The Power of Negative Thinking

[HiEquity]

Just listened to a great interview - the first "self help" style of thinking that I could relate to!

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/03/05/3703874.htm

Oliver Burkeman is a writer for The Guardian based in New York, and also writes a monthly column for Psychologies magazine.

He's been closely following the self-help phenomenon and he says most of its gurus have it exactly backwards.

Oliver thinks that if you really want to pursue happiness, you should ditch the positive thinking and travel the negative path: embrace failure, embrace embarrassment and above all accept insecurity.

His non self-help self-help book is called The Antidote: Happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking, published by Text.

I particularly like the stuff around accepting insecurity, mortality, failure and embarrassment up front and looking it in the eye to keep it in perspective, rather than avoiding it, pretending it isn't there or thinking that if we only think about the positive stuff, this won't happen. Likewise his stuff about gratitude and imagining our life without any of the relationships and possessions we enjoy to get some perspective on how good life really is already.

I enjoyed it anyway...

 

[Rixter]

Just listened to a great interview - the first "self help" style of thinking that I could relate to!

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/03/05/3703874.htm



I particularly like the stuff around accepting insecurity, mortality, failure and embarrassment up front and looking it in the eye to keep it in perspective, rather than avoiding it, pretending it isn't there or thinking that if we only think about the positive stuff, this won't happen. Likewise his stuff about gratitude and imagining our life without any of the relationships and possessions we enjoy to get some perspective on how good life really is already.

I enjoyed it anyway...

Rule 101 of marketing, first identify a marketplace then create a product to sell to it. Dont create a product first then find someone to sell it to.

I particularly like the fact that the marketplace he is selling too would be 95% of the population.. call me skeptical on the validity of its content.

 

[OKFFW]

Rule 101 of marketing, first identify a marketplace then create a product to sell to it. Dont create a product first then find someone to sell it to.

I particularly like the fact that the marketplace he is selling too would be 95% of the population.. call me skeptical on the validity of its content.

I just finished reading the book and found much of it to be interesting.

It's not your traditional "do these things, think these things and follow these tips and tricks and you will be happy" type book. Rather, it struck me more as a brief over view of some other philosophies and how they might lead one to happiness. Almost like an introductory text book designed to give you ideas for your own further study. He talks a bit about stoicism, Buddhism, memento mori and the risks of being too goal orientated.

Don't read it if you want a guidebook you can blindly follow in order to be happy. If you have an interest in philosophies about living a calmer and possibly more happy life it might be of interest.

 

[nhg]

Rule 101 of marketing, first identify a marketplace then create a product to sell to it. Dont create a product first then find someone to sell it to.

I particularly like the fact that the marketplace he is selling too would be 95% of the population.. call me skeptical on the validity of its content.

I would consider myself exceptionally positive, and must admit, a lot of the extract there rings true to the way I think.

I don't deny people dislike others doing better, I just accept it and acknowledge, the average person isn't particularly interesting, so wanting to mould myself to their standards isn't appealing in the least.

 

[Aaron Sice]

sounds very buddhist.....i like it.

 

[redwing]

Interesting view, he talks about Buddhists and the Stoic's

Your funniest example was going on the London Underground and calling out the names of the stops loudly in a deliberate ritual of self-humiliation. You were inviting negative feelings. That must be hard for a well-behaved Englishman.

The basic idea of it is derived from stoic exercises, which [in ancient times] obviously didn’t involve public transport. But the same idea is behind it. The point is not that it’s fun to do or that it isn’t quite embarrassing but that there’s a huge disproportion between the anxiety that’s provoked by thinking about it and actually doing it. It has this effect of sort of training a muscle, to ask yourself what the worst in any situation could be as a way of defeating anxiety. It’s very contrary to the positive-thinking culture.

Have you used the technique often?

I use it on a daily basis in small ways. If you’re running late for some appointment or you’re going to give some talk that you’re sort of nervous about, it’s always really useful to stop and realize that a certain amount of public embarrassment is the worst that could happen. And yet the thoughts that you’ve been having on a semi-conscious level are a bit more equivalent to the world exploding.

Do you get push back from the positive folk?

A little. But I think that I don’t hear as much from positive people who object because it would require them to be negative.

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