Am I being negative? “Henry Rollins made the observation that if you’re 20 [...]

I don’t think I’m getting depressed, but I’ve felt a little down lately thinking about if I hurt people and make them sad. However, it seems that I should go on expressing my views, but at the same time just make sure to emphasize the constructive part of it.

Perhaps I should just stop wondering, say thanks whenever I want to, and carry on being me!

It is clear from the timbre and words that you actually mean why you say with regards to gratitude and the word itself many people don’t use it oft enough. Therefore in comparison it may appear you use it more than average, which isn’t a bad thing in fact it’s good.

Thank you very much!
I guess that’s just me as a person, I don’t want to make people feel bad.

Regarding thanking people: maybe I’m overdoing it, perhaps it’s too much. The thing is, I’m just very grateful and humble about the fact that people want to read what I write and also comment on it, and therefore I want to express my gratitude.

I hope people won’t regard a thank you from me as practically nothing, the point is noted: I don’t have to thank people every time, I guess.

Anyway:

- You’re not too negative;
- You’re too nice sometimes;
- You worry too much.

“Wha? huh?! ‘Too nice’ ?”

You worry too often about possibly offending people with what you write. You worry about offending your audience/readers. You thank people almost personally for each comment they make.

All that? Not necessary!

We’re not a group of kindergarten kids, we can take care of ourselves, we can handle it if you write something that offends us. If not, that’s OUR problem to deal with, and not yours.

Similarly, a thank you for every tiny little thing someone does for you reduces the value of a thank you coming from you. Don’t mean to put you down about that, but when you thank people for every insignificant thing, it doesn’t really mean much anymore when someone does something of great importance for you and all they get is a warm thank you.

You’re doing a lot of great, excellent things on your blog — good writing, good code offerings and examples, good stuff overall. Just stick with that and don’t worry so much about the rest.

Or as I told Zach Inglis the other day:

I realized that audiences don’t expect or even want you to care about them
audiences want you to do your thing
and stay an audience

So just do your stuff and be done with that

Thank you for your comments, really! They mean a lot.

I take it as a conclusion then that I’m not negative, just very dedicated to what I do and think. Then, naturally, I have to be very clear with my criticism so people will understand it is meant in a constructive manner and not personal.

Once again, thanks.

Don’t worry about being outright blunt, sarcastic and having an appreciation of irony they are good characteristics in the right company. Remember I will on occasion push the boundary further than most people dare, or can handle.

Anyway, it would take years of practice for anyone to lower, to my level of thought and I am pretty much rhino-skinned and rarely get fazed; “I eat webmasters for breakfast” was a phrase that was coined.

Honesty, I have never noticed you being negative or offensive on your website from what I have read. You have projected some ’self-doubt’ on this post, which probably just stems from consensuses about doing the “right-thing” and just having good moral and ethical work practices.

You are on the righteous path; just make sure you don’t end-up like me, or people will start worrying.

Am I being negative?

No. At least not too negative.

It’s obvious though that you guys need more sunshine over there

If beeing exposed to criticism, one always grinds on the negative ones. For instance, if twenty people express that they like your new shirt and one says that it’s awful, you start to thinking about the one that dissed you.

This is normal and human nature but remember that one should always consider the source of the criticism. If that person can’t dress right why care what he/she thinks? Also, the criticism can come because that person had a bad day or what ever. Listen to what the mass tells you, and absorb only criticism from sources that does matter.

Now, to express criticism is hard and doing it right is even harder. Either consume your time doing it softly or be cruel and straight ahead. I guess one way is to continue to do what you do best and ignore the rest. With a little luck, others that you have problems with, will absorb your work and thoughts, and join the path you proclaim. If they don’t, you continue to evolve in the right direction whilst they in another, probably wrong, direction. And who knows, perhaps you’ll join then in their direction.

Nobody is perfect and it’s very common that everybody has different goals and agenda. In my humble opinion (and I have expressed this earlier), you’re doing great job and sowing seeds in whoever reading you blog.

For whatever it’s worth…

I’ve certainly noticed that bad code (be it HTML/CSS/PHP or whatever) tends to bother me. I think that’s because I try to hold myself to a certain standard, and I subconsciously hold others to that standard. It seems like when you are really into something (like web development), you tend to treat it almost as a moral issue. It’s very hard to accept the fact that most others don’t feel that way about your particular line of work or hobby.

At least, that’s my take on it. I dunno if it applies to anyone else, but it’s the best explanation I can come up with.

I do belive however that being negative is a problem that the webdev blog community have. Of course people are annoyed at the current state of the web, I do understans that, but is it nessesary saying things in this tone?

I think we all would get through better to the ordinary web developers if we offered suggestions of improvements together with critique.

I heard this on the radio, and don’t know where it is from (sorry) but I think it will help. It helps me.

“You should say what’s on your mind, just be careful of how you say it.”

Also what I have learned is sometimes people are just not ready to hear criticism of any kind. So you will just have to accept that fact and wait until they are. Other times people just don’t care, and no matter what you say they are not going to change. However you should still get them a chance to improve.

Try positioning your feed back as a gift. People can do what every the wish with your information. Hopefully they will add to it and use it to improve. Most people don’t say anything, I bet you don’t realize home much your insight people appreciate.

Lastly do you get just as excited and say something when tasks are done “perfectly”. Or even someone that gets close. I hope you are already doing this because if not you are just grumpy. Communicating just as much about doing things right has a side effect of people trying to maintain and even improve the standard level. If you are balanced in your feedback then you are a passionate person

Robert, the reason why you are feeling negative is because you have an ingrained sense of morality and professionalism and what you are encountering and seeing grates horribly with these attributes of your self.

Perhaps I have never been a target of your negatism (I make mistakes too) but I have never seen this side of you so therefore, it can’t be all that prominent. Furthermore, whether or not any of your readers has seen this side of you, you obviously feel inside of you that you are being negative. There isn’t much any of us can do other than—for those of us who agree with me—to counsel with you and let you know that we know what being human is all about and we too stumble.

Take heart in the fact that it appears the Swedish Men’s Hockey team has a better chance at a medal than the Canadians.