Why Positive Thinking Sucks
For years now the self development industry has had an almost obsessive desire to inflict the idea of positive thinking upon people.
There have been dozens and dozens of books written on the subject stretching back to the early days of the industry with people like Napoleon Hill, Earl Nightingale and Norman Vincent Peele.
Peele’s book, ‘The Power Of Positive Thinking’ is arguably the seminal book on the topic, even though it’s chock full of anecdotal evidence, vague references to nameless people and zero science.
Since those early days, few people outside the positive psychology movement (which by the way is not at all the same as positive thinking, even if there are some basic similarities) have bothered to dig a bit differently to see if there is value in this approach.
As such, there are still books being published on the subject, blogs posted and videos uploaded.
And I’m sorry to say the Life Coaching industry is littered with ill informed Life Coaches banging home the same message – ‘you must be positive if you want to be happy!’*
Positive Thinking Doesn’t Stop You Being Human
Sadly, many take it to such extremes that they daren’t ever be seen to complain online, or admit parts of their lives suck, or that they have the occasional shitty days, shitty weeks or heaven forbid, entire areas of their lives that suck.
Yet as far as I know, all are Human beings and all Human Beings have shitty days, shitty weeks and entire areas of their lives that suck.
I’m constantly on the look out for my generalized anxiety order flaring up.
Which by the way it did for two days last week, resulting in one very poor night of sleep for no apparent reason other than it’s an established pattern from when I was a kid that isn’t easy to break.
I have the knees of a 70-year old, the teeth of an Englishman and an blood disorder that means I have to have monthly phlebotomies to avoid the risk of developing pancreatic cancer.
That’s part and parcel of life, and guess what?
It’s ok.
I don’t need to be positive about negative shit, I just need to deal with it, by working hard on keeping my leg strength up, getting a root canal today and laying off iron rich foods.
A Healthier Option
I can also reframe the events quite easily and reframing has been scientifically proven to improve mental health.
My knees ache a fair bit some days, but at least I can afford to have a gym membership and get physical therapy when I need it. And at least I’m not at the stage where I need cortisone injections.
I also have a great dentist, decent insurance and no fear whatsoever about dental procedures.
And as for my hemochromatosis, well I was super lucky that it was found in a routine blood test before I dropped dead with no idea why.
I don’t feel positive about any of those things, I just deal with them and remain optimistic.
The problem, for want of a better word, with the concept of positive thinking is that it makes so much sense at the surface level.
Smiling through the dark times seems so alluring.
The more positive we are, the happier we’ll feel and the more successful we shall be, right?
Sadly, no.
Positive thinking is one of those elements of self development that can work really well right up until the moment it doesn’t.
To paraphrase Churchill, positive thinking is is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
The Self Development Industries Downfall
But the self development industry doesn’t like dealing in shares of grey.
It wants to tell you this will work or that will work, and if you could just read this book and follow these steps, a happy fulfilled life awaits you.
In other words, it wants to bullshit you into believing there is a cookie cutter approach to life that works for everybody.
Not necessarily intentionally, and not necessarily to part you from your money, but because by and large it’s lazy and it’s much easier to follow established ways of thinking.
Not many people want to rock the boat because they realize they may be the person who falls in the water in the form of being ostracized and/or losing credibility with their peers.
And this could be one of the reasons Life Coaching as an industry is struggling more than necessary to establish itself as a profession. Unlike the field of positive psychology, it’s not making the same efforts to evolve and question its own beliefs.
Let me make something clear. The majority of the advice given on blogs and in books is well meant.
I really don’t think there are many (although there are a few) people lying to make money, but I do think there are people who are just regurgitating others peoples content often from decades ago, without questioning its validity.
The Most Positive Person I Have Ever Met
I have a good friend back in the UK who I have written about on more than one occasion because of his amazing attitude to life.
He started off as my manager and an incredible manager he was too, and we soon become great friends.
Nothing could bring this guy down for more than 10 minutes and I have never met anybody who embraced the positive thinking culture with such fervor and such belief.
So intense was his belief and so well did it seem to work for him, that he was part of the reason I got into self development and started reading books like the aforementioned ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’.
I’m not sure whether it’s that I have a natural tendency to see problems and refuse to pretend they don’t exist, or whether I’m just a miserable fucker, but it never quite felt right to me no matter how hard I tried.
That’s the reason when I stumbled across ‘Learned Optimism’ (al) by Martin Seligman and became aware of positive psychology that it immediately gelled.
Positive psychology doesn’t require you think positively all the time, in fact far from it. It does encourage optimism in the face of adversity, but it’s ok to leave positivity at the door from time to time.
And the reason is twofold.
Firstly, it can be delusional.
I’m not now grinning away at the thought of my root canal later today. It’s a pain in the ass. It’s going to cost me over $1,000, 3 hours of my time, some pain and a load of inconvenience.
Some may say, but wait a minute Tim, that’s not necessarily positive thinking and they would have a point, I am taking it to extremes, but here’s where the difference lies.
I’m also not thinking, nothing possibly could go wrong, I wont have any pain and I don’t need to reschedule my 5pm client as per the positive thinking handbook would advise.
I’ve had root canals before. Some have gone great, others not so.
Therefore, I am prepared for some pain and I have cleared my calendar afterwards in case I feel like shit.
Unchallenged Positive Thinking Can Potentially Lead To Mental Illness
But the second reason is even more sinister, as positive thinking has been linked to mental illness in some people.
My friend got diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease 3 or 4 years ago. On the surface it’s hard to imagine anybody better equipped to deal with it, but I’m gutted to say he’s struggling mightily.
He posted one of the most gut-wrenching comments on Facebook I’ve ever read recently about the darkness he feels and the depression he is trying to stave off.
It brought tears to my eyes and all I wanted to do was fly home and hug him.
But if you know anything about positive thinking you will probably be nodding your head and thinking, “yep, I can see that”.
The problem with using positive thinking all the time is when the shit hits the fan big time, there’s nowhere else to turn.
People who rely on it as a coping mechanism have tremendous difficulty with major life events such as serious illness, the death of a loved one, losing their home etc.
You cannot positively think your way out of that kind of situation because your brain knows it’s bullshit and rebels.
Thinking positively has it’s place in our lives. I’m not demonizing it at all, because it can get people through minor setbacks.
And I’m most definitely not saying you should focus on the negative all the time because that would seriously diminish your chances of a happy life.
But I am saying this:
You shouldn’t ignore the negative stuff or try and smile your way through it all the time. It’s ok to be sad sometimes and it’s ok to say, “this fucking sucks!”
Life is all about balance and this is no different.
So when people try and ram the ‘be positive’ message down your throat all the time, realize that their motives may be sound, but their judgment and understanding less so.
What’s Your Take?
I realize that some people will vehemently disagree with me.
When that does happen, people usually point to themselves or people they know as examples.
They have to, because there’s no science to support their view.
I’m still happy to hear from you though, whether you agree or just think I’m a miserable old git.
Note: Norman Vincent Peele was staunchly anti-Catholic and fought hard on behalf of Richard Nixon and declared that is John f Kennedy were elected that the culture of the United States was at stake as he would serve the Pope before his country. Nice bit of positive thinking dontchya think?
* Whereas there are indeed a lot of Life Coaches who take this approach, there are also a lot who don’t, so please don’t be put off by coaching because there are a lot of great coaches out there doing excellent work.
Great post, Tim, and I completely agree. Life is about the journey here and that includes root canals and bad hair days and the whole gamut. If we try to positive think our way through it, we miss what’s on the other side of the experience. For me, that has made all the difference in living happily versus pretending everything is okay. Thanks for sharing!
I’ve been having a bad hair day since 1980 Sandy ;)
I had a former business partner who never wanted to relay bad news, because he wanted to “remain positive.” You can imagine the problems this caused. (We no longer work together) The thing is, I’m all for positive thinking – it’s great! But not when it isn’t founded in reality. That’s where people take it too far. It goes from positive thinking to imaginary thinking and it often does more harm than good that way.
Something similar once happened to me once.
I sold a business to a friend and he ran it into the ground. I went back in to help wrap everything up and get suppliers back onside by agreeing to take stock back, only to find he’d been hiding bills.
Outside he was his normal happy self, but God knows what was going on on the inside.
I got every single record company except one to agree to take stock against debt and left him to send it all back. He only went and put it all in his garage and never sent anything back.
Unfortunately my bank ‘lost’ my letter informing them I was no longer a guarantor on the loan, even though they admitted they knew to my face, but because they couldn’t find the letter they came after me for the money.
It took 7 years and me finally threatening them with a counter suit for all the hassle before they dropped the claim against me.
I could never mention it was the Royal Bank of Scotland, but if I could, I would ;-)
Fascinating, Tim, cheers. It’s the lies we tell ourselves that eat us alive. I’ve often advocated searching for the truth as a moral imperative. And many of the people I help at the charity I work for also seem to suffer intensely because they are living behind a mask of some kind. Once we can drop our masks and be real in the world, life becomes a lot simpler. I blog with excruciating honesty, and I wonder sometimes if I go too far. I’m British after all and we’re supposed to keep all that unpleasant emotive nonsense under wraps! But so far, the upsides to walking naked through the world far outweigh any potential downsides.
The worst thing is we often don’t know we are lying to ourselves!
Apparently I’m not a gorgeous hunk that has Brad Pitt embarrassed to come out in public. Or so my wife says!
YES!! I get so frustrated and struggle to connect with others in the self development field because so much of it is surface, watered down bullshit in an effort to appeal to the masses.
Sound bites don’t actually DO anything in real life. Real life is nuanced and grey and HARD sometimes. There is a way to choose happiness, be optimistic and loving and yada yada yada and still keep in touch with reality.
It just requires thinking and talking like an actual grown up.
I think there’s also a lot of fear Britt.
Nobody wants to tell the Emperor his naked!
Hi Tim, thanks for this really awesome post. I 110% agree with you!
You are absolutely awesome Tim. The way you approach problems is… I don;t know how to say in in English, smart, chalanging, brave, courages. Maybe simply wise.
I absolutely agree with you. Positive thinking works till the moment id doesn’t. But… is it the same with all things in our life? You’ve said something about your own experience, but can in be put in the same context? It works for you till it would stop?
Maybe there is no solutions. There is only a hard work, on being human, which means being something good for other people. I believe int that.
From my point of view, I think, maybe wrong, that negative emotions and feelings can be a blessing.
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Still sorry for my English
This:
“From my point of view, I think, maybe wrong, that negative emotions and feelings can be a blessing.
That’s 100% true, without them we’d have died out as a species thousands of years ago.
Nice one!
Thanks for the post, was an interesting read! I actually attended a life coaching course that has really helped me with setting my lifes goals, and it’s had a positive affect on the way I see and do things today. I strongly suggest having a look http://www.coachingwithnlp.co . it might change your outlook on things.
Cheers
I am sorry but it looks like a marketing.
Hm, well I am an NLP Master Practitioner and I’ve written a book on goal setting so not sure what you mean.
I’m also confused as to why you link to their site from your gravatar AND in the body of the comment. Do you work for them? ;)
Awesome post. I think positive thinking can be bad when you are trying to set new goals. When you are setting new goals, you can’t think positively! You need to get disgusted with yourself, because that and that alone is what’s going to drive you as a human to make any type of change in your life. I think positive thinking is helpful on some level, but only if you know when to use it.
Agree with you
Well disgust is a very strong negative emotion so I’m not sure I’d take it that far.
Having said that, again there is proof, that people who set goals and visualize things that can go wrong are way more likely to achieve them than those people who see everything as smooth sailing. So I’m with you there.
Hi Tim,
I really enjoyed the article and the sparring with Rob Colins. Not being quite as erudite as you two, I was going to take a swipe at the article’s heading (“Click-bait”?? Hee-haa!). Positive thinking doesn’t suck: Morose or negative thinking sucks! Indian (alleged) adage: “Good white dog fight bad black dog – which one wins? The one you feed most!” I will have to read your and Rob’s comments a little more in depth, but positive thinking – in healthy minds – does not equate to unrealistic thinking; it does not mean you are no longer allowed to be human when the s..t hits the fan. It does mean that instead of getting depressed OR when you notice you are getting depressed about a “negative” situation, that you take a step back – you reframe (?), you try and seek out the positives…Root Canal? Ouch, my friend. The positive? It wasn’t a lobotomy; it will improve dental health and well-being. So…how about my brother drops dead in front of me? Positive thinking?? I doubt it would bring any benefit at that moment – the loss is terrible and non-reversible. Reframing? Later, much, much later – perhaps. Positive thinking? In my case it would be my religious conviction, my belief that my brother is now in a better place, especially if he wasn’t Bernie Madoff or Stalin. What neither of you two (you and Rob) can convince me of is the notion that “mentally unhealthy people tend to have more realistic perspectives”. That’s just bizarre. BALANCED, mature people have the most realistic perspectives and they would utilise positive thinking in a way to uplift themselves out of a psychological quagmire. That’s maybe what Rob meant earlier on, or what you refer to as positive psychology – Learned Optimism – as proposed by Martin Seligman. Anyway -after reading the to and fro between you and Rob I just feel really awake and thank both of you. Of course, Tim, I can’t help myself not to put a sting in the tail: I don’t give a rat’s arse about most of what traditional science has to say about stuff of the mind. A few hundred years ago science stated that the earth was flat, that the sun revolved around the earth – nowadays it says you evolved from slime or an ape through miiillliiiooons of years…hey, it still has empirical limits, and it still isn’t the be all and end all. Having said all that, I fully acknowledge that science has made the most exciting discoveries, has simply stunned with its progress into hitherto unknown fields into, e.g. the microcosm. Science has even developed real clairvoyance for use of spies in the East and the West – called SRV, “Scientific Remote Viewing” BUT it still isn’t the only yardstick or ultimate doctrine in matters of psychology or, for that matter, what is sweepingly called “Positive Thinking”.
Here’s looking forward to more (tongue-in-cheek) “click-baits” – it seems you are attracting the right sort of people most of the time, like Rob in this case.
Michael you make some good points as usual and in your expected respectful manner, thanks!
I’m not sure saying ‘well at least it’s not a lobotomy” is truly a reframe because we’re removing the goalposts entirely rather than stepping to the side to take a look at them! But I get your gist and the removal of the pain and having a dentists I trust and like definitely are reframes.
Robs 100% right with what he says and this has been proven over and over again. People who see the world with a slightly more jaundiced view are proven to be right way more often than people who constantly expect the best. That’s not in doubt. Now you may not have had that experience personally, but that’s not a very large sample size ;)
Actually science NEVER said the earth was flat, that’s very much an urban myth and it was the Roman Catholic Church that insisted the sun revolved around the earth (albeit based on Aristotles theory) and they wanted to string Galileo up by his balls when he said..’er, hang on a minute’. Not 100% sure whether it was by his balls, but they were certainly pissed with him.
Science is indeed constantly evolving as are we, but I think because it makes mistakes it’s a mistake itself to dismiss it. We all employ heuristics in our thinking that can, and do, trip us up on a regular basis. Science tries to bypass that and not take short-cuts that our brains desperately want to take.
My next post will be ‘Why Fish Will Rule The Earth By A Week On Friday’
Excellent post, I am loving your blog, Will gladly share it on linkedIn and my network.. Keep the amazing posts coming.
Appreciate Alex, thank you!
Tim, whilst you’ve been enjoying major dental surgery, I have figured out how to hit the nail on the head here.
Overly-positive people tend to pick the most positive interpretation out of the set of all possible interpretations. This leaves them with a superficial smile, but as you rightly point out, leaves them vulnerable to being blind-sided by misfortune as they fail to develop adequate coping mechanisms.
Mentally healthy people tend to pick the most *beneficial*, though not necessarily the most *positive* interpretation in any given scenario and are able to bend the truth so it is most helpful to them.
Mentally unhealthy people tend to have more realistic perspectives, but they are also often stuck into one way of perceiving things, and this inflexibility is the root cause of much of their mental health issues.
You can thank me later ;)
No! I shall thank you now, good take!
I think the saying ” you cant polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter” sums up positive thinking.
Now, positive action, that’s a different story.
I’ve heard the first part of that expression but not the latter, so thanks for sharing man, it made me chuckle!
My dentist has gone awol!
Bloody autocorrect I meant cognitive restructuring.
My mouths numb not my fingers?
And yeh of course I did Rob. A more accurate title of positive thinking can often suck would have seen very little traffic.
And I do believe that on its own it does suck so I’m not making shit up.
You blog largely for fun, for me it’s fun but’s it’s also crucial I get readers if Its to be viable. I want people to think differently and if I can’t come up with intriguing headlines then a lot less people read and I don’t get that opportunity.
I’ve always done it mate.
More thoughts as I lie in my dentists chair.
You make a good point Rob about people leaning toward depression often having a more accurate world view, but I’m going to stand my ground on reframing or conflictive restructuring not being delusional.
I don’t think any of my examples betray delusion just a shifting of focus. Also the way this has been shown to literally require the brain makes it different from a lot of coping mechanisms.
I’m curious with the 5% because I thought they’d prooved that attitude had little effect on outcome a little bit like it’s been proven support groups for breast cancer patients don’t have and beneficial effect.
Having said that I know you’re da man when it comes to research so I’d love to see the link if you have it still.
After all if people think meat that is 95% lean is healthier than that which is 5% fat, anythings possible.
The (intended) crux of the most is don’t try and smile your way through every negative situation because you may make things worse.
In talking about happy smiley bloggers with ‘perfect lives’ who encourage this approach at all costs I thought I’d made that clear, but on reflection maybe I didnt.
I think perhaps we’re getting a little caught up on semantics here. We seem to be using “focus”, “interpretation” and “delusion” to mean pretty much the same thing.
I can understand why you dislike the word “delusion”, as it has negative connotations. However I do still feel we’re basically talking about the same thing.
People with good mental health are able to pick & choose an interpretation (or delusion as I call it) which is most beneficial to them.
By contrast, depressed people tend to be “stuck” in seeing the world in only one way, and coincidentally the perspective they have tends to be more realistic and accurate than mentally healthy people.
P.S. I love you, Tim.
Hey Tim. Another killer article, you really are on fire at the moment. Not literally, I hope.
The reason I struggled with this article at first is that “positive thinking” is itself a vague and nebulous concept which seems to mean different things to different people. It wasn’t until I reached the end of your article that I felt I had a proper grasp of what *you* mean by positive thinking.
Reflecting as I type, I think I *mostly* agree with you.
Yes, much positive thinking is actually slightly delusional – but that’s not really a problem. I’ve seen it convincingly argued that in fact good mental health is one big delusion. In reality, it’s depressed people who seem to have a more accurate view of how the world really is. As a sufferer of occasional but severe depression myself, I have struggled with this.
I value the truth highly, and if I saw the truth more clearly when I was depressed, then why would I want to have “good” mental health?
I realised that a large part of my good mental health is actually using little tricks to make me feel better about the harsh realities of life. If I accepted life as it truly is, I would be miserable as fuck. It is my *deluded* tricks which give me positive mental health.
Let’s look at some examples: Looking for the silver lining in a shitty event. Many times, there is very little positive which can be perceived about certain shit events. If I were to view those events clearly and accurately, I would be depressed as fuck. Instead, I choose to look for the silver lining – I try to find how I might be able to see some good in a certain situation. In other words, I think positively. This is *good* for my mental health!
It is good to have a fairly accurate perception of the world. But then, in order to deal with it successfully, we often need to tell ourselves little lies about how the world is so that we can function correctly within it.
Let’s look at the NLP technique of reframing, of which I am a huge fan. I use reframing on a daily basis. It boosts my mental health. It makes me more motivated. It draws me closer towards taking positive and beneficial action in any given situation.
However, if I look objectively at what reframing really is, I can see that it is often simply choosing one of the most positive possible interpretations out of a set of very many different interpretations. So which interpretation is correct? It simply can’t be the case that the NLP reframe is always the most accurate and close to the real truth. But again, if we opted for a more neutral or negative interpretation in order to be realistic, we’d feel worse and
Reframing is a classic example of what is actually a beneficial delusion. What matters isn’t whether or not a given self-help technique is delusional. That doesn’t matter per se. What matters is whether a given technique/approach/delusion is *beneficial*. This is exactly what I realised in the depths of one of my most serious depressive episodes. It’s also what then drove me to beat my depression and improve my mental health.
Perceiving the truth is important, but having good mental health is actually for important (for me, at least).
You do seem to have muddied up several different kinds of thinking under the label “positive thinking”. I think it’s this conflation which is the source of my disagreement with you. Being brutally honest, this post would have been better if you’d taken the time to carefully categorise and identify different kinds of “positive thinking” and describe why you feel each is beneficial or not. You kinda have done this, but not clearly enough for my tastes. And I suspect this blog post will attract a lot of criticism because you haven’t laid out your ideas clearly enough and you’ll get lots of people arguing the toss on both sides of the argument.
In certain situations, it is good to have a realistic view of the chances of success and act accordingly. For example, when starting a business, I want at least a 50% or 60% certainty that I will succeed and meet at least some of my primary objectives in order for it to feel worthwhile. This is a great example of the power of realistic thinking.
By contrast, let’s imagine a patient who is told realistically he has only a 5% chance of surviving 5 years. Science shows that the people who take this statistic seriously and then give up, tend to die soonest. Those people who have an unrealistic (e.g. deluded) sense that somehow they will be in the 5% which survive, tend to be those who live the longest.
Hopefully I have demonstrated that it is an oversimplification to say “positive thinking is bad”.
Rather, I would argue that different types of thinking are beneficial in different contexts. What we ought to be doing is matching different styles of thinking with different contexts, in order to provide the most benefit. You’ll see that I’m taking quite a utilitarian approach here, as opposed to the idealistic and overly simple one which you seem to be advocating.
I hope you don’t take offence at my robust criticism of your post. I feel very strongly about this matter and, without wanting to sound arrogant, I’m pretty fucking sure I’m right and you’re wrong!
Cheers buddy
Rob
Very quickly before I head off for my root canal.
I did say this:
Thinking positively has it’s place in our lives. I’m not demonizing it at all, because it can get people through minor setbacks.
And reframing isn’t ever a delusion.
It’s not changing an event if, It’s choosing how we interpret it.
Apologies to you and Terry as in my haste I have scanned your comments so may have missed important stuff!
And I missed an important quote I wanted to add that actually came from a client.
Don’t think positively, think healthily.
Fuck I’m annoyed I forgot to include that, I may edit later.
Fair enough, mate. I hope the root canal goes well.
So you sort of seem to be agreeing with me that positive thinking is useful in certain situations.
However, this view seems to be at odds with this post’s title, which implies that there is nothing useful about positive thinking.
Tim, dear friend, did you pick this post’s title merely to be contrary and act as click-bait? If so, shame on you!
As a blogger myself I often look for eye-catching titles, though there is a fine line between being gently and amusingly enticing, and being disingenuous. I know that integrity is extremely important to you, so make sure you stay the right side of this vague and blurry line!
Of course, you reserve the right to tell me to fuck off :)
Rob
I know it’s only a phrase and (I hope) you were joking, but I don’t feel ashamed!
I would have gone with something like, “The Dark Side of Positive Thinking” – implying that there are both pros and cons.
And that would have been fair enough, if not as Google friendly.
Loved your post. It was a balanced presentation. I have read Learned Optimism and I’d like to read more from Seligman.
Check out Authentic Happiness.
I love your take on this topic and both agree and disagree.
Agree: Positive thinking often gets confused with wishful thinking. Here’s the difference. If I “wish” in one hand and “sh*t” in the other, we certainly know which will get filled first. But when considering positive thinking or positive mental attitude , there are two steps required but overlooked for it to be effective. Those steps are meditation and action. Specifically “Right Meditation” and “Right Action” which are Buddhist concepts that bracket Right Thought (aka positive thinking). Mastering the 3Rs of Right Meditation; Right Thought; Right Action allows one to be resilient in the face of life and begin to live life abundantly; regardless of circumstances.
Disagree: In my experience, when right thought (positive thinking) is bracketed with “Right Meditation” and “Right Thought” a workable system is created that fuels desired results.
Right meditation creates stillness in the mind allowing us to detach from our mental, psychological and emotional histories/stories/beliefs. I think of this as creating fertile soil in which we can plant our “Right Thoughts”.
Right thought (contemplation) is the process of seeing things as they truly are. Whether it be a physical, financial, relational or other problem, you see it as it really is. Because we have detached from our emotional and psychological involvement, we can logically and rationally make choices for our best next action (Right Action). Being able to make one’s own choices is indeed “positive”.
This process is then repeated (preferably twice daily – taking about 15 minutes each time). Before practice, we review the results our actions produced (karma – cause and effect) which serves to inform us whether we’re on track or not and allows us to use our meditation and contemplation to discover our next best action.
While I am not a fan of the word empowerment, it does apply here beautifully in that by practicing the 3Rs we are able to truly take control of our lives by first controlling our minds to create positive thoughts and inspire proper action.
Lastly, as science begins to map and document our mental processes and the effects of meditation I feel we will, over time see science proving the anecdotal evidence which has been alluded to since human kind stopped eating their dead and became “civilized”. But regardless of scientific evidence which will prove exact formulas of what works and what doesn’t; we each have free will to do whatever the heck we want to do. ie smoking and overeating.
I think you’re referring to the noble eightfold path, although there is no right meditation per se, but there is right mindfulness. Let me think about the rest.
Hey Tim,
You’re accurate in that I am referring to a Reader’s Digest version of the 8-Fold Path geared to a contemporary Western palate. As one deepens their meditation practice/experience, the subtleties of the 8-Fold Path are more easily integrated.
I understand the haste, thanks for taking the time to review comments before your dental surgery.
Cheers,
Terry
Great comment Terry.
The problem is… Can we be really detached?!
It is a serious problem, a fundamental one. Buddism says – yes. Taoism says – yes. But other perspectives/religions says – No. You can’t. You are not observer. You are a creator and an actor. Quantum mechanics says that you just CAN’T observe, but you always create a reality, by the action of observation.
But I recognize your word as words of wisdom. Just sharing my own point of view.
I, too, work with a Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I can spin the most downbeat yarns you could ever imagine when I am low or worried about something.
I tried positive thinking, and then when shit hit the fan, I felt twice as betrayed by life as when I’d expected the worst.
So, now I try to be a realist. What could happen on either end of the spectrum–best or worst, and deal from there. I can hope for the best, but understand that life isn’t all rainbows and unicorns.
So, I do agree with you, but yes, you are still a miserable old git. Oh, and I’ve been reading more and more lately about how positive thinking really isn’t all that, so what the hell, you’re scientifically right, too.
Woo-hoo, we can be miserable old gits together! ;)