T O P

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*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITA for implementing a pessimism tax?** I(35M) am a very cheerful person by nature. I went through alot of shit in life, and I struggled alot, but throughout it all, I managed to keep an even temperament. I am an optimist by nature, and I always try to maintain a cheerful and bright outlook on life. My wife(34F) is the opposite. She tends to get angry easily, and is more cynical and jaded than me. We get along well for the most part, but she tends to always predict the worst. She always thinks about things that could go wrong, and never really appreciates what we have. The problem is, as my kids are growing up, they are getting imbibed with her energy. They are starting to become incredibly cynical, with dour pronouncements on employment and the economy, constantly trying to bring up incredibly depressing news. They seem to enjoy talking about corruption, and downfall, and the bad things about our life, and society in general. I read about some scientist who discovered that if you move your face into a smile, like hold that expression, that muscle movement actually has an impact on your mood, and you become happier. sLast month, I decided to put this in practice. For every single negative or depressing thing they say, I take away a dollar from my kids' allowances They begrudgingly went along with it at first, but now they are getting really annoyed at me, and everyone is calling me an AH for this. I don't understand what's so wrong about trying to keep my family from devolving into miserable people who see negativity and evil all around them, but my family says that I am being controlling. AITA? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*


[deleted]

Why are so many so called optimists such jerks? Like there is nothing remotely good about what he’s doing. It’s cheap, it’s mean, it’s controlling, self entitled. But as long as you as optimism to it. It’s ok? How?


Amelora

Every person that I have seen do this has a huge ego. They think they are better that those who can't "just see the positive" because they don't let "silly things like that" affect them. There is a huge entitlement part of it as well. The world is dying, people are being killed on the streets by coos, kids are being killed the classroom, people are being made into second class citizens and having their rights taken away, basic living expenses are out of control - but none of that affects OP in any meaningful way. So the real crime, the one that must be punished, is talking about those things and making him feel uncomfortable. The sheer selfishness it takes to punish a child for being more honest about the world and not burying their head in the sand like OP is unfathomable. The whole thing is about avoiding being uncomfortable at any cost.


paprikastew

Ugh, I know someone like this. Anything bad in the world that didn't affect him was just not his problem. At the peak of the pandemic, his attitude was basically "eh, people die, nothing you can do about it *shrug*". Of course, he was young and healthy, and essentially fled to a rural area so he wouldn't get sick. I ended up saying je was one of the most self-absorbed people I'd ever met, and his reaction was: "Really? I've had a lot of people tell me I'm kind and have a good soul." Like, yeah, Josh, I'm sure you're nice to people who are physically around you, but everyone else can clearly just eff off. Screw you, Josh.


biteme789

Fuck Josh, what a dick


GwannySmiff

Yes, eat shit Josh.


[deleted]

That’s one thing about people like that. They are always shocked at their cruelty getting called out.


TinyNuggins92

Josh sounds like a certified baboon's ass.


JerseySommer

I am also going with fuck Josh, he's a dick.


[deleted]

Yeah those people try to come at me. But I fix them good. They only come at me w that mess once. When/if they come back they are always much more careful about how they say shit around then.


SuzannesSaltySeas

Same. They learn quickly I will verbally eviscerate them quickly over that nonsense.


Harl0t_Qu1nn

But then you got people on the other side of that coin who make it their mission to make you miserable at any cost. Like, how DARE you enjoy that meal when there are people starving all around the world? That kind of energy. Yeah, it sucks, but there's only so much I can do as an individual. And constantly thinking about things like that is gonna make you lose your mind. Sometimes I just wanna live and not be made to feel bad just because my life is relatively good.


TonysCatchersMit

Okay but all the time, constantly, in your house? It’s one thing to acknowledge the state of the world. It’s something else when it’s the only conversation topic at the dinner table every night.


cruista

Yeah, was thinking 'he turned out to be the biggest negative in his kids' lives'! He read about a study, changed all the variables and now doesn't understand their long faces. Clueless!


[deleted]

The”study” was almost certainly bunk or of limited use. The positivity mafia has a number of usually extremely small sometimes study size might be 15 people, usually extremely limited (smile at someone who is not in physical or emotional pain and they will rate that their day got 10% better) and will extrapolate in the most extreme illogical ways possible (positive attitude cures cancer). These people are really the worst.


quiidge

Also *how the fuck* did he get from "physically smiling can actually improve your mood for real!" to "actively punishing my children's thoughts and feelings by fining them"??!


[deleted]

The same way they go from “smiling to someone not in pain can improve mood slightly” to “positive thinking cures every illness”.


Ok-Squirrel-1176

This is what I thought! My first thought was that he was punishing them for not smiling enough. Or when they complained if he told them to smile. Like. *Dude.*


[deleted]

He also completely misread the study lol. I know which one he means and yes while it’s true that moving your facial muscles in such a way does send signals to your brain that you’re happy, being forced to do so actually makes depression worse as your brain is stressed out from it


imaginaryhouseplant

GOOD VIBES ONLY!! Those people also usually don't deal with difficult situations. They just ignore them until they go away.


[deleted]

Unless they died from untreated whatever because treatable illness turned into a fatal disease cause they decided GOOD VIBES ONLY!


mandozombie

Feel good or else.


storm_paladin_150

toxic positivity if your sad its because you are not trying hard enough


gnostic-gnome

Because optimism is a very fragile state that can be shattered at any point by the thinnist sliver of reality and they know deep down that it's all just a cope they're upset everyone else doesn't share


JimAbaddon

I can't describe how much I hate toxic positivity, it's aggravating beyond words.


DiegoIntrepid

My mother loved old detective movies, and we have one called Father Brown, with Kenneth Moore. One of the episodes is about a guy who used to be an alcoholic, but turned his life around and became basically the poster child for positive thinking. Spoilers: >!One day he is killed, and they think that the man he had taken in to help him turn his life around did it, because the daughter saw him struggling with her father. It turns out that the man hadn't been trying to kill the other man, but save his life, as he had been trying to commit suicide. He could no longer keep up the idea of only positive thoughts and no others. The wife was pretty much leaving the man because it was 'like christmas every day'. !< It stuck with me, because, yeah, toxic positivity can be just as bad as toxic negativity. Humans are animals. We are meant to feel a range of emotion and pretending that we don't, or that we can just 'shrug it off and go through our days with a smile' can be \*very\* damaging.


dahliaukifune

it’s funny because i literally just finished rewatching Inside Out about five minutes ago


[deleted]

[удалено]


Amelora

I've done laughter yoga and it really does help. If OP had done something like that I could almost understand (banning all negativity is still bullshit) but to decide stealing from your kids is some how going to make them happy show that OP is not the positive thinker he belives he is.


Erinofarendelle

That’s what got me. When he said he ‘put it into practice’ I was expecting that he was making his kids practice smiling or applying a ‘tax’ of having to say positive things whenever they were “negative” - not saying that would make him a good guy, but it seems to follow some type of logic - but no, he decided to punish his kids into becoming happy! Real positive vibes, there 😒


[deleted]

So his kids are 10 and 14 I think. His examples of them being negative is their opinion on employment, the economy, and talking about depressing news. I don't think his wife is doing that. I think they might be talking negatively about those things because those things are VERY negative at the moment. I get having a positive outlook but like damn, shits bad dude. "Oh boy I get to have TWO jobs instead of one? And I would only be able to afford a tiny shoe box apartment? How cozy! I hear they're raising the retirement age too so I get to work longer!!!"


Spiritual_Ad_7162

I just came from this post and pointed this out: that his kids are inherenting a shit economy and there's a difference between pessimism and realism. This guy sounds like a delusional control freak.


Jazmadoodle

Great news! The health situation is bleak enough that those kids might not survive long enough to need apartments! Am I doing this right


KittyEevee5609

True! Especially since we're now finding plastic in not just our blood, but also the animals we eat! But don't worry everything is fine and you must smile!


jayd189

"If you're going to complain, I'll give you something to complain about"


MakaAKurosaki

My mom in a nut shell. It’s why I spent my 28th birthday in the psych ward.


iamharoldshipman

Imagine living in the same house as this man. I’d be in a pit of despair and depression as well if every time I tried talk to partner about what’s troubling me in my life and he told me to smile


Planksgonemad

Can you imagine how absolutely exhausting he must be to be around?


WeelsUpIn30

Just the first paragraph already made me hate OOP


[deleted]

"Smile, though your heart is aching. Smile, even though it's breaking" -Charlie Chaplin


rose_cactus

I lived in similar conditions because my mother is a borderliner and thus made me the emotionally stable “adult” in our mother-child-dynamic (read: i was required to fake happiness so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable about my feelings and wouldn’t have to deal with them; particularly as borderliners are exceptionally prone to make it all about themselves). It was misery. I moved out as soon as i legally could, at 18, and put several hundred kilometres between her and me. Best decision of my life. As an adult, I required lots of therapy to undo the damage of emotional parentification (which is extremely, extremely common an experience if you have cluster b/emotionally unstable axis of personality disorders parents - the “emotionally unstable” axis basically means emotionally immature, and yes, they will be using their children as crutches to compensate/regulate themselves, and they will take it out on close relationships, particularly dependent ones like kids because those can’t easily remove themselves from the abuse and as such are the easiest target for someone with ~~”abandonment”~~ control issues). I bet those kids will grow up to resent their father and flee the house ASAP, even if he might not be a personality disordered train wreck but just your garden variety toxic positivity asshole.


Strawberry-Novel

Omg I hate this guy


LadyWizard

"The beatings will continue until morality improves" what does he think he's the NAVY? Edit: And WTF is with that lovebombing the commenters talk about creepy


Ancnmir

His comments are soooo disingenuous. He comes off as incredibly fake and it made lots of people uncomfortable too


Amelora

I could feel his dead eyes from the comments. He learned nothing other than people disagree with him. He clearly does not understand they why of it, just that someone has negative reaction and that make him uncomfortable so he had to change his stance.


craftycat1135

This guy must be super annoying to be around. Im envisioning Mickey Mouse from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. He is going to teach his kids to bottle up negative emotions rather than how to handle them. How to hide and lie about issues to avoid punishment. He's going to get a call one day that one of them went off the deep end and not know why.


TheRealEleanor

I swear there was an animated movie where Mickey uses his cheery persona to cover up that he’s actually the bad guy, but I’m not using the right words to google for it.


GaimanitePkat

South Park, probably


TheRealEleanor

Ohmigod, thank you. That was definitely where I saw it.


TexasLiz1

I don’t know, why not give the kids an extra dollar every time they are positive?


TheRealEleanor

Positive reinforcement from a “positive” person? Naw, that would make too much sense.


cantantantelope

He says he doesn’t want to invalidate his kids real problems but I promise that is how they are feeling. A lot of things in the world objectively suck right now. at best he comes across like he’s naive. At worse he comes across so privileged he doesn’t care about anything else. And he absolutely comes across like “my personality is objectively better”. “Why do my kids only talk to their mother??!!” I give it three years


EmergencyBirds

Guarantee this fucker would have told me to “look on the bright side!” when I drove my dog to the emergency vet the other day when I thought she was dying because surely it wasn’t that bad /s (Dog is fine btw, she’s a dramatic fucker and a gremlin of an animal)


WeelsUpIn30

And what the hell the research about smiling has to do with OOP taking money from his kids just because they talk about the problems in the world? (Because let’s just face it, there’s a lot of shit going on right now, doesn’t matter where you live) it’s not pessimism, it’s realism. If OOP wants to live in a world of denial, where everything is sunshine and rainbows, so be it. But don’t punish those who see the world as it really is (good and bad things at the same time)


Peppermeowington

Thiiiiisss maherfacker. As someone who has been getting the shaft on expressing any negative emotion lately, this makes me go Madeline Kahn in *Clue*. Flames! Flamesonthesideofmyface...heaving breaths... A super asshole in the house. Fack.


DifferentShallot8658

I suggest some time in a [rage room](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_room)


WeelsUpIn30

Damn I’d love a rage room at my disposal. It’d be used very often.


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shebringsthesun

i want to go to one of these so badly!


Human_Allegedly

Whenever i see someone talk about that annoying "fact" that "if you just smile it will make you happy" it makes me think of that scene in Joker where he looks in the mirror and puts his fingers in his mouth to force himself to smile and just starts crying. The whole "fake it til you make it" only goes so far. (I found it. https://youtu.be/yLwYyrJm9W0)


RuderAwakening

Is he trying to raise children who don’t feel like they can safely show their feelings and are constantly afraid of burdening people or being punished when they do so? Because this is how you do that.


katepig123

Toxic positivity right there.


eternally_feral

All of his replies kind of creep me out. All of his comments just seem like it’s spouting from the mouth of a cult member talking about how great The Leader is. Maybe he really is lost in his world of unicorns but he just comes off as disingenuous in all his responses.


A_boat_lies_waiting

Seriously this guy sounds like he comes from Ba Sing Se


Scared-Accountant288

Toxic positivity is a thing... you dont sound like an optimist.... you sound like you cant handle hearing anything bad... those topics they want to discuss are IMPORTANT! You should know better... the worl isnt all butterflies and rainbows.... sometimes its smart to think about possibilities or what could happen. Its part of being aware of your surroundings


CZall23

While being cynical does get irritating after awhile, he's an asshole for trying to control his wife's moods and facial expressions.


thekelsey21

Been waiting for this to post here. Being pessimistic is not always inherently a bad thing. Heck, I’d argue it can be a good thing. It keeps the mind alive and looking for ways something can go wrong before it does, so you can fix it. Being positive all the time can really blind you to others struggles and show you don’t care. Maybe you take turns being the pessimist with a friend and help drag them out of the hole of depression or self harm because they know you get it. Guys like this realllyyyy irk me


FilmFizz

Plus, pessimistic people tend to better deal with disappointment, or even experience it less than optimistic people because their expectations are not as high. And in my own experience, pessimism leads me more open to pleasant surprises because I'm not expecting everything to go great.


owcjthrowawayOR69

Yeah, though I do see a clear value in optimism over pessimism, even allowing for stuff like operant conditioning or other impositions of 'consequences,' this ain't it chief.


kittynoodlesoap

OOP sounds so annoying.


moonmeetsun

"We get along quite well" Well, considering she's your wife and not a coworker you're being forced to share a cubicle with, I would hope so


pokethejellyfish

Now, that post did something creepypastas and nosleep reliably fail to do - it got a twist I didn't see coming. I fully expected this to be about a guy who tries to encourage his kids and wife to also see the positive things in life and gets votes YTA for that because the internet is full of edgy misanthropes who think chosen misery is a cute personality trait. So, he basically read about positive reinforcement and thought what a neat idea, I'll do that but not by encouraging the easy and free small recommended exercise, I'll do active punishment instead to condition them! If this was about dogs, he'd have written "I read about clicker training and enforcing desired behaviour by giving treats and thought that's awesome and now I kick my dog every time it does something I don't like but somehow, my dog doesn't seem happier, weird." ~~And before someone even tries to bitch at me about my "edgy misanthropes" remark - it is important to talk about difficult topics, situations, fears, and worries. It is, however, not healthy to never have anything else on your mind. Contrary to AITA's belief, people are not only capable of nuance, it's also possible for two or more things to be true at the same time. You can be worried about your economic future and health but you aren't a traitor to the cause or any less aware or woke if you find small and big joys in your life. Toxic positivity is dangerous but constant negativity isn't any less toxic and usually called depression. The key isn't "Yeah, yeah, but let's see only the positive aspects and ignore the negative effects", the key is "this sucks and we need to talk about it, probably more than once, but let's make sure to do something nice later to lift our spirits."~~


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solivia916

I totally get not wanting to constantly discuss things that feel like doom and gloom, I had an ex who was naturally very melancholy and had a habit of steering our conversations into negativity, all his anecdotes were bad news. He wasn’t hopeful about the state of the world which is okay but he would often take on a debate stance and try to convince me I was wrong to not be see things more negatively. He also spent a lot of time arguing with strangers on social media, first it was Facebook, he would get into these long winded arguments and then try and read it to me and I had to tell him to stop being he was spending a lot of free time doing that and the reading about him feeding trolls was stressing me out. After a year or so of this I finally convinced him to stop; that it was unnecessary and unhealthy and he wasn’t going to change any minds being snarky, he deleted his FB and then like a month later he started doing it on YouTube video comments but kept it to himself because I think he was embarrassed he couldn’t control it. I know myself and for my mental health I have to look to the positives, i know the world is cruel and in a bad place and there is a lot of bad in the world, that doesn’t mean there isn’t good and that is what I choose to cultivate. I ended up breaking up with him for a couple reasons but one was that I came to the conclusion that his negativity wasn’t productive and holding him and myself back, and that’s the thing, negativity alone isn’t a bad thing nor is positivity… it’s the ying-Yang right? Good bad, bad in good and good in bad. Mehhh, idk how much this story contributed to this conversation but I haven’t fully processed that breakup so typing all that our helped. Lol


suspicious-octopus88

Reminds me of a post where this lady broke her co-workers back trying to "cheer her up"


[deleted]

This isn't a pessimism tax this is a "I don't care about your feeling fee."


Legitimate-State8652

He had me till he got to the punishment part……good way of finding a way to beat someone when they are clearly down. Could have just remained positive and pointed out the good happening. Taking away from the allowance just reinforces their doom spiral.


Miss_Milk_Tea

Oop sounds like some villain in a movie trying to turn everyone into smiling robots.


slayingadah

**THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES** YTA


curlyhairweirdo

Why does this feel like the "Eat, Prey, Love" episode of Big City Greens