Is positivity a negative? Despite an eye-catching headline (“The Tyranny of Relentless Positivity“), that’s not quite what this past Sunday’s “The Morning” New York Times newsletter argued. The headline was inspired by reporter David Marchese’s interview with Samantha Irby, a comedian and contributing producer for HBO’s Sex and the City reboot. With such a headline, one might have expected the interview to offer an entirely nihilistic outlook on life and self-improvement. Though the newsletter was not nearly as defeatist as its title suggests, several of Irby’s conclusions are nonetheless worth disputing.

Marchese asks Irby whether she thinks there are people who have everything under control. Her response is telling: “when I look at [people who have it together], I feel even worse.” Instead of seeing competent people as aspirational, Irby responds with self-loathing. To her credit, Irby is hilarious in her misanthropy: “I bet you eat whole grains and drink enough water, and I’m over here with brown piss and can’t move.” Irby’s humor throughout the piece belies her stance on positivity.

In response to a question on feeling good about her body, Irby responds candidly that “it’s hard to love it when it gives me so many issues . . . . It’s OK if you want to hate your body.” While I would steer clear of the word “hate,” I believe Irby is right to defend dissatisfaction with aspects of oneself that are suboptimal and within one’s ability to change.

So far, so ambivalent. Marchese’s next question is where the rubber meets the road. He asks Irby whether happiness is a goal that we should all be striving toward. Irby’s immediate response is that such a goal “leaves a lot of people out” — namely, those who are suffering. Irby interprets the goal of happiness as tantamount to saying, “Hey, you just got to be happy.”

But this is not at all what happiness or positivity entail. “Striving” implies that the destination has not yet been reached, but that it’s worth working toward. Aspiring to happiness does not mean people should fake its realization. After all, doing so would be inimical to experiencing the real deal. Moreover, by regarding suffering as bad, Irby implies that its opposite — happiness — is good.

Irby rejects consumeristic, superficial understandings of happiness: “The thing where whatever you aspire to is a thing we all should aspire to — I hate it.” I also hate that, Irby. Happiness is not a tropical vacation, no matter how many likes its posts receive on Instagram. Actual happiness comes from meaningful relationships, learning, health, and practicing one’s vocation. Understood this way, Irby is certainly wrong to say that happiness is unattainable for most people. Eating at Michelin-star restaurants and flying to the Maldives on a private jet regularly may be pipe dreams, but they’re also neither an expression of nor a means to genuine happiness.

“The dishonesty behind positivity grates” on Irby’s nerves, she says, but I think she should narrow her gripe to those disingenuous, vain forms of “positivity” common to social media. To recognize that one is suffering, dissatisfied with some aspect of himself, and still maintain a positive outlook is, in the words of Waymond from Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, “strategic and necessary.”

If that kind of intransigent positivity is toxic, then we should hope to be radioactive.