This (both the post and the comments here) are very interesting to me from a "some people are intrinsically optimistic and some people are intrinsically pessimi

This (both the post and the comments here) are very interesting to me from a "some people are intrinsically optimistic and some people are intrinsically pessimistic" point of view. > Homejoy and ‘fail’ have gotten tethered together in the tech headlines recently but for myself and many of my colleagues Homejoy will always be more synonymous with success than failure. Rationalization is a hell of a drug And I don't mean that in a snarky way– synthesized happiness every bit as "real" as "genuine" happiness. The brain doesn't discriminate. Dan Gilbert did a great TED talk [1] about this: > "Who are these characters who are so damn happy? The first one is Jim Wright. Some of you are old enough to remember: he was the chairman of the House of Representatives and he resigned in disgrace when this young Republican named Newt Gingrich found out about a shady book deal he had done. He lost everything. The most powerful Democrat in the country lost everything. He lost his money, he lost his power. What does he have to say all these years later? "I am so much better off physically, financially, mentally and in almost every other way." What other way would there be to be better off? Vegetably? Minerally? Animally? He's pretty much covered them there." Startups are often started by wildly optimistic people, while Internet messageboards tend to be populated by wildly pessimistic people. I'm not saying that either is better or worse, but it's an interesting phenomenon to witness. So the interesting thing here is... while Homejoy is obviously a failure, I legitimately believe that OP feels good about himself, and probably better than some successful founders feel about their successful startups. Rationalization is a hell of a drug. [2] PS: Another lesson I think the cynics and pessimists could take away from this (but, by definition, probably won't) is that you can get away with a lot more failure in this world than you imagine, and still probably end up on top. OP is still probably better off than a lot of us career-ily and in many other ways. I wonder, if blind optimism could be sold in a drink like coffee, would it be worth buying (in terms of net impact on well-being?) Seems like it might be. Curious for your thoughts. --- [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy [2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/200912/downside-manufacturing-our-own-happiness https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/200912/downs...