[RussEfarmer]

"Online education has grown significantly." that does not mean the level of education has increased, in-fact it actually decreased. According to the Center for Disease Control, the suicide rate and even the rate of hospitalization related to suicide has rose to numbers we have never even seen before. I am in my fourth year of college, since the start of the pandemic, there has been 7 people that I know through college courses kill themselves (2 were childhood friends). I have not dealt with more than two suicides since the start of elementary school, again 7 suicides since just the start of the pandemic alone. Courses are complete ass I haven't learned anything since the pandemic and no one else I know has, in-fact many people simply just dropped out. "The most technologically advanced extraterrestrial vehicle ever constructed landed safely on Mars, and we have real time footage of it landing." That isn't significant to me and also doesn't change anything that is happening down on Earth. In-fact most people probably don't even care as there is people literally sleeping in the street and going hungry at a rate we've also never seen.

This was my entire argument. You cannot expect to be happy when you have something positive and only choose to pick out the negatives.

Do bad things happen? Yeah, duh. Good things happen too. If you only choose to stare at the stuff that makes you feel like a piece of shit, you'll never guess how you're going to feel.

[thunderwalrusinnthebar]

things get worse before they get better.

[Pbever]

"Online education has grown significantly." that does not mean the level of education has increased, in-fact it actually decreased. According to the Center for Disease Control, the suicide rate and even the rate of hospitalization related to suicide has rose to numbers we have never even seen before. I am in my fourth year of college, since the start of the pandemic, there has been 7 people that I know through college courses kill themselves (2 were childhood friends). I have not dealt with more than two suicides since the start of elementary school, again 7 suicides since just the start of the pandemic alone. Courses are complete ass I haven't learned anything since the pandemic and no one else I know has, in-fact many people simply just dropped out. "The most technologically advanced extraterrestrial vehicle ever constructed landed safely on Mars, and we have real time footage of it landing." That isn't significant to me and also doesn't change anything that is happening down on Earth. In-fact most people probably don't even care as there is people literally sleeping in the street and going hungry at a rate we've also never seen.

This was my entire argument. You cannot expect to be happy when you have something positive and only choose to pick out the negatives.

I think the negativity is far more emphasized in the news cycle. Go on to any news website for example, look at all of the headlines. The majority of them will be written in a way to provoke a negative response from you. Unfortunately, this is the news that sells, the people running these media conglomerates aren't stupid, they write them in this way because they know it will give them the highest profits. When there's such a high ratio of negative to positive news stories, with many of these negative stories leaving more of an impression on you in comparison, it's easy to forget the positivity. It feels as if you have to be specifically looking for positive news. Surely this constant cycle isn't ideal for people's mental health.

tl;dr: for every positive or uplifting story in the news, there are many more negative stories, which often take up more headline space. We, not necessarily by choice, tend to think of or remember the things that elicit a negative emotional response.

[White Owl]

"Online education has grown significantly." that does not mean the level of education has increased, in-fact it actually decreased. According to the Center for Disease Control, the suicide rate and even the rate of hospitalization related to suicide has rose to numbers we have never even seen before. I am in my fourth year of college, since the start of the pandemic, there has been 7 people that I know through college courses kill themselves (2 were childhood friends). I have not dealt with more than two suicides since the start of elementary school, again 7 suicides since just the start of the pandemic alone. Courses are complete ass I haven't learned anything since the pandemic and no one else I know has, in-fact many people simply just dropped out. "The most technologically advanced extraterrestrial vehicle ever constructed landed safely on Mars, and we have real time footage of it landing." That isn't significant to me and also doesn't change anything that is happening down on Earth. In-fact most people probably don't even care as there is people literally sleeping in the street and going hungry at a rate we've also never seen.

This was my entire argument. You cannot expect to be happy when you have something positive and only choose to pick out the negatives.

Do bad things happen? Yeah, duh. Good things happen too. If you only choose to stare at the stuff that makes you feel like a piece of shit, you'll never guess how you're going to feel.

Yeah true... I'm going crazy someone help  :D :D :D

[RussEfarmer]

Yeah true... I'm going crazy someone help  :D :D :D

I feel that.. about a couple years ago now, I went through my reddit feed and unsubscribed from all of the negative stuff I didn't want to see. I stopped going on twitter, I stopped going on the reddit front page, left the discords that were full of negative people, and I started hanging out in spaces where the people were friendlier and didn't talk about world issues as much. I also started training myself to stop liking "edgy" humor and to be a little more upbeat. It takes a lot of energy, but did actually work a lot.

[poop MANIAC(fecal frenzy!!!!!!!!]

culture has always been a sewer, nothing will really change in the world without large scale violence and so worrying about affecting it is a fools errand. the best you can do is improve yourself and help improve the lives of your friends and family. life is pain, and it's up to you to man up and make the pain worthwhile through your creations

[jax]

Is it just me or does it seem like every single day it is a different story? People no longer want to help someone else out, everything is overly expensive, society has basically went to shit, entire infrastructures failing, etc.
Relative to what? These are all blanket statements that don't really have any basis in reality. Global poverty has fallen 20% since 1980s. [1] War related deaths decreases with each passing year [2][3] Americans have more leisure time than they ever did in the past. [4] People are afforded more rights than ever before.
Things might look bad, but it's really not as black and white as you're making it seem. We've had a rough year with the virus. Things are significantly better than they were 30 years ago. In some areas, they might be worse but overall I'd actually lean more towards progression towards better times.

I can't be the only person who has to have some type of feeling that something ain't right. Heck even when you talk to older folks they will tell you that something seems off and they've never seen something like this in their lifetime. Yeah don't get me wrong the pandemic messed the motion of everything up but society has changed in a way that is just too negative. Does anyone else feel like this? What can you do to get away from this feeling?
Stop consuming news. Delete twitter, delete instagram. Dedicate your time to yourself and developing yourself. Stop wasting your days sleeping until 1pm. Study, learn a new skill, go to the gym. Be the best person you can be, because frankly you can't change the world around you. The only way the world around you changes is if you, as an individual change.

---

Every day I go on the internet and people make fun of schizophrenics and they don't even understand our struggles

oops

[Lard Lord]

Is it just me or does it seem like every single day it is a different story? People no longer want to help someone else out, everything is overly expensive, society has basically went to shit, entire infrastructures failing, etc.
Relative to what? These are all blanket statements that don't really have any basis in reality. Global poverty has fallen 20% since 1980s. [1] War related deaths decreases with each passing year [2][3] Americans have more leisure time than they ever did in the past. [4] People are afforded more rights than ever before.
Things might look bad, but it's really not as black and white as you're making it seem. We've had a rough year with the virus. Things are significantly better than they were 30 years ago. In some areas, they might be worse but overall I'd actually lean more towards progression towards better times.

I can't be the only person who has to have some type of feeling that something ain't right. Heck even when you talk to older folks they will tell you that something seems off and they've never seen something like this in their lifetime. Yeah don't get me wrong the pandemic messed the motion of everything up but society has changed in a way that is just too negative. Does anyone else feel like this? What can you do to get away from this feeling?
Stop consuming news. Delete twitter, delete instagram. Dedicate your time to yourself and developing yourself. Stop wasting your days sleeping until 1pm. Study, learn a new skill, go to the gym. Be the best person you can be, because frankly you can't change the world around you. The only way the world around you changes is if you, as an individual change.

---

Every day I go on the internet and people make fun of schizophrenics and they don't even understand our struggles

oops

its all good

[DaSeaBass_]

I just want the pandemic to end already and for everything to go back to normal or at least as normal as it can be after having lost a few people.

[La Flama Blanca]

Stay out of social media, stay away from big news, and stay out of anything that involves politicians. It’s shocking how many earth shaking events or the doom and gloom just goes away.

Many of these issues don't directly affect your day-to-day life. If only for your mental health, it'd just be better to not focus on the news and instead focus on what you can control. You can control how you interact with and treat other people, you can control your own health (barring certain medical conditions of course), you can control who's worth being in your life and who isn't, and you can (to a certain degree) control your career or work environment.
I don't know, if there's anything you can take away from this, it's for the best to instead try to ignore the negativity of the 24/7 news cycle and instead focus on yourself and what is in your power. Many of these major problems you listed are far beyond the scope of what a single individual is capable of controlling.

Great advice from both Pbever and Matt.

The best thing to do is just ignore the TV nonsense and just keep your life grounded in your immediate reality. One thing I like to do is keep myself busy. When I'm busy, I don't have time to watch or keep up with the news. And on the online games, you just do what you can to make people feel comfortable - talk to the people getting mad fun of and make them feel like they matter - because they do. Try going out and volunteering. I used to volunteer to tutor kids and enjoyed this activity immensely - being able to do something productive and helping others. Even if you can't do something directly with people, like right now, volunteering to clean up garbage in a park or plant some new plants and flowers in a local park are also great ways to help out.

Instead of playing a game this weekend, see if there's any volunteer opportunities!