A few weeks ago, I flew to Vilnius for a short vacation. And as it happened, airport security found a pocketknife in my pencil case. I had accidentally left it there while hurriedly packing my things.

A chill ran down my spine when the security officer fished out my Swiss Army knife. I'd had a pocketknife confiscated at an airport before and was already saying my mental goodbyes to this one. But then the security officer suddenly told me I could go and place the knife in a rental locker and retrieve it when I returned.

When I got back from the trip, I went to the locker — only to find the door wouldn't open, no matter how many times I tried. As a last resort, I called the information number written on the locker. A young man picked up and told me that my locker rental had expired two hours earlier. I asked what I should do now — do I need to pay more or how does this work? "Ah, I'll just open the door for you," he said. And I got my knife back.

A small thing, but it made my day. Both the fact that I was given the chance to store the knife and that the rental locker employee was accommodating.

In fact, little but pleasant things like this happen to me fairly often. Sometimes a driver yields at a place they technically shouldn't. Sometimes a Bolt courier flashes a smile and wishes me a good meal. Sometimes a market vendor undercharges me and adds a smile on top.

It's summer, and since it caught me off guard this year, I'm trying to make the most of it. I go biking, do light workouts and take care of work stuff that needs doing anyway. Overall, I'm trying to keep negativity at bay for now. Though it's not entirely successful. I still listen to a couple of podcasts each day covering the war in Ukraine. I also keep a bit of an eye on what's going on in Israel and Palestine.

One major source of negative emotion and news overload is social media. Sometimes I get the feeling that the sunnier the summer becomes, the more toxic the atmosphere gets online. Do people really have nothing better to do than to hide from the heat indoors, glued to their phones, venting their anger about the weather on the internet? Or is someone stuck at work and, out of envy for vacationers, cranking up the online drama?

I have a relative, an Estonian expat, who mentioned about ten years ago that the thing that wore him out most when visiting Estonia was all the complaining. Compared to back then, I think there's less of it now, but the overall tone seems to have gotten more and more negative.

Among my virtual friends, there's one person who recently brought up again that food security in Estonia is a disaster. The claim was that Estonian products are nowhere to be found in stores and everything is imported. I replied that the stores I shop at are packed with Estonian goods. Sure, I buy some things like chickpeas or couscous as imports, but otherwise I manage just fine with local products.

As if on cue, a few days later I stumbled upon some statistics based on an article published in Nature. According to it, Estonia ranks 15th in the world for food security — only two European countries, Latvia and Ukraine, rank higher.

For instance, Estonia produces dairy products at a rate many times over domestic demand (according to the data, 995 percent of what's needed — almost ten times more than necessary). The only food categories where Estonia isn't fully self-sufficient are fruits and vegetables. Which isn't bad at all, really. And here's a fun fact: Paraguay produces over 7,000 percent of its needs in legumes. Be that as it may, we're not in danger of starving even if something were to go seriously wrong.

Sometimes I feel like a lot of negativity comes from people simply not taking the time to think things through — whether there's actually a reason to complain or not. Very often, what seems like a major injustice isn't really all that unfair.

If anyone remembers, there was a big outcry a few years ago about the generous benefits being handed out to Ukrainian war refugees.

I had the chance to talk to someone from the social welfare department of one of Tallinn's city districts and they cleared things up for me pretty quickly: in reality, everyone living in Estonia receives the same level of support — the benefits for war refugees just go by a different name. But if an Estonian resident is in need, they can receive the same amounts; they just need to know how to ask. That's true, too. When I once received kindergarten support, it was because a city district social worker walked me through the paperwork and got it sorted quickly.

Overall, I recommend enjoying summer while it lasts. No one knows how long this beautiful, sunny weather will stick around. It's not worth the effort to poison your own or others' lives with complaining and whining. It doesn't make anything better anyway. And with that, I'm going to put on my rollerblades and go for a little spin.

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