Revival

I need to revive this poor old blog. It's been an amazing year and this thing fell by the wayside.

On September 17th, 2009, I was offered what is seriously the best job I've ever had in my life. I am a contributing editor for Massively.com, and even after nearly a year I find myself amazed that I actually do this for a living.

I play MMOs for fun and relaxation, and suddenly I write about them for pay. It's mind-boggling.

Most days I'm confident that I'm good at what I do. I've still got miles of room for improvement, but I think I started out well, and I've learned so much from my incredible editors. I should probably thank them more -- they seem to only hear from me in a professional capacity when there is a complaint. Note to self, do something about that.

Actually, that segues nicely into what's been on my mind this weekend. People seem to have an endless capacity for negativity, and I wonder if it will ever stop taking me by surprise. There is always someone who is just dying to tell you all about why "x" game sucks, what you did wrong, how another gamer or commenter sucks, just anything negative. They love it so much, and every now and again the flood of negativity just knocks me flat.

It's another facet of that tendency: we focus on the negative and blow off the positive. I could get 50 people saying how much they love my work, and five telling me in great detail exactly how and why I am a disgrace to my profession. Guess what I'll focus on. My current project is to break myself of that habit.

If I figure out the secret, do you suppose I could bottle it and sell it?