To be or not to BE

I am known as the girl who writes sad stories.

Why?
Because I always write sad stories! I have always written about things that credit “sad” or “heartbroken” around the edges.
Okay, not just around the edges. Every nook and every corner.

Why again?
Because pain gets attention.

As a little girl trying to make a name as a writer, mind you, I was not considered a fairly cute girl. I excelled in my studies, but who cared about a chubby nerd in high school?

But coming from a “wannabe” broken home, I did one thing well:
I could really console a broken heart.
A teen broken heart, specifically. As a 13-year-old, I somehow understood the terms and subtext of pain. Almost like I owned it.

I didn’t have the language for it back then, but I could sense what someone meant even when they didn’t say it out loud. So, I became the girl who wrote heartbreak stories.
Some were mine, many were borrowed from the people who trusted me enough to share theirs.

As an adult, my emotionally “stable” friends often ask:
“Why don’t you write about something happy or exciting?”

Because pain is money. People pay more attention to what hurts.
Pain drove more attention, and the reason they wanted me to pursue writing was that I understood where sadness comes from. And I had the words to explain it.

Eventually, I transitioned from
“I write to deal,”
to
“I make serious money with my writing.”

But even then, I could not, for the love of God, change my approach.
My words bled only when I saw tears. And then something interesting happened: that instinct followed me into User Experience.

People’s tiny annoyances started to… cheer me up.

Not in a villain way, more in a
“Oh wow, this frustration is telling me something important.”
way.
People naturally remember the things that irritate them.
Those moments stick. They speak louder. They tell the real story, the one beneath politeness and surface-level satisfaction.

I know the pain points and the hypothesis, but empathy was the core of User Research. And Good for me, I was the “Empathy Ambassador.”

The sighs, the eye rolls, the
“Why is this button dancing?” moments
were always more revealing than the polished
“Everything’s great!” answers.

So without turning this into a psychological lecture, let’s just say:
Your tiny frustrations were my biggest clues.

And honestly?
I loved that.

Because maybe I do love being the girl who writes about pain and sadness.
But I have also learned to turn that sensitivity into something actionable.
Something that helps fix the very pain I write about. My sad stories now lead to clarity, empathy, and solutions.
And honestly? That feels like a really good ending.

P.S. The whole article was my attempt to convey Negativity Bias