Fascinating article "The Dangers of Positive Thinking"

softwarejanitor's picture
Submitted by softwarejanitor on Wed, Jan 27 2010 - 2:04 PM

http://gurdy.net/Positive-Articles/2008-12_Dangers-Of-Positive-Thinking....

A lot of it goes completely against conventional wisdom... but it makes sense.

Comments

johnwohn's picture

See also Bright-sided: How

Submitted by johnwohn on Wed, Jan 27 2010 - 2:18 PM.

See also Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich http://goo.gl/83Nr

softwarejanitor's picture

That looks like an excellent

Submitted by softwarejanitor on Wed, Jan 27 2010 - 2:21 PM.

That looks like an excellent read as well. Thanks for sharing it.

johnwohn's picture

By the way, a few necessary

Submitted by johnwohn on Wed, Jan 27 2010 - 2:33 PM.

By the way, a few necessary corrections from the original gurdy.net article:

"Stanford University has more than once proved that state of mind affects apparently inanimate objects"
I'm sure this would be news to everyone at Stanford University.

"quantum physics proves that you get what you expect"
Umm ... no, quantum physics says no such thing. "The Secret" and "What the Bleep" say that.

Jane Prusakova's picture

hope the author is trying to

Submitted by Jane Prusakova on Wed, Jan 27 2010 - 10:37 PM.

hope the author is trying to be comical:
"And thinking generally takes place in your conscious mind – you know, [...]the part of your mind that plays no active part in dictating how you behave and react"

Clear state of mind may be a good thing, though.

Jane Prusakova
Senior Consultant at Improving Enterprises
Door64 blog

dmgsouth's picture

Positive Thinking, at most,

Submitted by dmgsouth on Mon, Feb 1 2010 - 7:47 AM.

Positive Thinking, at most, can only be 50 percent of the equation. The other 50 percent people are afraid to talk about is -Work-. I've worked hard most of my life and made some decent money. But when I started setting goals, believing the goals were real -positive thinking-, and working hard things have really taken off and I am on track triple my best year ever and it's only February.

NY2TX's picture

There is a HUGE difference

Submitted by NY2TX on Sat, Feb 6 2010 - 7:58 AM.

There is a HUGE difference between "Many self help 'gurus' recommend "Positive Thinking" and "Affirmation" as the best way to get yourself "in the zone" and actually having a positive outlook on life.

Having a belief that you will succeed (as an entrepreneur), believing that today will be better than yesterday and that tomorrow will be better than today is "positive thinking" or maybe better stated, a "positive attitude."

Self-help guru "stuff" is, in my opinion, a "crutch" [I repeat, this is my opinion only].