The whole world needs an attitude adjustment

There sure are a lot of negative vibes floating around these days. No matter where you go, they’re unavoidable. You can’t open a newspaper, turn on the TV, listen to the radio, or do all three online without being hit by waves of negative vibes. It’s as if we’re trapped in front of a tsunami of troubles.

I’m not talking about just bad news, but folks seem to have poor attitudes about everything. Nothing’s right anymore, everything’s too expensive, people are jerks, nobody can do anything
correct any more. Even Ted Lasso and Ned Flanders can’t find a bright side to anything. We’re becoming a world filled with Squidwards.

When I was a working newspaperman instead of a semi-retired one, folks always asked why we didn’t report good news instead of all the bad stuff. As much as I enjoy cheerful stories and puppy pictures, those were the exceptions of news, the occasional light shining through a dark world. While people said they wanted happy news, when we had it, readers still gravitated to the “bad” news. It seemed while they asked for cute puppies, they read about wrecks, crimes, the court docket, and things going wrong instead of right.

I guess they feel better asking, “Why don’t you run more pictures of puppies,” than they would saying, “I sure wish you had more wreck pictures and crime stories.”

We have access to puppy pictures and photos of kittens and all kinds of feel-good stories from around the world now, and they’re popular. But, they’re surrounded by so much bad news and negative attitudes you expect to hear Sarah McLachlan asking for contributions to the ASPCA.

Think back to the last time it seemed people were happy and optimistic. Try to remember when life felt upbeat, and you thought all was right with the world. Sure, we’ve always had bad news and occasional tragedies, but we also had times we felt good about everything. There may be different times of optimism and bright skies for you, times when there was only light without a tunnel.

At what point did that start slipping away? When did folks take more delight in criticizing than praising, or offering backhanded praise? When did tearing down people and things become more fun than building them up?

For example, this summer there have been several movies that have brought in millions of dollars in ticket sales and that fans appear to have enjoyed overall. But to read about them, you’d think they’re the worst thing since Flaming Hot Charmin Toilet Tissue. Critics hammer Disney mercilessly, saying everything the company does is wrong, its movies and TV shows all stink, and it hasn’t had a hit in years.

We’ve been told the Indiana Jones finale was a flop even before the cameras rolled, the new Mission: Impossible movie stunk like a roadkill skunk, the Fast and Furious franchise should be dead and buried, And don’t get them started about movies made before 2022; they’re all awful things and socially unacceptable.

That’s just a microcosm of where we are today. The same amount of negativity and criticism is heaped upon everything. Healthcare is rotten, the government is corrupt, the economy is out of hand, education isn’t teaching anything useful, people are lazy and crazy, consumer products are all shoddy, and the world is stuck in a handbasket circling the drain.

It just feels to me as though as a culture we have entered a dark period, or at best a gray one. I remember when people had hope for the future. We looked forward to all kinds of opportunities and possibilities presenting themselves. We saw a future filled with advances, with cures and treatments eradicating diseases. We envisioned a future where hunger and famine no longer plagued humanity. We pictured a time when people could resolve differences without violence, where nations no longer warred against one another. We hoped for a time when we’d live in harmony with our environment.

And don’t forget we once anticipated a future with flying cars.

Those still are possibilities for us, but it’s as if we’ve stopped looking ahead because we're too busy tearing apart the present. For whatever reasons, we’ve turned against ourselves on all levels. I don’t know how we can renew optimism and unburden our culture of this perpetual negativity. Perhaps it’s something each of us must do for ourselves. Maybe changing our individual attitudes, reducing our individual negativity, can spread to others. If bad attitudes and negativity spread virally, optimism and positivity should be able to spread the same way. That is if we can all stop complaining about everything.

I realize these are generalities and many folks may disagree with all of them. Your own happiness, positivity, and optimism may vary.