
The Powerlessness of Positive Thinking - dsr12
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/02/the-powerlessness-of-positive-thinking.html
======
Karunamon
Another article that makes a really basic mistake involving "the secret".

You don't visualize yourself taking the steps to accomplish a goal, you
visualize yourself and your feelings as if the desired goal has already been
accomplished.

Not "I will lose 25 pounds!", but instead "I have lost 25 pounds and I look
and feel awesome and am very happy and thankful to have done so!" \- A great
deal of the secret is replicating the emotional state you'll be in when your
given goal is accomplished.

The idea being that, I suppose if you were to remove the supernatural element
from it, it somehow gets your subconscious to motivate you to doing whatever
it is you want done.

Calling it "positive thinking" really doesn't do the concept justice. Thinking
of goals as already accomplished doesn't really fit that definition.

~~~
sp332
Really? I think I would rather sit around and fantasize about being fit than
put in the effort to lose 25 pounds. If I get the emotional reward before the
work, why do the work?

~~~
acheron
"It's easy to sit there and say you'd like to have more money. And I guess
that's what I like about it. It's easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and
forth, wanting that money." \-- Jack Handey

------
theorique
A lot of the problem with "positive thinking" is that it's also wishful
thinking, rather than the design of resilient systems that make success a
natural byproduct of practicing the system.

Instead of naive positive thinking, psychological research in habit forming
suggests that creating a robust system and habit (or set of habits) is much
more powerful. Assuming and accepting infrequent shocks (e.g. on a diet, but
ate 3000 calories at a wedding banquet) and building the system to handle
these, is much more likely to create success than fantasy thinking.

~~~
hosh
I've found a lot of system design and habit formation to be a kind of wishful
thinking and naive in its own way.

~~~
zeidrich
Habit formation isn't wishful thinking, but I'd say that habit design is.

Habit formation itself comes from routine. Not the desired routine. This is
why we have bad habits.

Good habits are hard, because they are not what we naturally tend towards
doing (or we wouldn't try to build them, we'd already have them). Habits are
self-reinforcing, and are really based off ideas of success and failure. If we
fail to (and regret our failure to) carry out our habit, that is discouraging
and actually makes it harder to keep up with the habit.

The best way I have found to develop wanted habits is to never recognize
failure in the habit. Always recognize success. You want to do something
habitually, keep track of when you do it. Don't keep track in a way that lets
you notice when you fail to do it. If you want to do something daily, don't
mark on the calendar when you've done it, don't write the date that you did it
the last time. Instead write down a simple tick each time you've done it.
Increment a counter. Watch it go up.

Say you want to start to wash your brontosaurus (named Rex) on a regular
basis, say you never wash him currently. Start by washing Rex and mark a tick
down. Then the next time you think about it, wash Rex, and mark a tick down.
If you want to do it daily, the next time you think about it, consider whether
you already washed him today. If you haven't, wash him, and put down a tick.

Don't tally the ticks up. Don't look back to see how frequently you actually
washed him every day. Don't get frustrated because for the past three weeks
you washed him daily but last week you missed him three times in a row. When
you worry about how well you are washing him, just think "Did I wash him
today?" and then wash him if you didn't.

You'll start washing him every day. Or you'll start to wash him every other
day and be happy with it. Or you'll wash him from time to time. Think about
the results instead. Do you have a brontosaurus that is sufficiently clean? If
you do that's great, keep it up, whether you do it daily or monthly. Do you
not? Then consider what else you could do besides cleaning him yourself to
make him cleaner.

Whatever you do, don't just get mad at yourself for not doing it and demand
from yourself that you do it more often, and then promise yourself that you
will. That won't work. You'll maybe do it for a bit and then burn out from
frustration and failure.

You can always do something like set a reminder if you don't think about it.
But if you remember and avoid it, and then get angry with yourself for
avoiding it (or rationalize your avoidance), you're doing the opposite of what
is needed to make a habit.

If you find you are avoiding it (Ah man, I'm too tired right now.) don't tell
yourself you will make it up tomorrow. Don't get angry with yourself. Don't
even acknowledge it. It's a habit, not a chore. It's something you want to do
more frequently, not something you have to do. Acknowledge when you do
complete it, not when you don't. As soon as you start to argue with yourself
("I should do this, but I don't want to") you're already losing the battle.
Don't consider at that point what you should do. Just do it, or don't do it.
Notice and feel good when you do it.

~~~
hosh
What is "good"? What is "bad"? For most people, those are forms of pleasure
and pain. There is no truly "good" or "bad".

Habit formation is a form of wishful thinking. You're creating a rut of the
mind, and as such, become more separated from the reality at hand. Wishful
thinking, at its core, is a form of separation from reality.

Normally, external conditions reinforces the habit, and so the rut of the mind
gets deeper and deeper. But when external conditions change -- as they
inevitably will -- you end up with a psychological dynamic described by the
Five Stages of Grief. Most people's notion of "bad" are formed from when
external changes forces them out of their comfortable habits. They cling to
these habits and wish things would "get back to normal".

As such, there is neither "good" or "bad" habits. There are just habits, all
of which keep you from adapting to change, and are just as much out of touch
with reality as wishful thinking.

------
Jun8
From
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockdale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockdale))

When [...] asked who didn't make it out of Vietnam, Stockdale replied:

Oh, that's easy, the optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, 'We're going
to be out by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go.
Then they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and
Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again.
And they died of a broken heart."

Stockdale then added: This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse
faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with
the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality,
whatever they might be.

~~~
irremediable
On the other hand, I've heard Holocaust survivors tell me their optimism was
what allowed them to survive. I don't think these witty sayings prove
anything.

~~~
dfraser992
Was it really optimism or rather the ability to find meaning within the
experience? I ask because one of the top 10 books I've ever read is Viktor
Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning". He survived the death camps and figured
out how he and others did so. Compared to it, _The Secret_ is revealed to be a
shallow mindless "gimme, I'm entitled" attitude towards life where hard work
is deemed unnecessary - i.e. reality is nothing but a psychological construct
and you can manipulate it with merely your will. In others words, an excuse
for airheads to indulge their inner two year old.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl)

"optimistic outlook" vs "optimistic thinking" is far better, IMO

~~~
irremediable
Very well said and good points. Agreed on the distinction between outlook and
"thinking". Obviously, optimism in the sense of ignorance of one's environment
is a bad idea.

------
adventured
"in order to insure that you aren’t thinking about an unwanted idea, you have
to continually turn your mind to that very idea. How do you know that you
aren’t thinking of a white bear driving a red Ferrari unless you think about
whether you’re thinking it?"

I don't believe this is true at all. I'd argue the best way to stop thinking
about something, is to divert your mental focus to other thing/s
intentionally. Best way to stop thinking about your ex? Find a new boyfriend,
dive deep into a work problem, find a new hobby to occupy your brain power,
and so on.

Want to insure you aren't thinking about something? Don't attempt to insure
you're not thinking about it by thinking about it (a blatantly self-sabotaging
concept).

There's absolutely no need to constantly do mental reference checks to make
sure you aren't thinking about the white bear in a red ferrari. In fact,
that's the worst thing you can do. You can only focus on one thing at a time,
and your brain is finite, as such it's not that difficult to saturate it and
drown out competing thoughts. Given enough effort and time, the bear is
banished from your short term memory and its emotional hold on you is
dramatically lessened. After a while you then realize that it has in fact been
a long time since you've thought about the bear, and you realize said bear's
hold over you is no more. All accomplished without constantly thinking about
whether you're thinking about the bear.

~~~
diydsp
Yes, the author cherry picks numerous inept counterexamples like the one you
cite and this one:

“Ceaseless optimism about the future only makes for a greater shock when
things go wrong;"

This is utter pessimism. I feel sorry for people who are on board with it. In
my experience, the gains garnished from being super optimistic and taking
chances have been much greater than had I sat around on the couch not trying.
I never achieve up to the level of my goals and imagination - but that's
because I continuously push them higher and higher. Instead, I aim for Alpha
Centauri and land on the moon.

I should also add that the emotion of _curiosity_ is a very powerful one for
me. When I imagine the future, and I _don't know_ what something will be like,
the curiosity is a very powerful motivator for me to at least try it out.

~~~
marmot1101
In my personal experience there's no way to truly blunt the sting of failure.
If I go in optimistic and fail unexpectedly or pessimistically and fail as
expected the pain is the same. I don't see the use in torturing myself in the
meantime.

------
hosh
The thing that's not made explicit about "positive thinking" is that:

(1) It is not enough to think positively. You actually have to change how you
feel. If you are out of touch with your feelings, then no amount of positive
thinking will change anything.

(2) In order to be in touch with how you feel, you first have to tune into how
you feel right now -- whether that is "good" or "bad". Then accept it for what
it is now. It's only after that, that change happens.

------
sliverstorm
My path: "Hope for the best, plan for the worst"

~~~
hermannj314
That sounds like a much better definition of positive thinking.

This article seemed to suggest that positive thinking means: "Plan for the
best outcome and assume the worst will not happen." That is wishful thinking
('positive fantasies'). I don't think the two are the same thing at all.

~~~
normloman
If, by your definition, positive thinking includes preparing for the worst,
how come whenever I bring up worst-case scenarios with my colleagues, they
accuse me of being negative.

I don't think most people share your definition.

~~~
hermannj314
I respect that point of view.

I have a simple mind and not a very strong vocabulary. I have no doubt that I
am probably out-of-sync with popular opinion on this topic.

------
pkulak
After Barbara Ehrenreich got cancer and was thrust directly into the positive
thinking movement, she wrote a really great book called "Bright-Sided".

------
jasey
Shameless plug.

We developed a smartphone app at
[http://positivethinking.net](http://positivethinking.net) to solve this
problem.

I don't doubt ideology like The Secret does more harm than good, that's why
our tagline is YOUR SUCCESS STARTS WITH A POSITIVE MINDSET.

Because being optimistic and hopeful is only a small part to being successful,
it's only the start, actually practicing and working towards your goals is the
other 90-95%.

The way we try to help is by motivating and inspiring you consistently to
reach your goals. For example if you want to be successful at business we will
send you insightful quotes from the likes of Richard Branson and Steve jobs
daily.

If you want to be fit and healthy we have things like "success trains, failure
complains" and "to cold, to busy, to tired. NO EXCUSES, TRAIN EVERYDAY".

Being reminded daily of these things has helped changed my thoughts.

Ps, I'm not sure if calling my app "positive thinking" was a great idea
because it often gets lumped with the lazy wish-and-the-universe-will-provide
ideology but it was purely a SEO move.

I would love peoples thoughts on all of this!

~~~
anythingis
The secret defiantly does more harm than good...Ive meet crazies the believe
they can cure their sickness with their thoughts

------
diydsp
> I asked Kappes why fantasies hamper progress, and she told me that they dull
> the will to succeed: “Imagining a positive outcome conveys the sense that
> you’re approaching your goals, which takes the edge off the need to
> achieve.”

This is a massive oversimplification. I know many, many people, including
myself, for whom imagining positive outcomes feeds a chain reaction of emotion
and motivation which drives us to try things within and beyond our reach and
ultimately to come out on top even in the face of numerous failures.

Of course, as posters like theorique point out, it is not enough to merely
fantasize. The positive fantasizing must, and will, motivate one to build
successful habits. It is not enough to distract ones' self with a utopian
mirage. It is necessary to include details and additional questions in the
fantasy, such as "back from the future thinking." e.g. "Ok, my startup is
successful, who are my customers? Who are they servicing? Which features of
what I'm doing/did got me there?"

And I believe doomsayers like the authors of this paper and this article know
it damn well. There's just a more comfortable place for them in the larger
cultural climate to negatively criticize the author of The Secret than there
is in clarifying it. For the authors of the paper, there is more academic
capital in running a "computerized content analysis" than there is to actually
produce any results that help anyone.

Furthermore the abstract of the Oettingen paper suggests serious
misunderstandings of finance (1. Just b/c DJIA goes down doesn't mean the
economy is bad. 2. The measurements were made during a financial crisis) and
correlation vs. causation.

So, fuck this article! Go out and do something awesome and visualize the shit
out of it!!!!!!

~~~
hosh
The quote from the article above can be translated to: "Let's use the fear of
failure to drive success."

That can be done to a certain extent. Sun Tzu, for example, advised burning
the ships in order to make the soldiers desperate. Desperate people appear to
get a lot more things done.

The thing is that, this is not sustainable. Unsustainable efforts like this
does not just lead to burn out, it also leads to unbounded profit motives that
drives a lot of the inequalities today ... which, of course, makes more
desperate people.

I have used this fear-of-failure to drive actions before. But I have learned
that it is a part of "intensity". That is, I'm "cooking" myself. If I turn the
heat up too fast, then I'm going to avoid it like hell.

When people open up to this part of consciousness where they realize they can
change the intensity, it feels like you can do anything you want. BUT, it is
the nature of that kind of experience that you overcome all inhibitions and
obstacles ... including when you need to stop turning up the heat.

Coming back to the cooking metaphor: if you have ever cooked food before,
turning the stove up to its max will not make the food cook faster. (If you
don't cook, I highly recommend picking up some basic skills, like from Alton
Brown's Good Eats series; there are a lot of interesting life lessons coming
out of the application of heat to food).

So I have this knob in my life. I turn it one way and I can intensify the heat
and pressure. I can turn it down and I can adjust it. If I want to toast and
incinerate something, I'd turn it all the way to max. Usually, I want a nice
simmer that will go on and on. It depends on the recipe (your strategy), your
ingredients (what you have to work with), and what it is you are trying to
accomplish.

A good, quick application of heat might inspire you to take action, but you
can flame out quickly. You are totally allowed to turn it down so that once
things get going, it will keep going.

------
scotty79
Negative thinking seems to help me the most. If I'm afraid of something in the
future I tend to obsess about it. The correct way for me to get free from this
is to imagine the worst possible scenario that I can, as it already happened
and think what's next. Then it appears to be not that bad. This helps me to
calm down and actually take some reasonable actions that always prevented the
worst case scenario and lot of not the worst but bad ones.

~~~
manmal
Not the way to go if you have real anxiety. You will start to imagine you can
contract Aids when using a public toilet.

~~~
scotty79
Still, imagining that I already got it and what should I do now would help me
to accept the risk.

------
zeidrich
The article conflates thinking positively with hubris or denial.

Positive thinking, in my view, is more about saying "What do I need to do make
this happen." instead of saying "I will never be able to make this happen."
This article seems to use a destructive type of thought that is more like
"This will happen to me!"

"Gabriele Oettingen and Doris Mayer asked eighty-three German students to rate
the extent to which they “experienced positive thoughts, images, or fantasies
on the subject of transition into work life, graduating from university,
looking for and finding a job."

I agree that simply imagining things simply working out for you can be
damaging. But I think that there's something like positive thinking that
doesn't include baseless fantasizing. To think "I get an interview from 1/3 of
the applications I send out, and I might be hired for 1/5 of the positions I
apply for, so if I make sure I am applying, I will likely find a job" is
reasonably positive thinking, but it's more constructive than thinking "Ah,
I'm awesome, there's a job I want, and I'm certain they will hire me because
I'm thinking positively. I won't bother applying elsewhere, I'm special,
they'll need to take me" and then falling into a depression when you don't
even get invited for an interview.

On the other hand, both of those situations are better than sitting at home
and thinking "I'm never going to get a job anyways, I might as well not
apply".

To me positive thinking is about looking at all of the angles, not being
afraid to see where things go differently, but still have a positive outlook.
"If I do this, there's a 25% chance it will fail. If it fails, I will lose my
money, if it succeeds I will make 200 times what I invested. I have enough set
aside to try this 10 times. It's worth doing it, and I wont ruin myself if it
doesn't work out."

It's that sort of thinking that shows that failure isn't bad, it's just a
possibility. Recognizing that and planning to make the best of both the bad
situation and the good situation is positive thinking.

Thinking "I'm going to start this business, I'm going to throw everything I
have at it, but I'm going to pay myself a fair salary and save. When I
succeed, I will be rich. When I fail, I'll be in a comfortable position to
start again. Life is good." is positive.

Thinking "I'm going to start this business and throw everything I have into
it, and if it starts to look bad, I'm going to throw even more into it until
I'm a hollow shell of a man who can't live with the idea that I could fail" is
ignorant. Wishful thinking, but there's a difference between thinking
positively and being ignorant of the circumstances.

~~~
tokipin
I agree. This reminds me of an anime (Kaiji [1]) that conveys this idea in
excruciating form, and in particular highlights the converse of your positive
thinking: that negative thinking results in often-debilitating myopia.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiji_(manga)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiji_\(manga\))

~~~
babyturtle
or the myopia leads to an intense focus and drive ... which you obsess over
and use to solve a deep problem... (spurred on by the negativity).. that other
people just ignore and sweep under the rug.

------
gesman
Here's how things tends to work:

Beliefs -> Emotions -> Thoughts -> Actions.

So trying to force positive thoughts on top of negative beliefs will last as
long as that exercise.

When you "forget" to think positively - you get back to the default polarity
of beliefs.

So to make the change positive and lasting the beliefs needs to be addressed
either directly or via associated emotions.

~~~
babyturtle
usually its actually emotion -> beliefs

~~~
saraid216
Usually it's actually

    
    
      Beliefs <-> Emotions
      Beliefs <-> Thoughts
      Beliefs <-> Actions
      Emotions <-> Thoughts
      Emotions <-> Actions
      Thoughts <-> Actions

------
nickthemagicman
Mac: Yeah. The Secret is a self-help book that Dee read and explained to us.
It’s about how you can get whatever you want without having to work for it.

Dennis: Yeah, man, all you have to do is envision all the shit in the world
that you want, cut pictures of it out and paste it on a board. Then you get
it, you get the stuff!

------
elwell
Possibly relevant Bible verse: "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in
prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Mark 11:24

Ancillary to that: "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with
wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." James 4:3

------
alecco
The TED talk "Smile or Die" explains problems arising when positivity is used
as corporate or government policy.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo)

------
NerdfaceKillah
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbS9jZOlQjc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbS9jZOlQjc)

Just saying.

------
WalterBright
You have to back up the positive thinking with action, of course.

~~~
scotty79
Backing up negative (or neutral) thinking with action happens more often or to
the better result, studies seem to suggest.

~~~
WalterBright
The kind of negative thinking that leads inevitably to failure is the "I can't
do that, so I might as well not even try."

I don't regard making contingency plans for worst case results as negative
thinking.

~~~
scotty79
Soulcrushing "I can't do that" is depression (which is just faulty brain
chemistry), not negative thinking in my book.

Resonable "I can't do that" (because obese people don't jump 4ft high) is
negative thinking but can be quite resonable and motivating to find another
way.

On the other hand blind "I can do that!" is still called positive thinking
even if it's pure delusion that leads to disaster.

------
jere
What a beautiful and appropriate photo.

------
zackmorris
Am I the only one who becomes demoralized by positive thinking, precisely
because if it worked it would mean that I have some metaphysical effect on
reality? That can be a scary notion, when you really stop and think about it,
that we have the power to reshape the world around us just by thinking about
it.

Having been down in some dark pits of despair, I can honestly say that "The
Secret" had a profound effect on my life. I don't mean in a subtle way. It was
more black and white: one day I was depressed, poor, and lonely, and then I
saw The Secret and started acting more on instinct, the way humans might have
thousands of years ago before they were institutionalized. My theory about how
it works is the same as when you look at geese flying in the sky in January
and it’s 10 degrees outside, and wonder how in the heck they are not starving
or freezing to death. “The secret” is that they are simply acting in harmony
with the reality that brought them into existence, not fighting it every step
of the way or dwelling on how things “should be”. Modern concepts like
scarcity, power, success, money, etc are insidious forms of mind control
because they frame reality in a way that traps people. Children don’t normally
suffer from maladies related to these things, because they are oblivious to
them.

Now how come adults dwell on them so much? I think it’s because they are so
busy working hard to earn a living or provide for their children that they put
subsistence at the top of their priorities. But life’s a game, we’re all going
to croak at some point anyway. The truth is that whichever culture you are in,
at whatever level of affluence, has a strong incentive to keep you right where
you’re at. You could stop trying, go on autopilot and spend your time
daydreaming, and.. nothing happens. You just continue on your present course.
You start noticing how outside forces step in and solve problems that you used
to be micromanaging. You start to notice coincidences and miracles, or even
the emotional fabric that holds society together, the way that people rely on
each other. And your subconscious comes to the forefront and brings
opportunities to your attention that you couldn’t see before, so you can act
on them and create tangible changes in your life. To me, that’s the most
powerful lesson from The Secret. To let go, realize it’s all just details, and
experience the act of living without constantly trying to validate it. Then
the natural laws come back into play and thriving is a likely outcome.

Anyway, that’s the tip of the iceberg, if anyone is feeling a little off
lately, or having a sense that its “me against the world” or “me against god”
or “everything is hanging by a thread”, basically anything along those lines,
I highly recommend looking into group meditation. I started with something
called The Reconnection, or Reconnective Healing, because a good friend of
mine is into it. It’s just a tool among many to quiet the mind and let the
subconscious come forward.

I still think it’s kind of eerie when I think about something and the universe
changes to reflect my interests, but I don’t necessarily think it’s
supernatural. It could have something to do with the way we store memories or
some physical process like that. I’m not really sure, I just know that the
effect is real because as soon as I started trying it, there were too many
unexplained coincidences to happen by chance. I think it’s loosely related to
how faiths become prevalent. It’s not due to the specifics of any religion,
but the notion that belief in itself creates outcomes. It’s sad and ironic
that so often, capable people write it off because science has no explanation
for it (yet). But would knowing the mathematics behind it, say like psychology
or economics, help us incorporate it more readily? I’m not so sure. If you
took any kid and told him or her that the universe is governed by strict laws,
there is no deeper meaning to any of it, or even free will, then depression is
a likely outcome. I know it happened to me, and I wore my depression like some
kind of badge of honor, like I had it all figured out, when I really didn’t. I
still feel depressed from time to time like anyone else, but I actually use
that as a signal now that I’m holding on too tightly, and take some time for
myself to stare at the stars, or go into the wilderness, or do something
that’s not governed by man-made laws, and then MIRACULOUSLY, I feel better.

------
benched
This is quite an issue in my life. Believing and practicing positive thinking
seems like such a self-evident, unquestionably good thing. Especially among a
certain class of people, it's almost never popular or ... I don't know -
"socially tenable" to challenge this. But I can't help but challenge it.
Because to me, it just looks like a nervous tic. In fact, it looks like a
stubborn, neurotic horse that insists on only turning to the right. It looks
compulsive, and subtly fear-driven. In conversation, it's a non-stop,
predictable and inescapable barrage of "Yeah, but", "Well, on the bright
side", "Hey, at least" \- and no matter what I say, they won't stop returning
like it's tennis and they're scrambling all over the court to stop the ball
going out of bounds by any means.

And the people who do this are as offended by my view of the world as if I
spilled shit on their white suit. I'm biased, but I don't see myself as overly
negative. The way I see it, I just don't go out of my way to see the bright
side, or try in a motivated way to hit positive notes while conversing. I
don't feel motivated to be negative, either. But this sure as hell makes me
the most negative person I know, by default. To me, I just can't have a view
of the world other than the view I have; and I can't speak things other than
what I think and see.

From the other side, for myself, I have been guilty of the same thing in the
past. But since I became more aware of it, I now try, when someone talks about
bad luck or unpleasantness in the world, to listen and nod, rather than allow
my larynx to reflexively spasm into a positive platitude.

No, I am not fun at parties. Not to worry - I don't go to them.

Also, yeah I think criticizing positive thinking in general, and The Secret in
particular, both in the same short article, is pretty sloppy.

~~~
hosh
"It looks compulsive, and subtly fear-driven. In conversation, it's a non-
stop, predictable and inescapable barrage of "Yeah, but", "Well, on the bright
side", "Hey, at least" \- and no matter what I say, they won't stop returning
like it's tennis and they're scrambling all over the court to stop the ball
going out of bounds by any means."

Yeah. Those people suck at it. You are absolutely correct that, use of "Yeah,
but" and "Well on the bright side" "Hey, at least" generally indicates trying
to gold-plate pig shit.

As I have mentioned in other comments, "positive thinking" is a misnomer.
You're really working with emotions, not thought. Thoughts arise from
emotions. "Positive thinking" is not so much as using your language to try to
gold-plat pig shit so much as tuning into the underlying emotions, and
perhaps, shifting the emotions to a different shape. When that happens, the
thoughts will arise in a different pattern.

"I'm biased, but I don't see myself as overly negative." <\-- A lot of
negative people wading through their crap don't see themselves as negative. I
speak from personal experience. I can say this kind of stuff now, only because
I was able to tune into the darker emotions and learned how to release them.
There are lots and lots of methods to do this, much literature, teachings, and
trainings on this. The darker emotions stay within you and color how you
experience the world; unless you've had a lot of training and practice at
being aware of yourself, it is unlikely that you would even know how much crap
you carry, though it would _feel_ as if you were being neutral. (It isn't that
you are neutral; it is that it feels _normal_ to you).

Perhaps, be open to the possibility that there are people who don't suck at
this stuff. Observe what they do, the play of emotions running through them,
and how they affect people around them. There are folks like that out there.

~~~
saraid216
I have to ask, because the lack of jargon makes it harder for me to register
heuristic labels.

Are you talking about being a darkworker? Or is that too far afield?

~~~
jaredsohn
I don't think that's the right jargon. Darkworkers/lightworkers are more about
serving yourself vs. the greater good. (i.e. making money via phishing is more
darkworker while building Watsi is more lightworker.)

~~~
saraid216
Eh. The way I heard it discussed, that was exactly the kind of simplistic
misconception that made people think darkworking was terribad. The way hosh
talks about tuning into your "darker emotions" and "releasing them" reminds me
of those conversations.

