Choosing Not to Feel Intentionally Bad

I follow several blogs related to my field of work.  There is one in particular aimed at the millennial generation that has a very large following which I started reading several years ago.  I realized after awhile that it was making me feel bad.  The person who writes this blog believes that she is extremely smart and sees the world differently than the average person.  So she makes connections and expresses opinions that often go against the grain.  At first I thought it would be good for me to read her posts because it would cause me to think differently about certain things.  But then I started feeling concerned that maybe I was doing everything wrong, both at work and at home.

This writer strikes me as overly confident in her ability to make connections about different aspects of life.  Although she’s really only stating opinions that she’s formed through those connections, not providing research-based information.  Frequently her opinions are a bit off-kilter.  I don’t think there’s nothing to what she states, but it may not be as strong as she believes it to be.  That never really bothered me in the past, then I noticed a trend in her comments that truly did bother me.  She seems to have a large number of sycophantic commenters who just gush about how wonderful everything she just said was.  She often either completely ignores, or replies in a cruel and defensive manner, to anyone who disagrees with her, even when the disagreement is respectful.  She told one commenter (who was of course gushing about how wonderful she is) that she wants the conversation.  However, her actions clearly speak louder than her words here and she obviously doesn’t want the disagreement; she only wants the fawning comments.

For awhile I tried to keep reading because it did give me an interesting intellectual counterpoint to which I can react to.  But eventually I had to make the choice to stop reading her blog.  It was making me feel bad, and I have enough things in my life right now that make feel bad.  I know I'm not perfect, but I am trying to make choices that are consistent with my values and I didn't need to constantly feel attacked for trying my best.

In today's photography news, I left the house a little early this morning to try and capture some sunrise photos.  Yesterday morning was very hazy and we had this beautiful, amazing red sunrise.  I was hoping to be able to capture that this morning and did get some pretty pictures, but they aren't as stunning as yesterday morning.

In today's completely random news, it's HOT this afternoon.  I'm kind of a wimp when it comes to temperature:  I get cold really easily, and I'm miserable and lethargic when it's too hot.  I have a very narrow temperature band in which I feel comfortable.  Sigh...