Don't be a cynic

I was a cynic for most of my teenage years. One day my drama teacher labeled this behavior: “Ahhh, you are a cynic.” That one sentence made me reflect and realise that I didn’t really like that about myself. So I stopped.for a long time in school

This turned out to be relevant to a lot of discussions. Sometimes I discuss a difficult problem with someone and they say something like this:

I put my personal information on all the platforms.

Yes, smoking kills, but we all have to die one day.

Climate change is here anyway.

To me, these sentences feel like an attempt to escape the problem. Make a joke about it and keep doing what you know is bad.

In a group discussion, people always laugh at these sentences. But I think it is not a happy laugh. They laugh not because it is funny, but because they share the helplessness.

I found that a good response is:

Right, but I don’t want to be cynical about it. This is a real problem that deserves a real solution. So what can we do about it?

As a result, many people tend to get much more serious. Often they think a bit and then say:

I know it is problematic, but right now the good outweighs the bad for me. So I’m going to keep doing it.

Which is a much more helpful way to think about things in my opinion.

And even if there is nothing we can do about a problem, then I will talk about that. Don’t make a joke of it. That’s what the Joker would do. And I don’t want to be a cynic like the Joker.