Positive Thinking Is Not Really Bad For You

Positive thinking is not really bad for you. If you want fresh coffee, you have to clean the pot and brew it. Her son is ill, and she has to take him to the doctor. She expects to be in but can’t say when. Your meeting with him, which took two months to set up, is canceled. She wants you to call her back immediately. What could she want? The ones you really need are in this set. The most you can lose in the future is one day’s work. You haven’t heard from him, even though you’ve left a message. One of the two of you will be promoted. Nothing to be alarmed about, but he would like to rerun some tests. What does he mean, nothing to be alarmed about? Why does he want to do them over? Most people use the bad thing label three to ten times more often than they use the good thing label.

The Power Of One

Each time you use the bad thing label, no matter how fleetingly, you’re adding a tiny bit of stress to your life. You may think that’s trivial. You may even claim that it has no effect on you. Cumulatively, it has a huge impact on you. When you label so much of what happens to you as bad, it reinforces the feeling that you are a powerless pawn at the mercy of outside forces over which you have no control. If you look back on your life, you’ll find many instances where something you labeled a bad thing turned out to be not so bad after all and perhaps even a good thing. Here is a perfect example of how difficult it is to know immediately whether something is good or bad. He was a good swimmer, a very good swimmer, and was training to compete in an important meet. He slipped on a patch of ice and broke his wrist. For weeks and weeks his coach kept him on the sidelines kicking, while his teammates practiced furiously. Initially, he was devastated and felt that his career was over. Then he simply buckled down to doing what his coach told him to do.

Just To Keep Satisfied

At the meet, in one of the crucial events, his opponent swam the race of his life. He was quite behind at the halfway mark and should have lost. But the weeks of kicking had given him muscles he’d never had before. He kicked even harder and touched the finish wall a whisker before his inspired opponent. He beat Milorad Cavic by th of a second to win his seventh gold medal. It was one of the closest finishes in athletic history. And without that extra spurt, Phelps would not have won eight gold medals in a single Olympics to beat Mark Spitz’s record. So when Phelps broke his wrist in the midst of his most intense training, was it a bad thing or a good thing? A case can certainly be made that that injury was the best thing that ever happened to him. Notice how you immediately judge what happens to you and label it a bad thing or a good thing. Focus on the bad things. The many ways in which they are not so bad and perhaps even good. Even if you can’t see how something can possibly be good, refrain from labeling it bad.

Work That Magic

If you break your leg, don’t label it a bad thing. If you have to stick a label on it, use I broke my leg. This is descriptive and neutral. Be generous with the good thing label. It may take you a while to get the hang of it and even to recognize how judgments you pass. See how your life changes when you stop using the bad thing label. It’s simply not as effective as something else I will show you. Imagine you’re in a hurry, in the lobby of a tall building, and you have to get to the top floor. Positive thinking will have you run up the stairs with a resolute heart and unflagging determination. Your legs pump and your muscles ache, but you keep going. You’ll eventually get to the top, but it will take longer than you want it to and you’ll be exhausted when you get there. With my method, you simply take the express elevator. You’ll get to the top faster and find yourself fresher and better able to take care of whatever business you have. What is the method I advocate? Positive thinking is embedded in our national psyche as an appropriate response to the curveballs life throws us. Parents and relatives urge us to think positive and look on the bright side when we’re down. But you don’t realize that, by doing what they suggest, you are effectively taking a car with eight cylinders and disabling four of them. Sure, the four working cylinders will still take you where you want to go, but you have given up a lot of the power and speed. I readily concede that positive thinking has benefited many people. But there is still a problem with it. The problem is that it sets up a duality and encourages you to embrace only one part of it. This duality is embedded in the name itself. You have to muster all your energy and throw it into weighing down the positive side because you are scared deep down that the negative side you’ve created is quite strong and may actually win this battle. This creates stress. And there will be many occasions when you don’t succeed. When you look on the bright side, you’re acknowledging that there is a dark side at which you are choosing not to gaze. If you think that the darkest hour is before the dawn, you accept that you are moving from darkness to light. To a certain extent, you’re kidding yourself. To a large extent, you’re dissipating your mental energy to overcome an obstacle that you’ve created yourself.