Cynicism

Cynical- 1. the belief that self interest is the primary motive of human behavior and are not inclined to think that virtue or sincerity are motivators.

2. having your rose colored glasses ripped off your eyes, thrown on the ground and stomped on.

I swear, the older I get, the more cynical I become. What's worse is that I wasn't always this way. When I was a kid I was very outgoing and friendly. Maybe I was a little too trusting. Overall, Iwas a very nice boy. As I got older I began to withdraw from people. I started noticing how selfish and two-faced we are, just how ignorant and hypocritical. I know that this doesn't apply to everyone. It just feels like everybody's like that. I slowly became convinced that genuine goodness, warmth, compassion and kindness couldn't survive in today's society. Today, everybody is concerned about me and only me. Which is not an entirely unreasonable attitude to take. If you don't take care of yourself who will? What concerns me is what I perceive to be the total lack of interest we show our fellow man. And that is one of , if not the main reason for my cynicism. I'm trying to find the balance between maintaining a healthy skepticism and descending into full blown mistrust of people. It's hard sometimes but I try to look for the good in people and try to keep my spirits up. I've begun reading the Bible daily. It keeps me calm and some of the passages really inspire me to keep going. I'm more than well aware of my own shortcomings and hypocrisy but at least I'm aware of them and try to correct them. Now whether I succeed , I'll leave those judgments to my friends and family.