Negativity is not healthy! Don't be a Negatron, be an Optimus!
How does one stay positive? One really doesn't know sometimes. Today my estate agent tried to rip me off for 600GBP and someone tried to steal my dirty laundry from my backpack (I found this out later when I noticed my backpack was open after walking down the streets of New York for a bit). I have become an incredibly vengeful person. My estate agent in particular seems like she has it in for me. All I want to do is terminate my contract as quickly as possible, but she just won't let me go without taking even more advantage of me than she already has done so far. She charged me a 200GBP cleaning fee for an already clean apartment, and then pretended that she didn't notice that the 400GBP that was left over was in fact the remainder of my deposit, meaning she should give it back to me. Instead she tried to frame it as if I owed her the money.
Why do people do that? Why do people in act in such a way that it negatively affects other people? And in a spiteful way too. I'm not saying I don't understand. Objectively speaking I can follow the train of thought easily. But I could never imagine myself doing something like that to someone else. The people doing these actions must have been horribly wronged themselves to come to their conclusions. Even so, past experiences provides an explanation for their behaviour, not an excuse. I remain firm in my belief that a streamlined version of the death penalty is an adequate solution for this problem. It's not punishment, it's simply getting rid of the problem altogether. And the anarchist in me says: if society collapses because of this, then so be it.
But that's not the main point. The real thing that worries me is how this interaction with 'evil' people affects me. I've grown very cynical as of late, and the worst thing is: I've actually improved my life because of it. Not trusting people and suspecting them to betray me has made my quality of life better. Or, put in a concrete example: suspecting lies and deceit and time-wasting on the side of Barclays made me choose HSBC instead, and so far I am happy with them. But even HSBC keeps calling me to sell me their insurance, which is annoying. Modern society is telling me that I cannot trust anyone and that I should always suspect the worst.
Part of the reason why this is happening to me now, is that I never had a need for many of the more 'socially deceptive' parts of the system. I never needed a business bank account in the past, nor did I need to deal with estate agents to get an apartment. I never needed, and still don't need a loan, a mortgage, or a daycare center. As you grow older your needs increase, apparently inevitably, and equally inevitably you will have to deal with disappointment, betrayal and evil. I would have mentioned here how Japan is better than every other country and blablabla, but Japan is notorious for being highly discriminative against foreigners with exactly these things you need when you get older: bank accounts, apartments, mortgages, schools. That said, Japan has not showed me its dark side yet, whereas in London and in New York I am drowning in it.
But what can you do about it? I have been asking myself that question at least several times every day for the past few weeks. It seriously bothers me. I cannot take action against the system, because the system will never chance. And frankly, I don't think the system deserves to be saved. It needs to fall down hard. But you can't lash out against individuals either because that's both small-minded and illegal according to current laws. Seething with pent-up rage doesn't help you either, so what option is left? As you can see, your freedom is severely limited by this, yet many people don't even realize it. One of the recurring topics I talk about with my friends here in NY is the amount of rage in the city. It only takes an extremely tiny provocation to set someone off. It's a ragebomb waiting to go off. I know NY has its good parts, and I've been amazed by many awesome things in this city already. But I would never choose to live here. Even the Netherlands is better than this.
Existing systems that are already messed up cannot be un-messed-up by people's actions. Not in a single lifetime anyway. The only other thing to do is leave. Find the best system that works for you, and stick with it. Help improve it and make it even better than it already is. But do not have patience for those things in life that are just not worth it.