MoxieCat

opening the tweet to see how people replied and finding something that makes you mad? if you looked at the replies at all, you have already lost
scrolling down from the youtube video to look at literally any other comment but the top-most one? if you scrolled down at all, you have already lost
opening the notes on that tumblr post to look for replies, and paying most attention to the negative ones? if you opened the notes for any reason other than context or a link, you have already lost

you gotta stop opening up opportunities for your brain to have a negative reaction to something. please understand this: you have an instinct to seek out these negative reactions, because seeing those negative reactions confirms your brain's suspicion that there are shitty people in the world. and your brain feels rewarded whenever it has a suspicion that gets confirmed. but here's the thing: you already know there are shitty people in the world. you're not stupid. you've been around the block a few times. but by letting your brain engage in this cycle of suspicion, identification, and confirmation, you are making your brain really really good at noticing negativity. in fact, it starts to strongly prioritize negativity as a default mood. but something you might not know is that this makes your brain worse at finding contentment and worse at emotional regulation. it also makes your brain much more likely to make enemies, and find reasons to disagree (and become combative) with everyone around you, including people you love.

so do yourself a favor. deliberately choose not to read the comments. what are you hoping to find in there? you're just gonna find exactly what you expect. and it's not gonna make you a happier person. it's gonna hurt you, and that hurt is gonna go through you and into the people you love.

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in reply to @chirasul's post:

nicky flowers @nicky12/5/2023, 4:15 AM

i thought i was getting better at this, what with being off twitter since june but i noticed recently that tumblr has been slowly replacing that negativity for me. it's unfortunately easy to get back into my bad habits. my main new year's resolution is to get better at fighting against this instinct—and i'm starting it early lol

chirasul @chirasul12/5/2023, 4:21 AM

hell yeah you got this 💪 💪 💪 it's tough at first and you'll forget to Not look at the comments a lot of times, but each time you remember Not to look at the comments, you willgget better at it until you Stop altogether. in the meantime though it can be fun to give your brain a New confirmation cycle to keep it busy. For example: I like to go out of my way to give big sincere compliments to artists when they draw something I like, and seeing them react to my compliment makes my brain happy. everyone wins

Nadia Rain Chassis @softchassis12/5/2023, 4:52 AM

Making this realization was one of the best things I'd ever done

chirasul @chirasul12/5/2023, 5:09 AM

Realizing that thought habits are muscles and you can make the positive ones stronger and the negative ones weaker just by exercising them really changed my life

sharks + planes as formerly seen on Twitter @sharksonaplane12/5/2023, 11:26 AM

ironically*, the first thing I did after reading this post was check the comments 🥲

*not really ironic because this is a positive post and I opened the comments to look for other helpful tips people may have!

Mightfo @Mightfo12/6/2023, 3:54 AM

i have similar thoughts here https://cohost.org/Mightfo/post/1514658-this-is-super-releva its so easy to just trick your brain by presenting things to it, so they're suddenly Proximate and Mean More Than Other Things You Arbitrarily Didnt Present To It. or like enjoying the loving presence of friends is something you can only do if you dont just trick your brain into shoving some other thing out of a trillion things at it

MoxieCat @MoxieCat12/8/2023, 5:13 PM

I was gonna make a joke about "I am here in the comments because I already lost," but while thinking about it I realized I have never once gone into Cohost comments expecting to see bullshit.

chirasul @chirasul12/8/2023, 5:49 PM

since cohost really has limited function for harvesting clout by being deliberately inflammatory compared to other sites, it's much less of a problem here

MoxieCat @MoxieCat12/8/2023, 6:30 PM

The lack of algorithms and "numbers" probably guarantees it, but I sure hope that continues to be the case as Cohost evolves.

Azure @AzureLazuline12/13/2023, 2:55 PM

thank you for talking about this, it's been a big thing i've had to realize about myself for the past few years. One of my closest friends really struggles with this, and had to install extremely difficult-to-bypass internet filters to prevent itself from seeking out negativity.

i use very simple filters to help out, but just realizing "yeah, this is what i'm doing and i should probably stop" was a really huge step for me.

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