4 Situations Where Positive Thinking Could Get You Killed

April 7th, 2011 with 11 Comments

Ah, the cult of Positive Thinking.  Today, I was reading once again how positive thinking will solve all my problems and that all my problems are caused by my negative thoughts.  But it got me thinking–if positive thinking is the cure-all for all your problems, then certainly positive thinking is ALWAYS a good thing. Or is it? [...]

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3 Reasons Why Self-help Doesn’t Work for Some People

November 29th, 2010 with 12 Comments

1. Working on Mindset when action is required You’re just too damn negative.  So what if you have no job and are depressed.  SNAP OUT OF IT!!!! You see, failures fail and winners win. Here’s the truth: you have what you have.  I was not born to be a great basketball player.  I don’t have [...]

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It Stinks Being so Damn Positive All the Time

September 13th, 2010 with 5 Comments

Readers of this blog know how cheerful and upbeat I am. What was that you said? Angry? Me? Nah. You’ve got me mistaken for someone else. Or you’re not reading the right posts. You see, I’m a positive guy. Think positive. Act positive. Heck, I breathe positive. I’m that guy who always sees the good [...]

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Smile or Die!

August 5th, 2010 with 5 Comments

A great animated video of a talk by Barbara Ehrenreich talking about mandatory positive thinking.  The guys at RSanimate are talented indeed! Thanks also goes out to Michel Fortin for tweeting me this link.

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Have You Been Bright-Sided?

May 27th, 2010 with 4 Comments

An interesting interview from Barbara Ehrenriech. I loved her book Bright-sided that deals with the culture of positive thinking.  For those of you who do not know her work, I think this interview will be a good introduction. Some key points that I wanted to expand on: 1. The empathy deficit She is right on [...]

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Affirmations Suck

May 13th, 2010 with 13 Comments

On this blog, I have criticized a lot of people and a lot of ideas that people hold sacred.  It’s not my fault that there’s a lot of poop out there and that people believe it.  And, yes, I do get hate mail from time to time.  But the funny thing is that there is [...]

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Why You Should Listen to “Negative Thinkers”

April 13th, 2010 with 13 Comments

I’ve already written why you should ignore everybody. But there are people you SHOULD listen to.  Who is it? Well, I can tell you one rule that you should follow religiously and that is: Never trust someone who is selling you something! And yes, that goes for self-help gurus, diet supplement suppliers, or whatever. If [...]

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How Inspirational Stories Lie

February 10th, 2010 with 1 Comment

So, now that I’ve established that inspirational stories can be used for evil, let me tell you an  inspirational story. This is a true story because it happend to me. Eight years ago I stopped smoking.  My wife at the time had just gotten pregnant and I was determined to be healthy not only for [...]

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Why Affirmations Don’t Work

February 8th, 2010 with 30 Comments

A friend of mine told me not to post this.  A lot of people, he said, swear by affirmations.  He said some people might think I’m being too negative.  But sometimes life is not full of sunshine and if you have to shoot the messenger, go ahead.  So here goes. Affirmations suck.  They don’t work.  At best, they’re a well-intentioned device [...]

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The Power of Negative Thinking

January 12th, 2010 with 2 Comments

I once read a quote from Robert Smith of The Cure. If you know anything about The Cure, you know that their songs are…well…depressing. And Robert Smith himself looks a bit on the gloomy side. So, imagine my surprise when I read this quote: “At the time we wrote Disintegration…it’s just about what I was [...]

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