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>a better approach is to be optimistic about one's own potential to contribute to the betterment of humanity, no matter the field. Also the understanding that there are and always will be bad actors should not dissuade one from being part of creating solutions, as one sees it. Being jaded and cynical will not help in the long run.

Easy to say this, but these two aspects contradict each other. You become jaded and cynical precisely because your potential to better humanity is locked down in beauracracy that has the opposite interest. One can only fight back so much against the tidal wave that was setup decades before you were born.

I'd even go so far to say that the ones who do rise to the challenge need to be jaded, and channel that into overcoming the wave. Being cynical means understanding a need to deeply understand every little action, no matter how simple and otherwise "objectively good" it is in the short run.

It's how you use that cynicism that matters, not the state of being cynical.



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