The major problem of Positive Thinking isn’t that it doesn’t allow cynicism. Cynicism is inappropriate in many situations. But skepticism should always be encouraged, and Positive Thinking dismisses them both as the same “stinkin’ thinkin’.”
(For an RSA Animation of Barbara Ehrenreich’s views, here’s a [Youtube](Barbara Ehrenreich’s) link)
See, I wouldn’t interpret it that way if I were the sufferer. Because obviously the consoler sees me in pain, sees my tears, hears my wails of distraught, and yet they are still saying that I’m strong. They validate my pain by letting me cry and by sympathizing with the pain. They encourage me by pointing out that simply surviving is a sign of a strength. Most importantly, they show their empathy through offering real-live, hands-on help.
On the other hand, a “positive thinker” would invalidate my pain by telling me (gently and ever-so-well-intentioned) to “please don’t cry.” They don’t try to empathize with the pain…they don’t even want to think about it. “Things will get better”, they will say. “You have to be strong and have faith”, they will say. Think about this. The first consoler isn’t telling the sufferer they have to be anything or do anything. In fact, they want to provide comfort to that individual by doing something for them. While the “positive thinker” believes the tears are a sign of weakness and that the person lying in their death bed just needs to be stronger. They may promise to send that person “positive vibes”, but that’s it. Positive thinkers have been programmed to stay away from people who they believe are full of “negative” energy. A person crying from the ravages of cancer is definitely not full of “positive” energy, so they tend to stay away from that person physically and emotionally.
Get the difference?
That is a good point. I guess you don’t want throw positive thinking gasoline on a greed fire. I wouldn’t usually think of people who over-bought and over-paid as doing so based on positive thinking, but when people are ready to fool themselves, they’d be very attracted to any reason to ignore reality and disregard the consequences.
Oh well, I’ve over-estimated the sensibility of the American public once again. I was positive I had that figured out by now.
At least I didn’t say “underwear.”
I’ve been such a slob with my posts lately. I blame all the negative energy that my cats are generating. The lazy lay-abouts.
But look on the bright side-your cats are furry and silky and fun to pet! 
Seriously, I think there’s a world of difference between ‘positive thinking’ and ‘magical thinking’. The Secret is full of magical thinking crap. Everything that happens to you, good or bad, is a direct result of your mental state. Yeah, when I was sexually molested, repeatedly, from age 8 to age 15, obviously, I was just thinking wrong. :rolleyes:
However, I do try to keep a positive outlook. When it seems like a day is more than I can handle (it happens sometimes), I try to, one, find five things to be grateful for. Sometimes it’s reduced to such really simple stuff as “Today, I have running water”; and, two, look at whether the negative stuff has a positive aspect to it; for instance, if I’m just stressing about something relatively minor like having to wash the dishes after a really long, stressful day, I try to think “OK, we’ve got dirty dishes because we’ve got food to eat; plus, I have hot and cold running water in which to rinse them easily, and I’ve got a dishwasher. Not only that, but when the dishes are done, I can fix myself a cup of hot chocolate and then go soak in the tub”.
I do. I think the second consoler is disrespectful of the sufferer’s feelings when they say “please don’t cry.” The first consoler doesn’t do this.
But I don’t see a problem with saying “Everything will be okay” or “Things will get better,” especially when this is offered sincerely, not as a thoughtless bromide. Perhaps because I see this as optimism–the same stuff that gets most people out of bed everyday–not dogged insistence to be positive at the expense of other people’s feelings.
You can validate one’s pain (“It sounds like that chemotherapy is really kicking your ass, I’m so sorry”), while still reminding the person that there is light at the end of the tunnel (“but things will get better, I promise. Just hold on a little longer. You will survive”). I don’t even think it’s wrong to encourage someone to be strong, as long as the suffering itself isn’t downplayed or ignored. (I do have an issue with telling someone to have faith, but that’s more of ideological one than anything else.)
That said, we probably don’t disagree all that much? I probably need to read the book you’re talking about.
Yeah, read the book. I think you’ll understand my point a little better after you do.
My problem with encouraging people to be strong in the face of illness is that it’s a subtle way of saying one can “falter” somehow. If I’m sick from cancer, taking my medicine, dutifully going to chemo, and just doing whatever it is to maintain some sense of dignity, and I happen to share a single moment of despair in the presence of a friend, I don’t need some healthy, happy smiley-face to pat me on the back and say, however well-intentioned, “Come on! Be strong! It’s not so bad! Just think how blessed you are.” Like, where do they get off giving me advice and telling me that it’s “not so bad”? Why can’t I just be sad without someone telling me, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, to cheer up? I’m not “giving up” just because I say I’m tired or wish it was all over. I’m just venting.
And yes, things probably will get better. Or then again, maybe not. If we’re both aware that I’ve got a strong likelihood of dying, for instance, I don’t need someone telling me, “Hey, everything’s going to work out somehow. I promise!” Your promises, however kind and well-intentioned they are, are pointless and discount my well-justified worry about impending death. It’s like saying, when the clouds are brewing overhead and you can hear thunder rolling, “Hey, it’s not going to rain. I promise!” You may end up being right, but it’s not because you “promised”. You have no control over the rain, just like you have no control over my cancer.
I think if I were diagnosed with cancer and the prognosis wasn’t looking pretty good, I’d rather have someone say, “I’m worried about you dying too. But whether or you do or not, let’s not worry about it so much right now. Let’s just have as much as fun as possible now while we can. That way, if we do we have to say good-bye to each other, we can both say we made the best out of a crappy situation.”
Contrast this with, “You’re not going to die. It will work out somehow. I don’t know how, but I know things will get better. I promise.”
One is dealing with the “real” and focuses on action while the other is dealing with hopes and baseless promises. But both are equally kind and loving.
What she’s describing is really no different from praying to God. It’s just a new agey version.
Is this really a new thing?
Praying is different from “positive thinking”, IMHO. With prayer, a believer is asking God for whatever, with a humbled spirit. With “positive thinking”, the believer almost makes demands on him, as if they feel entitled to whatever they want just because they “believe” hard enough.
The power of positive thinking in changing one’s health gets its start back in the mid-1800s, in the nascent form of Christian Science.
Agreed that the last words of encouragment are not the most helpful thing to say to someone in the grips of death.
But outside of extreme situations like cancer and death–where there is no hope–would telling someone “everything will be okay” that wrong? It’s sort of easy to condemn positivity when you’re assessing an objectively hopeless situation, but 90% of the time, we’re not in hopeless situations. Where do you draw the line?
Back in undergrad, there were times when I thought my grades in a particular class would be so low as to threaten my scholarship. Dealing with the stress and anxiety and fear of that situation was a great cause of suffering. Someone telling me “I’m worried that you’re going to flunk, too. What can I do to make you feel better?” would have not comforted me at all (because the answer to that question would be a big fat nothing…you gonna ace my emag exam for me? No? Then shaddup). “I know it’s hard, but try not to worry. Everything will work out,” strangely enough, would have made me feel better. Because it would have taken my mind off my worst fears and focused it on being optimistic.
To put this in the realm of bad shit happening randomly (because grades can be controlled), a few years ago, a Pap smear revealed that I had pre-cancerous dysplastic squamous cells in my cervix. I thought I was going to have to get chemo, lose my hair, endure magnificently horrible surgery, and maybe die. In this frame of mind, I really didn’t need to have my feelings validated; I needed assurance that I could handle this, that I could get through it intact. In fact, external efforts to validate my feelings would have probably made me feel worse because it would have made me think I really did have something serious to freak out about. “Everything will be okay” ended up helping me infinitely more than “Wow, this is such a scary thing for you to be going through. If I were you, I’d be bawling my eyes out! I’m here whenever you want to just cry it out”.
Does any of this resonate? Every person and situation is different. Psychologically, what comforts another person can alienate another. This is why, in my opinion, the person best equipped to comfort someone is themselves. Other people, not so much. But an interesting thread topic would be to ask people what words of encouragement/comfort they found the most soothing or inspiring when they were going through a particular hardship in their lives.
But the end result is the same in many cases. We all know a few people whose first reaction to any problem is “I’m going to pray for you/for the problem to solve itself”. And then they’ll act or talk or think as if they’d actually done something.
Of course, some of the prayers actually stem from powerlessness, i.e. the person doesn’t know how to or cannot change the situation at all, so they fall back to prayer because it’s a step above wringing their hands. But when prayer becomes the primary go-to solution that takes precedence over actual and possible action, and if the person believes he/she should get props for proactive praying, that’s just as fucked up (and annoying to the people around) as The Secret.
Just curious - how does that work with someone with a terminal illness? I’ve had a number of occasions in my life when I’m standing next to the bed of someone who is dying, who knows they’re dying, and somehow saying “But things will get better–” just seems so… wrong. Sometimes things don’t get better and it’s (in my mind) stupid to pretend they will.
(If you’re wondering how I approach it: “I’m so sorry this is happening. I’ll miss you. Is there anything I can do for you?”")
I could probably come up with another half dozen occasions where saying “things will be better” may not be the best tactic, but after unloading hte Big Bad of Death I’ll refrain.,
Yeah, I hate “I’ll pray for you”. Not only because of what Kobal said, but also because it suggests that God won’t act unless he gets a certain quota of prayer requests on your behalf in his inbox that week.
“Yeah, I wanted to put that breast cancer in remission for ya, but you need 5 more people to pray for you. How about you ask Miss Jenkins and her knitting circle? That’s 4 right there.”
–God
As I said earlier, not very well. But I don’t have any experience consoling people on their death bed or someone who just lost a limb, or burned off half their face in a car wreck, or any other situation where hope for happiness in the near future is objectively gone.
We’re much more likely to be in the position of comforting someone who is going through a situation not as objectively hopeless as advanced metastatic cancer. So I’m not sure I buy the idea that assuring someone that everything will be okay is always wrong, when in most sympathy-seeking situations that people encounter, the end of the world is not nigh and things do tend to work out okay. Sometimes people need to hear that. I’m talking about things like breakups, unemployment, drepression, fears about the future, school-related stress, and the general bad patches that people run into while living. This is where I see people most often saying stuff like “everything will be okay” or “this too shall pass” or “be strong”.
When people tell me, “Don’t worry. Everything will work out” and that’s all they say, I don’t find that really helpful, to be honest. I mean, even when you’re in the grips of the worst modern-day stress imaginable (you just got pink-slipped, you just got into a bad car accident and it was all your fault, you lost your wallet while on vacation, etc.), in the back of your mind, you know eventually everything will work out. You’re not afraid of things going wrong forever and forever; you’re afraid of all the shit you’re going to have to go through to get back to normal. I agree that a reminder that “everything will work out” is great for calming you down in the short-term, but ultimately you have to figure out how to get out of the mess, or at least cope with it. Hearing words of practical advice or just talking out strategies is really what you need, not just comforting “fluffy” words. Just meditating on “everything will work out” without doing anything actively is useless.
But we’re going off into the weeds now. Ehrenreich’s book isn’t really about conversations and how to relay empathy. For that I recommend The Tao of Conversation by Michael Kahn.
But wouldn’t it have made you feel bad if someone had told you, “Why are you so upset? God won’t let you die if you really believe in him!” I know your answer because I know you: of course it wouldn’t. You’d rather that person not say anything if that’s all they had to offer.
There’s a middle-ground between between 100% empathetic and being 100% cold-hearted. I agree, depending on the situation, sometimes you need someone to just tell you everything’s going to be alright, without trying to emote along with you. My point is that we tend to do this too often because we’ve been trained to think the other way is wrong. There’s nothing wrong with mixing the two together. Like, “I’d probably be scared too. But we always have to remember that most women have pre-cancerous cells popping up in their smears every once in a while, and they usually turn out to be fine. Just like every once in a while, you’ll get a weird lump in your breast and the mammogram shows that it’s just fibrous tissue. Probability is on your side, you with the face. So don’t worry too much, okay?”
I validated your feelings.
I gave you a reason to be optimistic by citing facts rather than repeating empty “fluffiness”.
These are two things that “Don’t worry. Everything will be alright” does NOT provide.
But again, this is just me talking, not the book. At least, as far as I know since I haven’t fiished it yet!
I remember her interview on The Daily Show but never read the book.
One of the biggest problems with “positive thinking” as she describes can be seen in corporate America. It’s the tendency to ignore problems or fail to critically analyze because people who bring up issues are viewed as “not being a team player”. So stupid or flawed programs will continue to their inevitable (and often disasterous failure).
In some cases, yes, I agree that that might be the gist of what’s being said to you. OTOH, as others have pointed out, appropriate encouragement afteracknowledging the negative feelings can be helpful and not dismissive. I have had several opportunities to tell people that they have the strength and courage to go on by reminding them that they made it through something bad before, and they appreciated it. I was able to make it clear that I knew they were in pain and that I was able to see something in them that they couldn’t see at that moment because of their pain and distress. It is not an easy thing to do and not everyone can pull it off without sounding like a jerk or a clueless airhead.
This was a hard one for me when I dealt with the occasional terminal patient when I worked in a clinical setting. I learned not to say “How are you?” which is hard because it is a very common way of greeting someone. I was also a Lay Eucharistic Visitor for several years, visiting terminal parishioners. I dropped part of a prayer that said “… In your good time, restore him/her to health, and enable him/her to lead the residue of his/her life in your fear…” because it was wholly inappropriate for that situation. I was there to bring comfort to them at the end of their life, not to reiterate a promise that was actually a lie in their particular case.
It’s like saying, when the clouds are brewing overhead and you can hear thunder rolling, “Hey, it’s not going to rain. I promise!” You may end up being right, but it’s not because you “promised”. You have no control over the rain, just like you have no control over my cancer.
I think if I were diagnosed with cancer and the prognosis wasn’t looking pretty good, I’d rather have someone say, “I’m worried about you dying too. But whether or you do or not, let’s not worry about it so much right now. Let’s just have as much as fun as possible now while we can. That way, if we do we have to say good-bye to each other, we can both say we made the best out of a crappy situation.”
Contrast this with, “You’re not going to die. It will work out somehow. I don’t know how, but I know things will get better. I promise.”
One is dealing with the “real” and focuses on action while the other is dealing with hopes and baseless promises. But both are equally kind and loving.
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I’ve always despised the “positive thinking” mantras, and do believe it’s a form of magical thinking. It’s a convenient racket for those who sell it commercially, because failure can always be blamed on the mark.
I also detest the implication that success in treating disease has anything to do with the moral character or “attitude” of the patient. I never like it when an individual is characerized as having “beaten” a disease. The doctors and the treatments beat diseases. The patient has nothing to do with it. The trope that the patient’s “attitude” or “unwillingness to to give up” make any difference are extremely insulting to those who don’t survive and suggest that they didn’t survive because they lacked virtue. It’s offensive.
I don’t have much use for optimism either. Pessimism is much more practical, and it’s never let me down.
The Optimist: This is the best possible world!
The Pessimist: I know. (looks downcast)
I can’t see how pessimism is more practical. Optimism allows you to determine the options when problem-solving. I’m curious what you think pessimism does?
I agree with the OP. There is a similar book called, Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst. In the book, the author, Karen Cerulo, argues that the main problem with cultural optimism is that it undermines the human ability to make decisions, and evaluate possible outcomes. She argues that you can see the effects of such thinking in our reactions to 9/11, Katrina, and the Iraq War. I would imagine she would say the same about the mortgage meltdown as well.
We rarely imagine, or define failure as anything but the absence of goodness or success. By doing so you tend to (incorrectly) narrow the range of perspective outcomes. By doing so, the worst rarely remains in the public conscientious except in the most egregious of cases. For example, far more people can name the last three Superbowl Champions than the last three teams to finish in last.
The collective effect is that we don’t put locks on cockpit doors, don’t fortify our levees, envision housing prices going down, or figure people will walk away from their homes when they are underwater. The galling part is that we often pay people to plan for these eventualities, but then we don’t listen to them.