Cynical- adjective –
- believing that people are motivated by self-interest; distrustful of human sincerity or integrity.
- Concerned only with one’s own interests and typically disregarding accepted or appropriate standards in order to achieve them.
Everyone knows the type, the people who prefer to be right to being kind. We all know the guy who says, “I told you so” and laughs or the girl who goes out of her way to prove you wrong. They feel a jolt of adrenaline that boosts their endorphins, thus making them feel good, but only temporarily. The truth is, most of the things people are “right” about, don’t matter in the long run.
Cynical
Many people live their lives from the belief that everyone is only out to help him or herself so why not join that train of thinking? It protects them from letting their walls down and potentially getting hurt. After all, we are taught from a young age that being wrong is the worse thing you could do. Get a math problem wrong, you get a lower grade. Get a lot of problems wrong, you are deemed stupid. Of course people are going to put up a wall and strive to never to wrong so they stay cynical and untrusting. We are raised to not trust and to try to come up with scenarios where we might get hurt so that we don’t take unnecessary risks.
Happy
It’s hard work to become and stay happy. A driver cuts you off in traffic, most people’s first instinct is to honk the horn, yell and maybe even give someone an unfriendly hand gesture. It is a lot more difficult to smile and continue your day as if nothing happened. It’s even more difficult to not replay the scene in your mind for the duration of the drive and silently cursing the driver.
Instead of responding with our ego instincts, happy people have to stop, think and then feel and react appropriately. Breaking the ego’s hold of gut instincts and emotions is hard work. It’s hard work that has to be practiced everyday.
When you think about it, choosing happiness is far more difficult that choosing to be angry, jaded and cynical. Cynical people are taking the easy way out and as a positive chick, you should know that choosing the easy thing isn’t always the best thing for us mentally, physically or spiritually.
Dumb vs. Smart
Many people think that happy, positive people are just too dumb to notice how bad everything is. To them I want to say, “I see the world, I see the truth, I see war and starvation and hatred but I also see amazingly beautiful souls that give of themselves endlessly and because of them, I know the what the world CAN be. I choose to aim my life’s purpose toward the amazing, rather than the depressing.” Why choose to only see the negative? How does it help us? The truth is it doesn’t. It may seem like you are protecting yourself but you aren’t. It hurts us more to dwell on the negative so, my friends, let’s try to be happy!
Smile
Some people smirk when they are cynical and “prove” that their views are correct. When that happens, I just smile, knowing that I’d rather be happy, than “right” and that happiness is more important to me than being wrong.
How about you? Do you feel better when you are happy or right? Comment below so we can start a discussion!
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