Positivism - the Key to Success - Essay Example

Alessandra Angelini April 19, ENG 106 Positivism – the Key to Success The issue of the effect of positivity on success has been of debate by many psychologists. While others argue that positive thinking creates more problems than it solves, others consent that it is the key to success. Positivism could play an important role in somebody’s life, especially when it comes to achieving the “state of happiness,” which everyone aspires to achieve, but only a few know how to realize it. If a person is positive about something in one’s life, one is sure to succeed in that endeavor or vocation. Happiness depends a lot on an individual’s ability to ascribe positive outcomes to one’s aspirations, for it is eventually up to a person as to how one chooses to shape one’s life. The paper brings together the arguments for and against how positive thinking brings success, and then comes to a conclusion that positive thinking it actually a key to success. To confirm this, the paper highlights the way I shaped my life and how I achieved success in personal endeavors by using positivism as the key to success. Since my childhood, I always positively looked forward to any task, problem or challenge that came my way. I was somehow always confident about being successful, irrespective of the fact that at that time I did not know what it meant to be positive. I simply believed that being happy while facing life would bring me success and fulfillment. For instance, I represented my state in national swimming competitions. I knew that in case of an athlete, one has to be very strict with one’s training hours and diet. However, my personal passion for success went beyond training and proper diet. Before participating in a competition, I strongly believed that I was going to win, and I simply imagined myself on the podium with coveted medals and trophies. I think it was primarily owing to this positive attitude on my part that I managed to win many competitions. In high school I was always hopeful and positive about achieving what I aspired to achieve. The remarkable fact is that when you seek good, you are very likely to find it (Peale 1). I just immersed my consciousness in the goals I wanted to attain, and never stopped until I realized them as Peale explain also. For instance, I am a triplet and I have a brother and a sister. Many a time people happen to believe that all the three of us will think and act the same. However, realistically speaking, this is not true. The three of us spent our childhood together. In fact, in high school, we three were in the same class, taught by the same teachers, and shared common friends. As I grew up, I developed an urge to know why I was always a success and why my two siblings did not do so well in their studies as compared to me. Eventually I arrived at the conclusion that without intentionally desiring to do so, I innately happen to be a very positive person. However, I still aspired to know whether my premise had a logical explanation. While researching this issue I found out that the experts have invented something called the “Law of Attraction.” “It argues that we attract the good things in life, whether it is money, relationships, or employment, when we focus on what we desire,” explains Chris Hedges, the author of the book Empire of Illusions. Perhaps, this premise realistically explains why positive and confident people end up being a success. If one looks into the life of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Leonardo Da Vinci, one finds that the single attribute they had in common was a strong and firm belief in the eventual realization of their goals and aspirations. Peale says that what kind of person you will be ten years from now by analyzing the kind of thoughts you are now holding in your mind (24). These achievers were way ahead of their times, and they so badly believed in being a success that they eventually ended up being successful. They came up with things that helped the entire humanity, and it was all owing to a positive bent of mind. During one such interview my roommate, who is also an achiever, told me that our lives are many a time marred by difficult situations, which make it hard to approach life with a positive mindset. She acknowledged that personally she faced many challenges in life and these difficult times only made her a better and stronger person. She told me how she suffered when she was a child. It was painful to hear her say that her parents separated when she was just five. Yet, she sadly but positively adapted herself to cope with a single parent family scenario. This made me arrive at the conclusion that if one approaches life with a positive bent of mind, life mostly ends up being good. In another such interview, one of my friends strongly recommended that one should avoid thinking negative thoughts. She told me that she always made it a point to never ponder on the thoughts that everything would go wrong. She always expected the best to happen, and mostly ended up getting the best. This reminded me of the words of Ben-Shahar who stated that “there is mounting evidence in the psychological literature showing that focusing on cultivating strengths, optimism, gratitude and positive perspective can lead to growth during difficult times” (118). In contrast, my sister Valeria believed that coincidence played a big role in the human life. As she said, “I think if you study, you will get good grades; if you work hard, you will get a good job. Period.” In other words, she simply believed in the principle of cause and effect, without attributing any importance to positive thinking. She further added, “If positivism were the solution, nobody would ever be poor or unemployed.” In the light of the interviews I conducted, I arrived at the conclusion that my family members and friends who were a success did extend much importance and relevance to positivism and optimism. After doing the interviews I wasn’t 100% convinced about that “power” or “skill” some people has to attract good things. Thus, I conducted more investigation and I found an interesting research on BBC NEWS “Positive thinking a pain reliever” that explains that US experts have strong scientific proof that mind over matter works for relieving pain. Positive Thinking not only works for archiving success, or archiving that “state of happiness”, but also helps to overcome pain. Dr, Robert Coghill, a professor and an specialist in pain relief, and his team stuies 10 normal, healthy volunteers who had a heat simulator applied to their legs while their brains were being scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The heat simulator was used to produce pain and fMRI was used to map brain activity. Before subjects underwent brain imaging, they learned to expect mild, moderate or severe painful heat stimuli following different signals. None of the stimuli were hot enough to cause burns o damage the skin. During brain imaging, a small percentage of the severe stimuli were incorrectly signaled as moderate stimuli to create expectation of decreased pain. All 10 volunteers reports less pain when they expected lower levels of pain. These expectation reduced repots of pain by more than 28% - similar to an analgesic dose of the potent painkiller morphine. At the same time, activity in areas of the brain important to both sensory and emotional processing of pain decreased. (“Positive thinking a pain reliever”) On the other hand, those against the view that positive thinking brings success claim that peoples efforts to do away with the negative is what makes them feel unsafe sad, unsure and anxious, and instead advocates for the adoption of negative thinking to success. In addition, the way of cultivating emotional agility is be being concerned about what it taking place, instead of attempting to turn a blind eye on the bad things for the fear that it might be hurting. This is important because people are essentially wired to be sensitive about threats. If one fears negative thoughts and feels the urge of need of obliterate them by force, then they will go to the extent of protecting themselves and possibly be distracted by them, as they would actually be if they are anticipating a dispatcher and just see a slip of shadow by the window. When they try to face and destroy all the negative views, they are in a defensive pose forever. However, negative events and negative thoughts are just like bad whether; they occur, and they will always happen. The answer does not lie in the undoing of that old wiring; however, it is to keep away from being hooked like a fish on each negative or bad thinking line. According to Güler (267-277) positive beliefs about self, world, and the future have been postulated to bring about healthy adjustment and positive self-regard. One of the great misconceptions in the industry of self-help is the view that one is in a position of changing their lives with positive thinking. Those advocating for positivism agree that everybody has, at their disposal, the means of transforming themselves into breathing, walking success machines. Halliday asserts that probably, part of the seeming danger of the books of psychological self-help comes from viewing them in medical terms instead of educational terms. Some of the self-help specialists sell the idea of positive thinking because they are aware of the fact that it is one of the most precious products for consumers. They are true to some extent because the products of positive thinking that make promises that are quick and easy account for several billions of dollars in a year in the direct-mail together with internet sales. Nevertheless, it does not mean that all those advocating for positive thinking are actually hucksters. Most of them are sincere and believe in the principle because they apply it successfully in their individual lives. They are always individuals who have often been accomplished, performing well in business, education or sports nearly from the beginning. Their frequent success give them confidence that they are able to do just everything. Some other psychologists have been critical of positive thinking for several years as they believe it is not useful to individuals that are in need of serious help to change their lives; those that have had negative feelings regarding what they are capable of accomplishing. Positive thinking can only work for individuals that are emotionally positive. These individuals normally have a history of success. For instance, people who have been good at wrestling find it easy to believe that they will emerge victorious in their next fight. Similarly, entrepreneurs also find it easy to believe that their next investment will be very successful. Positivity is widely viewed as an appealing personal attribute, which allows leaders to exude an air of self-assurance and authority (Collinson 87-107). When an individual is emotionally positive, they cannot help but think in a positive manner about everything. Therefore, positive thinking helps, but only for the twenty percent of the population that already has a positive thinking. Positive thinking cannot help the remaining eighty percent that is emotionally negative. On the other hand, according to those advocating for positive thinking, they believe it helps also to get where you want to get. On thing everyone wants to get is being happy. You can buy a new car and being happy for the first 2-3 months. You can buy a new house and you can be happy for 1 year. But does true happiness exist? It has a correlation with positive thinking? Many researchers claims that the first step to get to that “state of happiness” is accepting your failures and tart thinking positive. The ratio of positive to negative thoughts is a major factor in overall happiness. Using positive thinking is the best way to get there. But first you have to know how your brain works in order to do it. Mark Stibich, a researcher specialized to study how risk behavior links to health, has worked in Russia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. He wrote an article about “Accentuate the Positive” and he explained that your body mechanism works like this: Your brain is constantly monitoring the emotional tone of your thoughts – too many negative thoughts and your brain responds by creating stress and sadness in your body. When you add more positive thoughts, your brain will create relaxation and happiness. By training yourself to follow (or negate) negative thoughts with positive ones. After you’re aware of your negative thoughts and feelings and work to counteract them for a few days, they will gradually begin to lessen. You’ll be able to concentrate more on what you want to do without experiencing distracting emotions and stress. This will make you more productive and energetic. Best of all, it will make you happier. (Mark Stibich) Going by my personal beliefs and experience, the premises I pulled out through my interviews, and the scientific proves of researches, I do hold that life has its share of failures and disappointments. Everybody comes across times when fear and anxiety paralyze a person, rendering one incapable of thought and action. However, the people who are given to positivism do perform better because a positive and hopeful outlook towards life helps them muster their inner reserves of strength and gumption during tough and challenging times. Thus, the positive thinkers are not only able to steer their life towards success, but also end up learning much from the difficulties they come across in life. Positive thinkers always think in terms of possibilities and opportunities. WORK CITED "Positive Thinking a Pain Reliever." BBC News. BBC, 09 May 2005. Web. 20 Apr. 2014. Collinson David. Prozac Leadership and the Limits of Positive Thinking. Lancaster University Management School, UK. Sage Publicationa. 8(2) 87–107, 2012. Güler Boyraz. Can Positive Thinking Help? Positive Automatic Thoughts as Moderators of the Stress-meaning Relationship. Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN, US. United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2012. Halliday G. Psychological Self-help Books-how Dangerous are they? Mansfield, Ohio. Hedges, Chris. Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. New York: Nation, 2009. 119. Print. Hedges, Chris. Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. New York: Nation, 2009. 118. Print. Peale, Norman Vincent. The Amazing Results of Positive Thinking. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1959. 23. Print. Peale, Norman Vincent. The Amazing Results of Positive Thinking. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1959. 1. Print. Peale, Norman Vincent. The Amazing Results of Positive Thinking. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1959. 24. Print. Peale, Norman Vincent. The Amazing Results of Positive Thinking. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1959. 24. Print. Stibich, Mark. "How to Be Happy Using Positive Thinking." About.com Healthy Aging. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2014. Read More