life imitating art

My sister's a nurse and she told me last week that her favorite patient died over the weekend. A 20-year-old male had a heart attack because his kidneys had given out on him. As if the story couldn't get more tragic, it was discovered that the father was a perfect live donor match...only the father suddenly left the country with some new young girlfriend less than three weeks before the transplant operation and was never heard from again. See, this shit doesn't just happen on Lost.

People often wonder why I can be so cynical or pessimistic and it's stories like these that do it. It's similar to the theory that you can do 10 favors for someone, but they only remember your one mistake. Or, someone can receive 10 compliments in a day, but it's the one insult that will always be remembered.

I don't know if it's that people are more evil than they used to be, or that we just happen to hear about it more in today's age, or if genetics are changing so that people are just born to be....well, assholes. I no longer assume that people are genuinely good, but it's more of a matter of just waiting for people to take a dump on you and in what form.

On one hand, I tell myself that I'm pretty smart to be more proactive in anticipating these things so that I don't get screwed over, but the other side is sad that I seem to have lost faith in others and could miss out on something that's genuine and good.

Just based upon reading other blogs, I know I'm not alone in my thoughts here, which leads me to wonder if our ever-increasing cynicism of others is also why it's harder to make "good" friends as an adult? And the irony that I may be so preoccupied with protecting myself that I may wind up screwing someone over is not lost on me, either, even as much as I'd like to think that I'm a good person overall.

How do you draw the line between self-protection and paranoia?