For subscribers

It’s all good, and you’re perfect

Our emotional expressions have been taken to extremes too.

Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox

Perhaps humans have collectively decided that we could all use a little pick-me-up, a way to offset the online and offline grievance discourse out there in the world.

It is hard not to see mindless optimism as an effort to balance the forceful nastiness and negativity of social media, says the writer.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: PEXELS

Pamela Paul

Google Preferred Source badge

Recently I’ve been told that I’m perfect, something I’m perfectly aware I’ve never been nor ever will be.

This generous assessment has come from strangers when I apologise for bumping into them, and from the exceedingly cheerful salespeople at the store where my daughter shops for clothes. “No, you’re perfect!” they’ll insist when I explain the need to rest my Gen X weariness on the fitting room floor, where a modest “No problem” would have sufficed.

See more on