The fact that you recognize this is a great first step.
It’s not abnormal to have a negative mindset. This goes back to our caveman days of having to think about the worst case scenario for everything since it was literally life or death.
I suffer from a negative mindset as well, and have found that therapy has been useful. Some things that worked for me:
As soon as you wake up, think or write down three things you’re grateful for. I found this very difficult at first, but it can be something simple: the sun is shining today
Think/write down 2-3 things that you will work on today to see the positive in - there’s usually a silver lining there, but you have to look at it hard, and honestly
Don’t watch the news. There’s never anything good there.
Cut back on social media. I went into a deep depression in 2016 and it was fueled by Twitter. I deleted every social media account I had, even LinkedIn. In fact, this HN account is the only thing o have now, and I mostly lurk.
Remind yourself that you can’t control other people - only yourself. Everyone suffers. Everyone can make bad mistakes and bad choices that may impact you. That’s a reflection on them, not you, so don’t let their choices and consequences live rent free in your head. You control you - that’s the best you can do.
Get adequate rest and exercise. It’s cliche, but those two things are the BIGGEST contributor to a healthier mindset.
Journal - writing stuff down helps me process negative thoughts and emotions. It can be cathartic. You may go through phases of wanting to write everything, and then nothing, and that’s ok.
Talk to a therapist. There’s no shame in this and it can help you understand where your negativity comes from and how you can change it.
Hope this helps. From another sufferer who’s still working on it himself.
A few years ago, my city provided all residents with low flow showerheads - for “free”. They were even delivered directly to homes.
They included literature around reducing consumption and the importance of that for sustainability.
Enough residents installed these that it led to a city budget deficit, since water consumption went way down, and they therefore generated less revenue.
Hearing him name drop terms like markup language, stylesheets and internet is mind blowing. If only the promise of “no delay in response” had been achieved :-)
We wouldn’t make applications. Rather we’d deliver components which could interoperate via a binary contract.
Components would be “snapped” together by non-programmers to make an application.
I suppose that pieces of this became true with the proliferation and adoption of open source. Rather than a binary protocol, HTTP came out on top.
SharePoint brought us WebParts which tried to put the power in the hands of business users, but it turned out they were still too technical and not flexible enough.
I don’t see the role of software developer/engineer going away anytime soon.
Agreed. It took me a couple of years to reach that same conclusion. When I did, I deleted Twitter and LinkedIn - the only two platforms I used.
When I realized my mental health was suffering from the “infinite scroll” and the toxicity of people saying things on Twitter that they’d never say face to face,I knew it was time.
That was almost 4 years ago. As the meme goes “No ragrets”.