The Power of Negative Thinking

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/opinion/sunday/the-positive-power-of-negative-thinking.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

by PaulMcCartney • 14 years ago

97 28 14 years ago

dmk23• 14 years ago

What the article unfortunately missed is in-depth explanation of why firewalking works in most cases: http://www.skepdic.com/firewalk.html

Tony Robbins may be using it for psychological conditioning, but it can be explained from the purely rational / scientific perspective.

quanticle• 14 years ago

What I find wonderfully ironic is that the "positive thinking" that was supposed to protect them from the fire probably increased the harm. As your link points out, the sweat on the bottom of the feet protects the firewalker from the hot coals. But, where does that sweat come from? In large part, it comes from being nervous. The positive thinking that Mr. Robbins encouraged could very well have reduced that nervousness, eroding the protection that his students had on their feet.

zaptheimpaler• 14 years ago

Theres an even more ironic possibility - similar to what the article mentions about positive affirmations, the positive thinking served only to remind them of their fears rather than alleviate them in any way, making them even more nervous than they would have been otherwise.

learc83• 14 years ago

The author explained it very briefly in the first paragraph.

No, it wasn't an in-depth explanation, but it was only a 10 paragraph article.

jawr2• 14 years ago

Like with most things, anything to an extreme is dangerous -including possibly positive thinking. People just need to learn moderation.

confluence2• 14 years ago

Even moderation is dangerous if the moderates let the extremists take over society (rise of Nazi Germany). The converse is also true (inaction of France/England on the rise of Nazi Germany).

Everything is dangerous.

jawr2• 14 years ago

That was extreme moderation.. also bad. :p

hypnobuddha• 14 years ago

Negative thinking is okay (I do it all the time LoL) but negative thinking that's charged with emotion, especially about someone else, is not okay.

Emotion is what embeds thoughts into the mind. Emotion creates physical grooves in the brain. If your going to be negative, be careful not to charge it with emotional energy. Charge positive thoughts with happy emotions.

malkia2• 14 years ago

Search google for nestinari - and you would find an old bulgarian tradition of fire-walking. How they do it? I guess there is some trick - maybe not allowing any air between the leg and the fire, or quickly walking - or the feet have something on them... I dunno.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestinarstvo

malkia2• 14 years ago

Negative thinking prevents you from doing stupid things. Overly optimistic people might create more problems for them, thinking they would succeed, rather than go back and think about their real possibilities at the moment.

johnchristopher2• 14 years ago

How is it possible that there are people with enough money to afford a Tony Robins seminary and yet they don't know that firewalking is a "trick" and has barely anything to do with "motivation/self-awareness/whatevertheyareselling" ? It puzzles me.

confluence2• 14 years ago

You assume wealth is correlated with intelligence (it's actually like 0.03).

You're applying the "halo effect" to these unfortunately delusional people - just because you are rich doesn't really imply anything else about you. It merely indicates that you are, well, rich.

End of attributes.

johnchristopher2• 14 years ago

Ah, right. I tend to forget those psychological shortcomings :(

This one is rather strong and I easily fall for it, thank you for reminding me.

aerobik• 14 years ago

"The most important men in town would come to fawn on me!

They would ask me to advise them,

Like a Solomon the Wise.

"If you please, Reb Tevye..."

"Pardon me, Reb Tevye..."

Posing problems that would cross a rabbi's eyes!

And it won't make one bit of difference if i answer right or wrong.

When you're rich, they think you really know!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Were_a_Rich_Man_%28song%2...

lobster_johnson• 14 years ago

It's possible that they do know that it's a "trick", scientifically speaking. According to this [1] article, Robbins does not attempt to explain one's ability to walk on hot coal as something accomplished with the power of one's mind; rather, it's a ritual focused on overcoming one's fear.

[1] http://www.skepdic.com/firewalk.html

ajuc2• 14 years ago

The trick of thinking about the worst possible scenario worked for me, when I had problems with social anxiety in high school.

Monkeyget• 14 years ago

If you expect the worst everything will turn out better than expected.

ajuc2• 14 years ago

Or exactly what you expected, and at least you can say "told you so" :)

But I've meant that the worst I could imagine when I had tried was't really that bad to be so scared of it. So I realized I'm scared without sufficient reasons, and that I have much more to win, than to lose, so I just went for it. YMMV.

wcchandler• 14 years ago

I hate to talk about this but it might be worthwhile... avoiding negative emotions led me to depression and anxiety.

About a year ago I started noticing that my life, while looking wonderful from the outside, was anything but. It was the subtle things -- eating pizza every night for a month, playing video games to pass the time, looking for excuses to avoid "living." Summer was just finishing up and one of my favorite pastimes - swimming, was only sought out 2, maybe 3 times that year. Far from par.

Emotions seemed mundane, thoughts were rarely provoking, and my opinions of the world became overly moot. I was getting stuck in the drudgery and monotony. Movies blended together. My driving habits were developing patterns. Green light, green light, red. Yield. Lather, rinse, repeat...

I was becoming more distant with my wife. Her presence was something I rarely cared for. Trying to connect on an emotional level was becoming increasingly difficult. When her days would usually be interesting and we could talk for hours about something as basic as an inkpen, it was difficult to stay focus for more than 5 minutes on largest of issues. I was frustrating with myself, my brain and especially my actions. While I was never abusive, I was distant, and I was distancing myself from her. She could be traumatized and I wouldn't be there. Her life became hard to understand, hard to relate to. And I was clueless.

Once I started picking up that life wasn't the same, my instincts started kicking in. It was fight or flight with my mind. This isn't something easily overcomed. For the longest time my only logical approach to alleviation was a frontal lobotomy. But that's not really practical. Or realistic. So there has to be something else, right?

A lot of us have an inner desires to "fix things." Pipes leak and we replace 'em. A/C goes out and recharge it. Pants get ripped? Patch it. But what do we do when WE are the problem? When our minds are the problem. And what do we do when we can't be "fixed?"

Negative emotions are healthy. Sadness, fear, hate, anger -- they're all emotions we tend to label as negative. It's society that associates negative == bad. But instead of fighting everything, we should learn to accept that these exist. They have always existed and will always exist. We can't flip a switch and all the hate in the world will be gone. Instead we should appreciate the Eastern (religion) approach to it -- keep everything in moderation. Happiness, sadness, everything. Keep it equal and don't try to fight it.

We also shouldn't go out looking for specific emotions. That'll only upset us when it doesn't reach our expectations. Instead we should put ourselves into situations where certain emotions naturally occur. Then we can observe them at face value and embrace them with our true self.

SkyMarshal• 14 years ago

What got you out of your funk/depression?

justinh• 14 years ago

So you know, this was absolutely worthwhile. I am experiencing an almost identical situation for an identical reason.

And it all started at one of the "all positive" corporate retreats mentioned in the article.

billswift• 14 years ago

>But what do we do when WE are the problem?

Find something outside yourself to focus on. Some quotes:

>The more I reflect on this question, the more convinced I am that man's fundamental purpose is to achieve; in other words, the striving toward goals is an end in itself. ... Viewed in that light, it would seem that striving itself - the constant working toward goals - is man's real purpose.

- - Robert J Ringer, How You Can Find Happiness During the Collapse of Western Civilization

>In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.

- - fortune-cookie, no attribution

>The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

- - William Cowper

>To be of use in the world is the only way to be happy.

- - Hans Christian Anderson

>We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

- - Charles Kingsley

And Eliezer's post on how having "Something to Protect" gives meaning to life, http://lesswrong.com/lw/nb/something_to_protect/

Something to protect is the most significant from your comment's view, fear of risk to your "something" is the strongest driver around.

bostonpete• 14 years ago

> In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.

According to the internet, this is from "Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah" by Richard Bach

jacques_chester• 14 years ago

Alternatively you're moving into the classic profile of a person who is developing depression and you should see a mental health professional.

JohnLBevan• 14 years ago

We had an interesting experience at the start of the year where people were being "encouraged" by the project managers not to be negative on the project. It felt like being part of the Chinese Cultural Revolution where everyone was getting over excited but with a foreboding sense of dread hanging in the background. Myself and a few others continued to list cautions (normally I'm the optimistic one - but this had gone past my limit) but were ignored and treated as naysayers. It resulted in us putting a country live on a production system without having completed regression testing for existing countries, done any negative testing, or having done any testing with security and workflow configured in a production like way. The next couple of months were absolute hell, and only now are we beginning to recover from it. That said, to get the system stable everyone went out of their way, working overtime/weekends without break or compensation to keep the project on track (and losing one of the team from the project due to stress), which allowed the project managers to say "see, putting you under pressure meant you got it to work", without seeing the chaos they'd caused. People should be encouraged to do realistic thinking - aim for the optimistic, don't say no before you try something (so long as it's not clearly suicidal), but when you know things are going wrong take time to reflect and reassess your situation.

Supermighty• 14 years ago

Positive affirmations can be detrimental if they're not realistic. You can't say "I'm the best ever at golf" if you don't truly believe it. That's when you will feel bad after using an affirmation.

You have to truly believe affirmations for them to expand positivity in your life. "I did a good job taking out the trash, I didn't tear the bag." It's rather boring, but saying something positive about something you know to be true brings positivity into your life. It builds on your positive self image and makes you better in all areas of your life.

vog• 14 years ago

There's a lot of truth in this article, and it reminds me on what Tom DeMarco writes in this book "Waltzing With Bears" (ISBN 9780932633606):

DeMarco argues that having detailed, quantified information about your risks enables you to make more courageous decisions. But in order to be able to quantify your risks, your company's culture must allow for critical and "negative" thinking.

Otherwise, you won't be able to perform even the first basic step: identifying your risks. Without having properly identified all your risks, quantifying those becomes a farce, and essentially boils down to missing one or two elephants in the room.

zzzeek• 14 years ago

I'm not seeing how the understanding of science behind firewalking and feeling good about accomplishing something scary (i.e., actually firewalking) need to be mutually exclusive.

The Power of Negative Thinking

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