Ever hear one say, “Sometimes I’m busy making others happy, that I forget to make sure I’m okay.”? After reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided I have learned that balancing both positive and negative thinking is the single most important life lesson shown throughout the book. Ehrenreich tells readers that the power of positive thinking Is undermining America and how being too positive and too optimistic, can lead to trouble. One that knows how to balance the amount of positivity and negativity will create a proper outcome for their future. Ehrenreich opens up her book at an extremely difficult time in her life, battling cancer. Not only is she battling cancer but she is at a time where she is being exposed to the darkest times to positive …show more content…
She argues that a positive outlook will not make one cancer free, give one a job, make one wealthy or do you constantly happy. The beginning of the book made me realize that the balance of positive and negative thinking is the most important life lesson. She shows the readers how staying positive through her battles of cancers is going to make it easier, but Ehrenreich is trying to explain to the readers that it is okay to be negative. Ehrenreich gives the readers more of a negative side and thinks being positive is beginning to harm us. I can understand why she was thinking so negative while she was battling cancer, she was told by a cancer patient, “I know that if I get sad, or scared or upset, I am making my tumor grow faster and it will have shortened my life” (Ehrenreich 43). Ehrenreich sure did give the audience a way of understanding as to how people rely too much on positivity. She tells us that one will need to …show more content…
Michael F. Scheier and Charles S Carver say, “Psychologists have approached the notion of positive thinking from a variety of perspectives. Common to most viewers, thought, Is the idea that positive thinking is some way involved holding positive expectancies for one’s futures”. Well, that being said, when one is becoming too optimistic and positive, the won 't be prepared for events that will come to them. Ehrenreich says, “Sometimes we need to heed our fears and negative thoughts, and at all times we need to be alert to the world outside ourselves, even when that included absorbing bad news and entertaining the views of “negative” people” (204). In my opinion, I think it is very important to watch the news, some may think differently. According to the Huffington post, a blogger advised, “Studies show that you will sleep better with less news intake late at night” (193). With studies shows that you will sleep better because one isn’t getting the bad news intake that keeps you up all night thinking about it, that is one’s choice to watch the certain news they are watching. I think everyone should be aware of their surroundings, one cannot just be so optimistic because events like the great depression, 911 and other disasters that happened in America would have come more prepared as if you were being too positive nothing is going to go wrong
The importance dispositional optimism as a facilitator of well-being, positive health, flourishing, and quality of life has been documented in the positive psychology literature. Dispositional optimism evaluated by the LOT-R is a positive personality trait characterized by favorable personal future expectation (Scheier et al., 1994). It has been emphasized that optimism is a malleable personality trait and that pessimists can become optimists by utilizing techniques such as positive psychology interventions (Carver et al., 2009; Seligman, 2011). In contrast to traditional psychological interventions, positive psychology interventions have a strong focus on cultivating positive personality traits including dispositional optimism.
Society pressure themselves to be happy; they often ask questions like, “does that make you happy?” What they fail to understand is that sometimes doing the right thing, for the moment, might not seem to bring happiness in one’s life, but after trekking the ups and downs of life, happiness might be waiting on the other side. From time to time people also judge good and bad through happiness. “If something is good, we feel good. If something is
People can stay positive and not stay positive for many different reasons, even if they believe that things could get better.And in both novels Night by Elie Wiesel and Sold by Patricia McCormick deal with positivity in similar ways. So, by examining the novels Night and Sold we can see that staying positive is vital to survival which, is important because when someone is not positive anymore they will give up hope.
During the various stages of her experiment Ehrenreich strove to maintain equilibrium between her professional integrity and what was physically prudent. Whether she was working as at Walmart or as a waiter she always tried to learn the fundamental obligations her job required of her and the tricks that would make it easier. She could have honed the finesse this approach significantly but it worked well enough when she finally obtained a competent level of experience in her job/s. This approach created the basic pattern: get a cheap place to live, obtain a job, power through the
This tyranny of cheerfulness has become so normalized that we as a society have become so normalized to the “cheerful survivor”. We expect women to engage in walks, campaigns and product purchasing to help the fight with cancer, to engage in the cheerfulness. We are expected to envision cancer as a cheerful woman, someone unaffected by a disease, a warrior, but what we are doing is simply masking cancer socially as
The article about the Chinese farmer by Evelyn Theiss is deep and very thoughtful. It actually touches a part of the way I think. Life is full of events, some of them might be good and others might be bad, and the way the person thinks affects how he/she sees these events. Personally, I don’t prefer negativity because it would always make things worse. On the other hand, I don’t like being positive too much because I would be so depressed if things didn’t work out the way I thought it would. Living life with balancing both sides is the best, in my opinion, and that Chinese farmer did exactly what the best (2009). I always believe that anything would happen to us is for a cause, even if it’s bad, we could learn from it.
My final reason to show that optimism helps us make a bad situation better by looking on the bright side is, when Andrew and his dad get breakfast, they buy donuts and milk. Andrew get a carton of juice sometimes. This is optimism because Andrew isn't complaining that he doesn’t get a carton of juice every day. He is still thankful that he gets breakfast. Therefore, Andrew is optimistic about his breakfast.
Whenever my uncle called to update us on her health, my dad would always say, “Be positive, nothing is going to happen to her.” My mind was also clouded by my dad’s judgment, perhaps, she will survive the cancer. However, my aunt thought differently, she knew she was not going to survive because her doctor told her she does not even have a 10 percent chance to survive. The cancer had spread to her lungs and it was eating away her lungs like the ants eating a pile of sugar. My dad would always say, “Tell her not to think negatively,” to my uncle, but my dad was just being sympathetic because he wanted my uncle to stop crying and worry less about my aunt. My aunt died last year in November. So, this example clearly shows that we have conformed to the idea of positive thinking because it fools our brain that our lives are perfect in this not-so perfect world. Our life is not the opposite of positive either, it is just the reality, Ehrenreich states that we just have a hard time conforming to reality because we can not let our brains be free of living in a world where we have the power to control everything around us. In fact, positive thinking has the power to fool our minds, but not the reality which is
Finding the balance of both optimism and pessimism is crucial in life. In the novel Candide, written by Voltaire, Candide, the main character, experiences pain, sorrow, and war. Candide fails to recognize and acknowledge that bad things do indeed happen and not everything is for the best. but getting him to that point wasn't easy. Throughout the book, Candide remains optimistic because he bases his philosophy off of his mentor, Pangloss. He is oblivious and doesn't see the world as it really is. People continue to take advantage of him and he doesn't recognize this. He sees the bad as good and the good as amazing. His philosophy is that he lives in the best of all possible worlds. Because Candide is incapable of thinking for himself, he only
According to Remez Sasson, “Think about happiness, good health and success, and you will cause people to like you and desire to help you, because they enjoy the vibrations that a positive mind emits” (“Positive Thinking and Action”). When a person is positive it compels people to follow their lead and keep a positive attitude. When Anne Frank stayed positive she helped her family go back to their normal life. For example Anne writes, “Yesterday Mother felt well enough to cook split-pea soup for the first time, but then she was downstairs talking and forgot all about it”(Frank). Without Anne, Anne’s family may not have been able to stay optimistic and keep on with their regular lives. Based on “8 Tips to Help You Persevere Through Adversity” “Positive thinking will generate positive thoughts and attract positive people and experiences into your life” (Keller). When someone is positive it attracts others and can make life much better during a time of
These information have been affirmed in a resulting longitudinal examination on a populace of guys matured between 64 - 84 years in which a converse relationship was accounted for between dispositional good faith and the danger of cardiovascular demise [13]. Matthews et al. [17] watched that in the three years following the menopause, carotid atherosclerosis tended to advance all the more gradually in hopeful ladies contrasted with their cynical companions. In reference to oncological patients, Schulz et al. [18] noticed that high scores on the cynicism things of the LOT (a measure of dispositional positive thinking) [1] essentially anticipated unexpected passing in youthful patients with bosom growth. Among patients with neck or head growth, confident people showed essentially more noteworthy survival a year after conclusion when contrasted with worriers [19]. In a current report, Ironson et al. [20] demonstrated how dispositional idealism, less avoidant adapting systems and lower level of melancholy decidedly impact movement of the ailment in patients experiencing
Everyone should try and be optimistic because It helps many people get through their very tough situations. “ We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to cause them.” We need to always have faith that things will work out in our advantage. “You can’t have a rainbow without a little rain”, meaning that you’re life isn’t always gonna consist of you being happy all the time, there are days you’re gonna have to deal with problems. Just don’t let the problems bring you down because there’s a rainbow on the other
While retiring to bed at night, one should say "it was a nice day and now I can have a relaxed sleep. Let the tomorrow be brighter, fresher and cheerful" Psychologists insist on having just positive thoughts. When you recurrently habit yourself with such thoughts, your mind and body are used to the positive vibrations they set in. Once your body is a harbor of positive thinking, you can never run out of hope and optimism.
These phycologists have wondered if there are more optimist or pessimists in the world. They have made an attempt to find out what approach is greater or better. There are some advantages to optimism because it makes people feel better about life, however, there are also some advantages to pessimism in that looking at the unfortunate side of things can help some pessimists cope better with the world. Both optimism and pessimism have important roles to play the lives of everybody. Being optimist permits people to go after their goals in a positive way, to dream bigger and better dreams, which they can strive to work towards. Optimist also tend to respond better to positive feedback, and a part of being an optimist may be producing this feedback for themselves, example, thinking positive thoughts. While on the other hand, being pessimistic may help people to better acknowledge negative feedback and reduce their natural anxiety to perform better. Once again, part of the reason why pessimist generates negative thoughts is that it helps them perform a lot better. People tend to utilize both optimism and pessimism in order for them gain out of their advantages. People who are mainly concerned with growth or advancement often manifest an optimistic view, whereas those who are concerned with safety and security, or avoiding negative outcomes, focus more on pessimism in order to improve their
We all need more positivity in our lives, otherwise, we wouldn 't be able to sustain ourselves mentally. Positivity is a platform to hope, a warm greeting or even a smile. It enlightens your day in ways you can’t possibly explain. Judge for yourself through the following example. Imagine someone negative coming across people the whole day and having to go to work like this person always does every day. Now, the fact that he/she is negative is going to cut him/her completely to what he/she is normally supposed to do. This means that he will probably not return someone 's greeting or notice the time passing by. In other words, he/she is going to be distracted by a negative thought. On the other hand, when you have a positive attitude you know more or less how to get back to reality and carry on with your day.