Assigning Bad Motives to Others

Sometimes I have a bad habit of assigning bad motives to others.

I’m not always that way. It seems to come and go in bouts. Linked to whether I’m mostly feeling optimistic, or whether my mental climate is pessimistic.

Pessimism is like a poisonous gas I don’t know I'm high on. It colours my perception. Fear sneaks in, and I start to look on the dark side of things.

I’ve struggled with pessimism in my life, a manifestation of how I came to believe through trauma that the world was bad. That others were out to get me, and needed to take first before they took from me.

Instead of having faith that things were going well, that others could be trusted, and that the world—in essence—was good.

My work has been, and continues to be, to a more subtle degree: reclaiming my faith in the infinite good.

Optimism is but a cascade off the belief that all is well, I am supported, and there is always enough.

When I believe these things it colours how I look at the world. Whether I see the good in others or whether I choose to see the bad.