More on positive thinking vs. positive outlook

“Think positive.” is a mantra that has long pervaded in sales motivation and life coach seminars. And still a lot of people believe that positive thinking is the way to go to get them out of debt or to relieve them of their arthritis or rheumatism. It seems to me that positive thinking has the makings of a cult furtively touted as “secrets of the universe revealed” devised by enterprising authors as the panacea of failure and desperation which drains the wits out of those who fall for their anecdotal trappings purportedly from people who achieved financial freedom, health recovery and all through their glossy books. 

I had the opportunity to take a course on Positive Psychology offered by the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) which was conducted by world-renown researcher and psycho-social and Psycho-physiologic scientist, Dr.  Barbara L. Fredrickson. By the way, Dr. Fredrickson’s scientific contributions have influenced scholars and practitioners worldwide, within business, education, counseling, healthcare and the military. Many of her works have been featured in The New York Times, NPR, CNN, PBS, The Atlantic, The Economist, and in scientific journals. She has also been invited to brief His Holiness the Dalai Lama on her research on several occasions.

Thus, many of the things that I am putting here are culled from her insights and the things I learned from out of those mind-riveting lectures and studies she presented in that course.  And yes, positive thinking is not something like a kind of magic spell that will drive you to success. Otherwise, we can just forget about planning and execution and just wait for things to come or happen. Positive thinking is not also the “push button” that we thought will achieve our goals and ambitions in life.

In fact, one can actually even succeed even by negative thinking. And evidence suggests that the success and proliferation of the human species can also be credited to our negative nature because once upon a time, our ancient ancestors lived in very harsh conditions where fear was a good and necessary attribute. They had no concept of positive thinking. Fear made them resilient to the wild and chaotic environment they were into at the time.

So what in the world is positive thinking if at all it’s not what we think it is?

I think positive thinking, as it is viewed and applied, is highly misunderstood. Positive thinking is to be taken in light of what drives us to achieve certain goals or to solve a problem not by trying to feel good or to induce one’s self to feel high all the time in relation to such goals or problem. If we look back to the experience of our ancestors, positive thinking, like negative thinking, is in essence, our response to a particular situation not a ready-made response to any good or bad situation.

If you remember in my previous column, positive thinking is an outlook. It’s how we look outside and how we respond to it from the inside by introspection and the impetuous employed to respond properly to the situation – it is the appropriate response to a problem or a challenge after time spent on self-deliberation.  And I beg to differ in terminology because positive thinking is quite broad, obscure, and misguided in terms of its everyday application. Thus, positive outlook is a better or suitable term for what it is in its proper sense and context. 

A positive outlook enables us to cope in adverse or traumatic experiences. It guides us to the appropriate mindset in situations where or when our skills and capacities are tested. It is a product of reason and belief in the feasibility of the work to be done and the preparations made in the face of (or in anticipation toward) a very emotionally-charged condition or situation. 

While positive outlook can help us cope or achieve certain goals in life, we just don’t know how to acquire a positive outlook to begin with. I’m excited to talk about attaining a positive outlook and the tools Dr. Fredrickson and her team of researchers put out to help us ordinary folks deal with day to day challenges and emotional devastation.   

This I will talk in my next column.

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