81–90 of 110 posts
Gratitude is overrated and over-applied, and often prescribed disingenuously. Resentment, it's opposite, is poison in the modern world. Resentment is an impulse that amounts to a shallow middle finger, and if you try to use it for long-term motivation you become unstable. Many people turn to intentional gratitude as an antidote to resentment, but it's often an overcompensation. Become too grateful and you deny the st…
I've always been profoundly struck by Dostoyevsky's depiction of the devil. In The Brothers Karamazov, the devil says: "My best feelings, gratitude, for example, are formally forbidden solely because of my social position." It's something I think about very often.
Was that during The Grand Inquisitor?
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I like to call this "toxic positivity". Forced cheeriness about the grind, the hustle, we're all in this together, etc. Better than negativity, but not by much.
Like many other tools utilised by powerful leaders/CEOs, mandatory positively, too, is a means to an end. An excolleague of mine was a "happiness engineer" at a FAANG-esque firm, we discussed the pros and cons of ensuring positive communication is demonstrated in all echelons of the business. We were delighted knowing that although discontent existed in some engineers, the mandatory happiness messaging prevented them…
Can you give an example of "mandatory happiness messaging"? What does a structured program for that look like?
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Weapon does not automatically imply killing and being on the offense. The existence of weapons can also be used to defend the helpless and conduct peacekeeping actions. It is important to keep an open mind about this.
I sometimes use my dick as a weapon, but only in defensive situations.
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I'm not sure it's better than negativity to be honest. Honest negativity is at least honest.
Honesty, yes, that is what is missing. Why the moral judgments on positive or negative? They both have their place. It’s the moralizing of positive or negative that causes problems in society. And yes, I blame social media because advertisers love focusing on just the positive and not the negative.
But "we can't express negativity whatsoever, we must express that everything is totally fine even when we're wading through shit" is its own kind of horrible.
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I'm not sure it's better than negativity to be honest. Honest negativity is at least honest.
that's just a unconventional way of describing constructive criticism in my mind though, which can still be done in a positive way.
Toxic positivity is "all criticism is negative, therefore no criticism".
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I generally agree that a positive culture lets people focus on their work. I don't agree that a negative outlook should automatically dismiss someone or their ideas. That's seriously crazy toxic. Some of the best work comes from frustration and it's totally worth it to dig into that resource when you have problems being swept under the rug by maliciously cheery people.
It's not very HN to do this, but "whoosh"
I was in a few finance/crypto spaces (voice chat rooms on Twitter) with CEOs/CTOs/industry experts over the past week and it weirded me out how everyone would do this 30 second ass-kissing speech before and after speaking. Some people would even randomly butt in out of nowhere and start giving gratitude to all speakers, triggering a chain of gratitude speeches from other speakers which provided no value at all to the…
I am a on a cynic ride at that moment so take that with a grain of salt.
But I have seen what you describe in other situations. I have noticed this on US news snippets "Thaaaaank you so much for being here, I want to say I am really glad you came, now about ". I think these people just mimic what they see as "professional" and since it's a chat room... yeah, lots of chirping going around.
Gratitude is overrated and over-applied, and often prescribed disingenuously. Resentment, it's opposite, is poison in the modern world. Resentment is an impulse that amounts to a shallow middle finger, and if you try to use it for long-term motivation you become unstable. Many people turn to intentional gratitude as an antidote to resentment, but it's often an overcompensation. Become too grateful and you deny the st…
This is so important. My therapist would say that negative emotions like anxiety and anger are information from your body. It's not always useful information, and maybe acting on your first impulse isn't a good idea, but you shouldn't just ignore it because it's supposed to be bad.
Gratitude, kindness, and explicit acknowledgement of appreciation for others really does go a long way. However, I feel like I've been meeting more people in the workplace who read articles like this and implement it in a robotic, forced manner. Like they're using it as a tool to get what they want out of others, as opposed to a genuine expression of how they feel. Genuine gratitude goes much further than just going…