The power of pessimism

It’s not based on experience that people have started thinking of happiness as something everybody’s entitled to all of the time, but ”Positive Thinking” - a range of ideas and techniques associated with the psychology of achievement. It is the main idea behind the self-help movement that originated in the United States and has since become very influential worldwide.

One of the most prominent advocates of positive thinking is Professor Martin Seligman - an American psychologist famous for his work on learned optimism.

According to Seligman, when faced with something negative, people can choose to place either a temporary or a permanent frame around it. People have an internal dialogue where they might say to themselves, “This is my fault. It’s going to get worse and there is nothing I can do about it. It will last forever”. Others, however, might say to themselves, “What happened was out of my control. The situation is only temporary and, I can change things for the better.”

BUT in the headlong pursuit of ever-present positivity, we might be shooting ourselves in the feet. Constant positive thinking - insisting that “everything works out” - offers positive thinkers no back-up plan for when things don’t.

An average person doesn’t experience positivity at a manic level, but it is possible for us to get carried away by positive feelings, to lose our judgment, and do something we wouldn’t normally do. Positive thinking can also become a way of avoiding necessary action, an issue.
People who use positive thinking as a defense are trying not to feel anxious when they should. Some amount of anxiety is often necessary for motivating us to act in certain situations. Covering up this anxiety with a cheery face can actually make our situation worse because we’re less likely to address the underlying issue. But the sooner we take action, the less likely anxiety is to interfere with whatever it is we’re trying to do, says Julie Norem, professor of psychology and author of The Positive Power of Negative Thinking.