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Yes. Unless you were raised in an environment very different than the world you are in today. e.g. your youth was in a hostile environment and now you are in a

Yes. Unless you were raised in an environment very different than the world you are in today. e.g. your youth was in a hostile environment and now you are in a safe environment. Or your youth was in a safe environment and now you are in a hostile environment. In that case, I am not sure how you unfuck yourself. The former case seems to lead to the most difficult to correct instincts. It's easier to become harder and more mortified than to become softer, more pliable, and more trusting.

somenameforme 4y ago
Take the past centuries and try to find 80 years where trust in the powers that be would have been optimal, contrasted against endless skepticism, cynicism and general distrust. And there's no reason to think this trend is changing; a strong argument could made that it's trending worse. The point I make with this is that if we view things through the lens of being 'hard' vs being 'soft', then the worst case outcome of being 'hard' is relatively miniscule - looking a genuine gift horse in the mouth may cost one a 'gift.' By contrast the consequences of being 'soft' can be extreme. To run with the same analogy - happily opening your gates to that beautiful wooden horse from Troy. What a gift! The reason I use 80 years as the metric is because that is, more or less, the time before we get to discover the answer to that final question. And you never know whether you're in a good time, or a bad time. The bad guys don't simply announce "Hey guys. I'm evil. Let's go do evil things to those other guys under farcical rationale, because it sounds like a good thing to do. Who's with me!?" So all one can do is optimize for your entire life, or whatever remains of it.