"The opposite of cursed comments; artistic masterpieces that fill you with joy and euphoria," the moderators of 'Blessed Comments' state in the community description, and we can’t help but wholeheartedly agree.
Ever since the forum was created in 2018, it has served as a refreshing outlet for people to share and find the sweetest, funniest, and purely optimistic comments online. With over 56k members witnessing and chronicling these wholesome encounters daily, the group spreads positivity by proving that even when the world feels full of adversity, it’s not as bad as it seems.
To learn more about our tendency to emphasize the negativity in life and the tools we can use to become a tad kinder, we reached out to Joshua Klapow, Ph.D. a psychologist and creator of Mental Drive. He started this well-being initiative to help people gain access to the best in-class psychological and performance tools to live healthier, more fulfilled, and successful lives.
According to Klapow, we humans believe we’re constantly surrounded by negativity because we are trained to pay more attention to it — "bad often means danger." The psychologist told Bored Panda that from a survival perspective, it is important to be dialed into anything dangerous.
"As we have evolved, 'survival' becomes more complex. As a result, relationship breakups, lost fortunes, stealing, corruption, etc. all are associated with survival, and so we are drawn to it."
This explains why it’s so easy for us to focus just on the negatives. In fact, this instinctual drive to seek out the scary, the awful, and the alarming has a name. It’s called negativity bias and it means that we’re more likely to register and dwell on negative thoughts and experiences than positive or neutral ones. We are even inclined to focus on the pessimistic aspects when they are rather insignificant.
And it's no secret that online hostility can feel overwhelming. Just think about the news and comments about the political turmoil, the looming economic crisis, and the bottomless supply of information that only adds more fuel to our inner chaos — it's hard to stay resilient to negativity.
According to Verywell Mind, this bias leads to remembering traumatic experiences better than positive ones, recalling insults better than praise, reacting more strongly to negative stimuli, and responding more strongly to negative events than to equally positive ones. This tendency to pay more attention to bad things and overlook good things helped keep humans alive in the past, but we don’t really need to fear for our safety as much in the modern world.
So to lead a more fulfilling life, we must gain back control over how we perceive this tendency. We need to become aware of how our brains get so wary and try to put things in perspective to see that it’s usually not as tragic as we think.
Outlets such as 'Blessed Comments' are a breath of fresh air that reminds us of the wonderful encounters happening online. However, we can also take a step further and add a dash of joy by shifting our mindset.
When asked how to maintain a bright outlook in real life, the psychologist explained that the research is very clear. "We must train our brains to look for optimistic and positive events because the default for so many of us is to look for negative ones." The creator of Mental Drive added that things like gratitude journals and appreciation lists help balance the negative information saturation we live with.
Speaking of the challenge of keeping ourselves positive online, Klapow noted that following uplifting and upbeat sources is like having a balanced meal. "It’s critical for our mental health. Make sure you have at least some information streams that are automatic and positive coming at you." After all, optimism and happiness are contagious. It’s important to surround yourself with cheerful people, both in the real and the digital world, who can help you unwind from unfortunate events happening today.
However, we all need to strive to stay rounded and well-informed citizens, and turning a blind eye to the negativities in the world won’t make them any brighter. In a bid to broaden our horizons while keeping sanity intact, one thing is crucial — balancing out the content we consume.
"Social media is a 'filterless' landing place," Klapow said. "We are free to express as much pent-up anger, frustration, vitriol, sadness, stress, etc., that we have in our lives." You can essentially say whatever you want online — whether it’s objectively true or not, kind or cruel — and not really have a price to pay for doing so.
However, Klapow said this approach fuels a toxic, negative sea of information and perspectives. "Keeping ourselves more positive is a matter of training ourselves to do so."
