I’m Done with Positive Thinking

I think I found a New Year’s intention…. it might sound weird but I am taking a radical stand against positive thinking. I am enthralled with a new book- The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman. I will admit that I am only on chapter 3 but I have been highlighting like mad and re-reading, looking things up in a way that hasn’t happened since I fell in love with Out of Control.

I admit, I do love books that agree with me. I like having someone else help me find the words, the philosophy and the research to back up how I work. Kind of funny but the book (which is I suppose is a self-help book) is highly critical of self-help books because we buy them, consume them and then buy another… though they fail to produce the results we are seeking. I personally have wasted thousands on finance books…yeah, ironic huh? Happiness is elusive. It is hardly ever found where we think it will be.

Positive thinking as a self help mantra has been mostly a disaster. I’m sorry. I know a lot of you have been finally getting the hang of it but it just doesn’t hold up. Google says-“Positive thinking is a mental and emotional attitude that focuses on the bright side of life and expects positive results. A positive person anticipates happiness, health and success, and believes he or she can overcome any obstacle and difficulty.” The problem with that? Expecting positive results and believing you can overcome any obstacle is a set up for major disappointment which positive thinking is ill equipped to handle.

The more we try not to feel unhappy, the more we actually do feel it. You can’t think yourself thin or rich or healthy. I know that that isn’t what positive thinking is suppose to mean but that is where it often leads. Mindfulness and emotional intelligence offer us options for feeling all feelings without resistance or denial.

In light of the recent political atmosphere, thinking positive also feeds privilege. People like Trump believe that they deserve their success and that other people therefore deserve their struggles. I have heard so many people say that it is time for African Americans to get over the past…as if it is just a mindset, not institutional injustice.

The answer isn’t negative thinking. In fact people tend to ping pong back and forth between forced optimism and catastrophic hopelessness. Instead we aim for some hard cold reality and take action. In The Antidote- the path to happiness comes best from embracing the rough parts of life-

 “learning to enjoy uncertainty, embrace insecurity, becoming familiar with failure, even learning to value death. …In order to be happy, we might actually need to be willing to experience more negative emotions- or at the very least, to learn to stop running quite so hard from them.”

I have to read more chapters of course- I’ll get back to you. For now I am building the muscle of optimistic realism. Life is how it is. People are who they are. Now…what to do with that? If I want to feel healthy, I exercise and eat right. If I want to feel better about my finances…and believe me I read all those books, the answer is to work on increasing my income or decreasing my expenses. (Boring, huh?) If I want to feel good about myself I can be kind or generous or take action. I notice my feelings and allow them to guide but not control me. No more positive thinking might actually leave me more time to really get stuff done.

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