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It is healthy to have a proportional sense of gratefulness for the good things you have. Even if someone else has more. When you live an easier life than 99% o
by jlawson 8y ago
It is healthy to have a proportional sense of gratefulness for the good things you have. Even if someone else has more.
When you live an easier life than 99% of humans, that's worth being grateful for.
Interestingly given the context of this thread, I think the attitude of always needing to be angry, always focusing on negatives, always demanding more, always blaming others and obsessing over grand injustices can itself tip some people into mental illness.
It's a memeplex thing, though. Constant rage at injustice is a great way for a memeplex to turn people into highly-motivated ideological soldiers. It's a technique used by demagogues from Stalin to Hitler to Castro and Kim, and which you see today as well. But the need to always emphasize that rage and injustice and resentment can definitely push some people over the edge. Gratefulness is a good antidote, in proportion with a balanced and contextualized understanding of the problems of the world.
- projektir 8y agoI'd be more sympathetic to this view if injustice wasn't so glaringly common, and often the things you're grateful for only started to exist because of said injustice being fixed, so it seems backwards to complain about people bringing it to light.
- lobotryas 8y agoI dunno. I'm grateful for simple things like sunlight and a good sandwich. None of these are related to "injustice". I even stopped intentionally following the news because the whole concept of worrying about injustice seems so draining and almost pointless.
- gaius 8y agoInterestingly given the context of this thread, I think the attitude of always needing to be angry, always focusing on negatives, always demanding more, always blaming others and obsessing over grand injustices can itself tip some people into mental illness. Absolutely, and social media only amplifies these “oppression Olympics”.
- eeZah7Ux 8y ago> When you live an easier life than 99% of humans, that's worth being grateful for. There is nothing "easier" in feeling unhappy or angry. Mental illness is widespread across billionaires despite their wealth. It's also well known that mental illness is less common in traditional, less developed societies. > ... I think the attitude of always needing to be angry ... can itself tip some people into mental illness. No. People cannot artificially create mental illness in themselves by simply thinking "negatively". There is no simple self-destruct button in our mind: people need to go through (untreated) trauma, pressure, abuse from external sources or diseases or serious genetic conditions.
- beaconstudios 8y agoPeople can abuse and mistreat themselves as much as they can be abused and mistreated by others. Negative self-talk, for example, can cause real issues. So can suppressing emotions.