Therapists Explain Cognitive Dissonance With Watching Winter Olympics | HuffPost Life

The U.S. is awful, always has been, and is the worst country in the history of the world, apparently. This is a common theme, as I found, in the travel and “I moved abroad” genre, described on my Travel blog.

Thus, we now have “news” stories about the “cognitive dissonance” of cheering on U.S. Olympic athletes.

The degree to which you feel shame and guilt right now for cheering U.S. Olympians might also depend on how much cognitive dissonance you have between the stated values of being American –– freedom, revolutionary spirit, opportunity for all –– versus how our government has actually acted in the hundreds of years since the U.S. was formed, said Lauren Appio, a psychologist and executive coach.

The news media fosters much dislike – if not hatred – of the U.S. This constant doomerism, a focus on negativity, and selective reporting to misrepresent stories, leads to many thinking we are in the end times, and life is awful.

Yet based on tons of historical data, we actually live in the best of times – with most of us living what 100 years ago would have been seen as lives of extreme luxury.