Could someone give me some advice?

In Pascal, I usually see people using one-based index. But in C++, everyone prefers zero-based index.

I know each has its own advantages. I find it hard to use one-based index in forming formulas because I have to add and subtract 1 all the times. In zero-based index, this is not a problem but sometimes because the first element is zero, so if I want to use some initial values I have to set it to negative, for examples -1, but the issue is I have to check the overflow of the value because I cannot index negative value.

I want to get used to just one type, so anybody can give me more ideas before I do it? Thank you.