Positive schmositive!

A while ago it was discovered that to sell to the average aspirant after wealth and happiness, you first had to make them unhappy with what they already have. A whole industry was created on the basis that buyers were stupid enough to believe that they were doing it all wrong! (Oh - but it wasn't their fault! Ha bloody ha!)

The most successful of these products is the insanely destructive "positive mental attitude". PMA has probably sold more books, videos and training courses and destroyed the self confidence of more people than anything else.

What does a positive mental attitude involve?

First and foremost, it involves - no, DEMANDS - that you lie to yourself. No matter what reality afflicts you with, no matter how many problems you have, PMA requires that you see only a beneficial situation. You have to subvert your rational appreciation of a crappy situation and substitute a totally irrational observation that "all is well with the world". You are required to lie to yourself and promulgate those lies to others who may care for you and see the reality that you are denying.

One of the most purile tests for PMA is to say whether a glass is half full or half empty. It is taught that negative people see the glass as half empty because the word empty has negative connotations.

As a realist in control of your own powers of observation, you would have to say that the glass is neither half full nor half empty - IT IS BRIM FULL!

In the same way, a realist will see that a problem has arisen and solve it while a PMA advocate will be still trying to convince himself that there is no problem.

You can lie to yourself all that you want to, that is your priviledge, but please, please, please do not let the writers of pulp fiction tell you that what you know is not correct.

Sometimes life is not fair but lying to yourself won't make it fair.

My cancer won't go away because I lie and say it does not exist and neither will my blindness BUT my realistic outlook on life allows me to deal with what is, change what I can change (if it needs changing) and prepare for what is to come.

I am not a positive person, nor am I a negative person, I AM COMFORTABLE WITH REALITY. I am contemptuous of anybody who does not know anything about me thinking that I am stupid enough to buy a "one size fits all" book and change my reality for their money making theory.

Report this Page

Created on Jul 27th 2011 05:22. Viewed 610 times.

Comments

Cheryl Baumgartner(CITRMS)   Independent Associate with LegalShield Arthur unfortunately people are being conditioned from youngest childhood to this positivity crap. Take any public school in the US. When I was in school we had "Learning Disabled" classes, Gifted Classes and the regular classes. All classes were designed to allow students to learn at their own pace. Then came 'mainstreaming" lumping all students together in one class. Who cares if the LD kids cannot grasp the basics and hold back everyone else, we don't want them to think that they are stupid. Then came social Promotions passing people who could not pass basic standards of the grading system. Who care if Johnny can only read on a sixth grade level all of his peers are seniors in high school. We don't want him to feel bad about being left back. Jul 27th 2011 07:30

Cheryl Baumgartner(CITRMS)   Independent Associate with LegalShield And when Johny Becomes an adult he thinks the real world is all roses and has no skills to cope with reality. Maybe that is the problem, People are growing up with no skills to cope so they try to twist reality to fit them. And they get nowhere buying into the positivity crap and then instead of facing reality and tackling the problem they through more positivity at it. I call it Don Quixote syndrome. And we all know that no matter how hard old Don tried, he never killed a windmill. Jul 27th 2011 07:34

Arthur Webster   Just plain honesty Hi, Cheryl, old Don was possibly one of the first people to be afflicted with PMA. It did not matter to him that the windmills would not die - somehow he had convinced himself that they could die and that he could kill them. This is the basic failure of PMA - it ignores reality. The apalling education of our children is the result of massive social engineering attempting to bridge the gap created by the massive exodus of the best teachers when education became a political football. We now live in the society of the lowest common denominator. To excell is to sin. Jul 27th 2011 08:55

Cheryl Baumgartner(CITRMS)   Independent Associate with LegalShield Well you know Arthur a stupid population is a controllable population. They never think for themselves or see reality for what it is. Guess that's why 5%of the population control the masses through distraction, slight of hand and amusement. That's all atrophied intellects can handle. Jul 27th 2011 09:14

Arthur Webster   Just plain honesty 61 page views and only one comment. THAT says it all! Jul 27th 2011 12:40

Cheryl Baumgartner(CITRMS)   Independent Associate with LegalShield I know it is sad. Jul 27th 2011 12:46

Paula van Dun   TE Owner & Social Media Enthusiast Nice one Arthur. Here in Holland we call such people "goat wool socks wearers". people always walking with their heads in the clouds. I am also in favor of reality although I have a positive approach in dealing with hurdles. Jul 27th 2011 13:01

Arthur Webster   Just plain honesty Hi, Paula, dealing with hurdles is positive whether you leap over them, find a way round them or simply give up and return whence you came. One of the most important aspects of European languages is that they cannot express a negative. The term "negative statement" is an oxymoron. The way PMA has been used to make people feel guilty about how they view reality is one of the great results of ignorant propaganda. In Spain and in the UK people are said to have their feet on the ground if they deal with life directly, the rest are simply said to be hiding from the truth. Throughout Apsense I see people claiming to be "positive" yet, here we are, 93 page views and only two comments. I was so looking forward to some constructive or argumentative responses. Jul 27th 2011 16:05

Cheryl Baumgartner(CITRMS)   Independent Associate with LegalShield You won't get any responses other than from a handful, I'm quite sure that their feelings are hurt because you have pointed out that they are living in LaLa Land. In order to discuss reality you have to have a grasp on the concept. However those who refuse to see reality are living on borrowed time because reality will jump up and bite them in the rear end when they least expect it and they will be sitting their with a completely moronic look on their face. Jul 27th 2011 16:42

Paula van Dun   TE Owner & Social Media Enthusiast Yeah, people tend to shoot the messenger when you tell them things they don't want to hear. But my guess is you are bullet proof Arthur. LOL Jul 27th 2011 17:56

Arthur Webster   Just plain honesty Hi, Cheryl, I am beginning to wonder if the latest, greatest proceedure at Apsense is the frontal lobotomy! The level of converstaion was quite good, once, but now it seems that unless they are promoting (by copy and paste) their latest rip-off bizz-op, members have nothing to say. What on earth is going on? I would expect some sort of reaction to posts with which members don't agree but it seems that it is all too much trouble or maybe it hurts when they think. To try to pass Apsense off as a social site is pushing the envelope a bit - members seem determined to reduce it to little more than a failed traffic exchange. No wonder Admins are disillusioned. If all the scams and spam were deleted, there wouldn't be much left. Aug 4th 2011 08:34

Roosevelt Evans III   Your Friend And Business Partner "I am not a positive person, nor am I a negative person, I AM COMFORTABLE WITH REALITY." Old Coot, Gautama Buddha would be proud of that statement! LOL! However because you are "comforable with Reality", you are indeed a "positive" person underneath the facade of cynicism you perpetrate. William Blake, a great theologian and mystic said, "Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow". Hold on to your imagination Old Coot! Aug 4th 2011 09:03

Arthur Webster   Just plain honesty Hi, Roosevelt. I am a very comfortable person but like all polar beings, I am aware that to function correctly, I must have both positive and negative influences. Disconnect the negative pole of your car battery and see how far it will travel using the engine. Aug 7th 2011 16:36

Roosevelt Evans III   Your Friend And Business Partner W-h-o-a-h! I love that "negative pole of your car battery" analogy, Old Coot! And like you, I concur with your assessment of us humans as "polar beings" full of positive/negative influences, contradictions and paradoxes but that is the awesome beauty and mystery of being human. In the movie "Avatar", the alien Navi had the expression "I See You" to express the true understanding and appreciation of another. With this article I now, "see" you, Old Coot. (What the hell is your real name, anyway?" LOL!) Aug 7th 2011 18:35

Roosevelt Evans III   Your Friend And Business Partner Arthur Webster! Got it! Much better than "The Old Coot"! LOL! Aug 7th 2011 18:41

Arthur Webster   Just plain honesty Found out! The film "Avatar" is a great story and exposes mankind for what it is. A particularly nasty comment on us is made when the troops are being briefed after having destroyed the "Home Tree" village in a massive display of WMDs. A build up of Na'vi is seen as a great threat and the statement "we will fight terror with terror" is not only ironic but a major comment on the state of the world today. Self defence is now terrorism! Aug 19th 2011 01:50

Cheryl Baumgartner(CITRMS)   Independent Associate with LegalShield Avatar simply pointed what has been historically done since the beginning., turn the native population into savages and then take what you want. Look at the image the native American had for years through the reinforcement of 'savage injuns' idea. Aug 19th 2011 07:27

Roosevelt Evans III   Your Friend And Business Partner Hey, Arthur, I see you finally saw "Avatar"! I love that movie. As I pointed out in Cheryl's more recent article on positive thinking, the core difference between me and you is I am an idealist and you are a pragmatist. The idealist never accepts Reality as the ideal and the pragmatist accepts Reality as the ideal. In the movie "Avatar", Sam was the crippled pragmatist who found his Ideal in the world of the Navi. The ironic thing is the Navi were pragmatists fighting for their world to survive. Pragmatists are all about just surviving Reality while idealists are about creating a new Reality. Human Reality needs both idealists and pragmatists, the proverbial positive and negative poles of the battery. "I See You"! Aug 19th 2011 10:01

Cheryl Baumgartner(CITRMS)   Independent Associate with LegalShield That does paint a ver flattering picture of idealists does it? The Navi; like Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, Africans, Inuit and other societies inveded and destroyed by European Conquest; all had highly evolved societies that had achieved the goal of providing for their needs while respecting and living in harmony with nature. The humans, because of greed had every intention of destroying Pandora as they had already destroyed Earth. Think back to the scene where Sam is talking to Ewah. He tells Ewah, "They killed their mother." The humans were disconnected from reality. Aug 19th 2011 10:24

Cheryl Baumgartner(CITRMS)   Independent Associate with LegalShield How many species have been driven to the brink of extinction by human greed? We are killing ourselves through idealism. I'm not a tree-hugger, but you don't need to be to see the results of greed destroying our world. We ARE killing our mother because we ignore/do not understand the law of cause and effect. Aug 19th 2011 10:27

« Prev.12Next »