The Case for Pessimism
Positive thinking has a downside.
People who positively fantasise don’t tend to perform as well as people who think more negatively – we achieve our goals in our minds and feel good in the moment, but over time, reality catches up. There’s a link between positive thinking, poor performance, disappointment and depression. Don’t look on the bright side
Don’t think too positive • Fantasies about the future have a troubling effect on achieving actual goals. If positive thinking doesn’t work, what does? • 2016 Jul 25 • Gabriele Oettingen • Aeon
Correlation does not necessarily imply causation and all that, but in a country where the idea of positive thinking is such a huge part of our culture and our myths and drives so much of our economy, and people’s misfortunes get frequently blamed on their own lack of positive thinking, it’s probably not a terrible idea to examine the dark side of positive thinking.1