The Power of Positive Thinking. Or Not.

Last week, Ageless North Shore had its six month check-up with internet marketing and social media maven, Avery Cohen. We determined that the most popular posts are profiles of our neighbors and friends who, in the words of James Lynch (one of our profilees), are “up to something.”

Click here to see our profiles.

Watson and Holmes

These stories are about art and poetry, faith and business, love and hope. But ultimately they are all about transition and change. Hearing the stories of other people help us to understand and evaluate our own lives. As Sherlock Holmes says, “Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.”

What happens then when two apparently diametrically opposed messages arrive within a day of each?

In the New York Times on Saturday, October 10, Patricia Cohen wrote about Barbara Ehrenreich and her new book, “Bright Sided, How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America”

Barbara Ehrenreich

Ms. Ehrenreich, 68, has written 17 books including the surprising best seller, Nickel and Dimed in which she tells her story of trying to get by as a minimum wage, low skilled worker.

In 2000, Ms, Ehrenreich discovered that she had breast cancer. What seemed to surprise her most was the cheerfulness which surrounded the information and support she sought.

“There were exhortations to be positive…that you had to be cheerful and accepting and that you would not recover unless you were.”

In her research, Ms. Ehrenreich found that “positive thinking” had infiltrated the career counseling, the Ivy League (“positive psychology” became a part of the curriculum), the best seller list,  and mega-churches (Joel Osteen et al). And tellingly, Wall Street. According to Ms. Ehrenreich, “we’ve been weeding out anybody capable of rational thinking, or realism.” This group-think of positive thinking lead to a belief that the real estate bubble would never burst. As we recall, burst it did.

To read the full article, click here.

Or perhaps, Ms. Ehrenreich has misread elements of the “positive thinking” movement.

On Friday, October 9, I received an alert that James Lynch had a new entry on his Huffington Post blog. The post is entitled “The Hamlet Secret: Joyful Living”. On its face, it sounds like Lynch may be part of the self-help movement that Ehrenreich warns us about.

The Hamlet Secret

The title of Lynch’s book. “The Hamlet Secret: A Self-Directed (Shakespearean) Workbook for Living a Passionate, Joy-Filled Life,“ includes a powerful clue that this is not the “warm bath of motivation.” The clue is “Workbook.”

In his October 9 post, Lynch uses the quotation “The time is out of joint. O, cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right.”  Hamlet, Act I, Scene V.

The life lesson? Time is always out of joint. There are always challenges, adversities, bad luck, and our own mistakes. The solution does rest within ourselves. But does not end there.

As I understand it, it is not just a change in attitude that Lynch argues for. It is a change in action which requires our work.
Lynch writes:
Take responsibility for change in the world.
Mahatma K. Gandhi said, “You must be the change you wish to see in world,” and there is no more damning indictment in the world.

Is Ehrenreich a hard-headed realist or just grumpy? Has Lynch created of path for a joy-filled life or permission for self-absorption?

What do you think?