybernautique wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend "Tuesdays With Morrie" for a good why book. 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. [0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dialetheism/

Thank you for recommending that book.

Absolutely! Are you likewise a fan?

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#184

Post by seaknoll »

xkgt wrote: post #110
seaknoll wrote: post #40

I'm not perfect about this but one experience in particular helped me. 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 have the opposite problem. I always struggle with frequent interrupts wondering "what if I am wrong?" and I fail to move forward without utmost conviction. 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 enc…

I'd also suggest trying to harness the "what if I am wrong" so you can use it to your advantage - it sounds like the kind of attitude that could make you excellent at testing. If you turn it into a curious question instead of a self-judgment, it may help identify ways to test something that would give you full confidence that it works. Which is a very valuable skill to have.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#185

Post by gremloni »

hackly wrote: post #99
gremloni wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working from home is the only thing making working tolerable.

Not if you’re single with little means and motivation to socialize.

I socialize in bars and while playing sports. Neither of those options are expensive.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#186

Post by ehudt »

I see two parts to handling this tendency, which I have much less of today compared to a few years ago.

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.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#187

Post by soco »

alpaca128 wrote: post #154
halgir wrote: post #145

Someone else in the thread used the term "chronic bitcher", and that's exactly what I used to be. At any given time I would (subconsciously) look for things to complain about, and I always found them. 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…

One of my parents is like that, in fact it's their primary method of communicating with people. They're aware of it but never stopped, needless to say it's caused issues. 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.

I've landed more than once in such situations where even close people would think that if I don't complain, or don't complain enough, means I don't care or I have everything sorted out. Thing is, I rarely believe that complaining to random people moves my issue forward, so I'd keep my complaining for moments where I feel I can be helped - if only with some moral support from people capable of giving me that. (edited for typos)

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#188

Post by soco »

pronlover723 wrote: post #45
oblib wrote: post #9

I've pointed out to close friends and family "there are people who walk into a room and look for something to complain about, and they will always find something because nothing is too small for them to complain about". 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 respo…

I would find advice like this more helpful if I could figure out how to integrate it with the idea that somethings actually are bad and that pointing them out brings awareness. 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…

Bugfixes are a professional thing and we are expected to open them. I don't think one should feel guilty for opening them, or feel guilty for doing their job in general. But to criticize my colleague's choice of shirt? They aren't wearing it to make me happy, so my criticism is totally uncalled for, even if, and I underline even if their shirt of choice is awful. This kind of criticism is overstepping. Now again, if what I received in the restaurant was bad gives me the right to complain as I was the one wronged, but again there's an inner debate which I'd hold: what was my expectation? Was it at a kebab stall or a Michelin restaurant? Did I pay for a fancy delicacy or for a cheap filling? Were my expectations actually warranted?

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#189

Post by soco »

hvasilev wrote: post #122
muzani wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being negative is probably statistically correct. But I find it to be more or less a useless model. 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 p…

Disclaimer: I'm a pessimist. >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, bargainin…

You are completely right here, negativity definitely helps finding issues. How does negativity help fixing issues? Can you trust a certain issue to be fixed?

Re: Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity?

#190

Post by soco »

spacelamb wrote: post #80
zz865 wrote: post #74

Negative is normal right now. We're all burnt out, we're all sick of working from home, Covid is fading but its been an extreme time. Plus some people have made loads of money while we watch front line workers basically dying doing their job. Meanwhile the summer heat was just too much and we're watching the planet die. All the while we've been restricted from seeing work colleagues, friends and family. How can you n…

Here are my views to try and answer in good faith, "How can you not be negative?" as someone who feels positively: >"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…

Hmm maybe the answer would be to be negative about things you can actually influence, and not bother with things you cannot. That's quite zen, if you want.
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