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Smile or Die: The Tyranny of Positive Thinking

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Succeedthrupositivethinki Avatar
Succeedthrupositivethinki
Posts: 1
Posted: 04.15.11, 11:32 AM
What she said is so true!! I wish I knew about positive mental attitude 10 years ago and I wouldn't have to wasted so much time going over again and again in my career and personal life making the same mistakes. I laughed when she said she would snarl through life if she didn't have positive mental attitude. It sounds so familiar.

www.succeedthrupositivethinking.com
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theknopfknows Avatar
theknopfknows
Posts: 275
Posted: 05.14.10, 08:52 PM
Time for "The Art of Happiness" by Dalai Lama
Or The discipline of happiness... Hindu wisdom
Man`s search For Meaning .. Viktor Frankl
The Possible Human .. Jean Houston
The future of the body... Micheal Murphy
Any book written "Spectrum of consciousness" by KEN WILBER
Even Manly Palmer Hall can make you happy. Joy yet not gay, Knowledge equals freedom equals happiness, all because of discipline, see ya soon!
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theknopfknows Avatar
theknopfknows
Posts: 275
Posted: 05.14.10, 08:33 PM
I feel bad for her, some how fell off the boat.. Its true bad attitude destroys immune system. Immune system is a conscious cell that listens to your every thought and create chemistry that reflects your thoughts at the moment. Complaining creates expectations which contaminate the unknown where knowledge and experience meet.. She has little knowledge of Eastern thinking where pursuit of happiness is passion a fine line from addiction-attachment.Meditation-universal energy, laws of attraction, where thoughts become chemistry which have magnetic properties, therefore healing at a distance. Fake it until you make it, is a behaviour mod.process. Your accumalation of efforts create a positive enviroment for your cellular well being, and usher in your manifested thoughts. Cases of aids infants kept in a positive enviroment, aids cured by school age. UCLA Math and science center. Indigo babies-children. I feel badfor her, she missed the train. She has yet to discouver her cellular being and that the landscape is greater, behind your eyes, than that with eyes open!Love to help!
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pygorex1 Avatar
pygorex1
Posts: 4
Posted: 02.24.10, 09:08 PM
The problem is not one of positive thinking vs. negative thinking (optimism vs. cynicism) but of reasoned and skeptical thinking vs. magical and wishful thinking. As Ms. Ehrenreich noted in her talk it is just as easy to be delusional and cynical as it is to be delusional and optimistic.

Her experiences with breast cancer culture at the beginning of the talk were spot on: cancer is not a gift, it does not exist to provide us with a positive life experience. Cancer is a devastating and torturous disease that should be despised and fought against tooth and nail. We can fight this disease with a smile or a frown, yet ultimately our attitude does not change the underlying nature of the battle.

Human suffering is ignoble. We should do what we can to minimize and eliminate it. Excessive positive thinking can become an end unto itself, invariably leading us to fetishize and accommodate human suffering. (The same applies for excessive negative thinking.) We can wield the twin tools of optimism and cynicism to create a better world - provided they are properly guided by reason and skepticism.
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Matthew Smith Avatar
Matthew Smith
Posts: 7
Posted: 02.23.10, 10:41 AM
drlarry01, she does specifically mention the difference between heart attacks and cancer. This is obvious even to a complete layperson like myself, as heart function is plainly regulated partly consciously, or at the very least by behaviour.

I have become quite dour myself over the years, as I have become worn down by other people's irrational exuberance. I understand where she is coming from.
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drlarry01 Avatar
drlarry01 +
Posts: 1
Posted: 02.20.10, 07:23 PM
I was disapponted in her. She failed to mention the field of psychoneuroimmunolgy which does look at the relationship between psychology, neurology, and endocrinology. This is a legitimate field of scientific inquiry and yes there are studies which relate ones psychology to how one heals and deals with various chronic illness. For example, the greatest predictor of risk of a second heart attack in men who have had their first attack is depression over all other bio markers.

So she is a bit naive to conflate popular psychology with rigourous inquiry. She comes across as a sourpuss. As a practicing physician with 35 years experience treating patients, I have observed that those with a postivie attitude have greater well being and do better than other when faced with life's dramas.

She is really quite a sourpuss. She is not an MD, not an epidemologist and she is far from an expert on the relationship between attitude and the natural history of disease. Her PHD in cellular immunity does not particularly qualify her to speak about complex medical issues.

Thee are many other medical doctors, well respected in the science community who would provide a counterpoint to this sour puss presentation.
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dbmcvey Avatar
dbmcvey
Posts: 9
Posted: 02.18.10, 05:19 PM
She's certainly proved to be right about Obama--lots of hope and pretty words but not much in the way of action or results.
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dbmcvey Avatar
dbmcvey
Posts: 9
Posted: 02.18.10, 04:44 PM
I love how angry get at someone even suggesting that there is a downside to the whole "positive thinking" thing.
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soulerflare Avatar
soulerflare
Posts: 1
Posted: 02.17.10, 09:59 PM
I think Barbara is a highly intellectual person and I think she makes some good points. Her experience certainly gives credibility to her arguments and she is absolutely entitled to her experiences and her feelings about them.

That said, the theme that runs through her approach, and that of others who share it, is that being positive is somehow less realistic than being negative. She even talks about "the burden" of being positive on terminal patients.

Being positive is no less realistic than being negative and it's certainly not more of a burden unless that's how you choose to see it. There is a lot in this discussion/debate about how you choose to see things.

I, too, have experienced very difficult health issues in my life. My experience has been nearly the polar opposite of hers. I have found positive thinking to make the journey much more bearable and later helped propel me to a better life.

No one in their right mind says smile at the nice lion as it's about to eat you. However, the arguments that thread throughout Barbara's writing and some sympathetic research happening seem to be telling people that thinking positive is somehow a delusional.

Humanity's much longer and destructive delusion has been remaining disempowered by the very pessimism and "realism" being described. Do some people take positive thinking too far? Absolutely. On balance, though, a more fulfilling life is more likely if you look at the world through a positive lense.
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glennd1 Avatar
glennd1
Posts: 5
Posted: 02.17.10, 12:55 PM
Wow, do we need to have this conversation, particularly in "corporate America". The intolerance of dissent and the nasty bludgeoning those of us who dare speak up with the cudgel of "being negative" is endemic in that world. It's a major reason why I've left it. I'm actually a huge believer in positive thinking - the real version of it - which looks for solutions to problems and recognizes that cynicism is often damaging to forward progress, being the opposing delusion to positivtism. I also think that at some level, this topic leaches into the idea of goal setting and resiliency, which are very important traits to being successful in any endeavor but somehow get incorporated into the positivity gobbledy-gook. I did enjoy the last minutes of the interview when the interviewer mentioned Obama's 'hope and change' rhetoric: this seemed to bring Barbara up short, revealing her reflexive progressivism/socialism/liberalism - whatever we are calling it these days. As someone so committed to 'realism', perhaps she should check her own political biases more carefully?
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