For a few decades now, positive thinking has enjoyed a certain reputation and it seems that it has no intention of quitting. The network, social networks, are teeming with self-styled gurus who talk about here and nowof the resilience, thoughts that shape life, so if you think positive everything will be fine, if you think negative you will only attract negativity. But how long can you keep positive thinking? Certainly not for days, or even hours, if we live a life where we can also recognize painful emotions and understand that they too have a function.
Psychotherapy has also developed so-called positive psychology, which invites us to focus on improving the happiness of mentally healthy people, rather than relieving the mental pain and trauma of those who are suffering.. This school has been espoused by both psychotherapists and social workers, life coaches and new age therapists. But there is evidence to suggest the approach has a downside.
Positive thinking: is it the only sane approach?
By and large, the most common advice given by positive psychologists is that we should seize the moment and live in the moment. This attitude should help fuel positive thinking and literally avoid three of the most infamous emotional states, which I call RAW emotions: regret, anger and worry.. Ultimately, it is a therapeutic approach that suggests avoiding focusing too much on regrets and anger about the past or worries about the future.
Regret, for example, which can make us suffer by reflecting on the past, is an indispensable mental mechanism for learning from one’s mistakes to avoid repeating them. Likewise, worries about the future are essential to motivate us to do something that is somewhat unpleasant today, but which can create gains or save us a greater loss in the future. If we don’t care about the future at all, we may not even care about getting an education, taking responsibility for our health, or storing food.
Furthermore, research has shown that negative moods in general can be very helpful, making us less gullible m. Studies have estimated that a whopping 80% of people in the West actually have an orthymism bias, meaning we learn more from positive experiences than from negative ones.
This can lead to some ill-considered decisions, such as putting all of our funds into a project with little chance of success. So do we really need to be even more optimistic? To nurture positive thinking? For example, Optimism bias is related to overconfidence: believing that you are generally better than others in most things, from driving to grammar.
Overconfidence can become a problem in relationships (where a little humility can save the day). It can also prevent us from adequately preparing for a difficult task and blaming others when we ultimately fail.
Defensive pessimism, on the other hand, can help anxious people, in particular, prepare by setting a reasonably low bar instead of panicking, making it easier to overcome obstacles calmly.
Despite this, positive psychology has left its mark on decision-making nationally and internationally. One of his contributions was to spark a debate among economists about whether a country’s prosperity should be measured only by growth and GDP, or whether a more general approach to well-being should be adopted.
While happiness questionnaires measure something, it is not happiness in itself but rather people’s readiness to admit that life is quite often difficult, or alternatively, their tendency to arrogantly brag that they always do better than others. The excessive focus of positive psychology on happiness, on positive thinking and its assertion that we have full control over it, is harmful in other respects as well.
After all, if we are in full control of our happiness, how can we blame unemployment, inequality or poverty for our misery? But the truth is, we don’t have full control over our happiness and social structures can often create adversity, poverty, stress, and injustice – things that shape how we feel.
Believing that you can just think about yourself better by focusing on positive emotions when you are in financial danger or have suffered a severe trauma is at least naive.. Positive psychology is also not a conspiracy promoted by capitalist societies, we do not have full control over our happiness and that striving for it can make unanimity unhappy rather than happy.
Pushing a human being to cultivate positive thinking, to be happy is not very different from asking not to think about a pink elephant: in both cases the mind can easily go in the opposite direction. In the first case, not being able to achieve the goal of being happy adds considerable frustration and guilt. And then comes the question of whether happiness really is the most important value in life. Is it also something stable that can last over time?
The answer to these questions was given over a hundred years ago by the American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be helpful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to make some difference that you have lived and lived well ”.
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