‘The Power of Negative Thinking’ – would you, should you, buy it?

There’s always something a bit irritating about the eternal optimist, isn’t there?  The one with the permanent smile, the cheerful chappie, the Teflon grin. The person without a hint of the downbeat.

And perhaps you share the wider suspicion that behind it lies ‘Positive thinking’. Norman Vincent Peale’s famous and popular book, The Power of Positive Thinking has spawned an entire industry of cheer-up literature. Some of it’s quite measured (Seth Godin), some of it funny (Jon Acuff) and some of it comes covered in so many layers of cheese you could invite a large church round for a fondue.

And here are the two halves of the problem, for this Brit anyway.  The first is that cheese.  I really don’t take to the homely-story-told-with-a-chuckle approach.  I’m suspicious of people who brag about their achievements, endorsements, awards. It smells fake, plasticky, inauthentic. That literature is slathered in the stuff, in my experience, and I’ve learnt to run away.  Early on it was startling, like when I first encountered Robert Schuller, his Crystal Cathedral, ‘The Hour of Power’ broadcast, and presenting the Beatitudes as the Be-Happy Attitudes. 

Now, it doesn’t shock. But it doesn’t make me like it any more.

And so the second half of the problem is that I reject whatever comes covered in the cheese.  Which is, when you think about it, quite irrational.  It’s like saying I don’t like what’s inside a Christmas present because I don’t like the wrapping paper.

It’s like saying I don’t like what’s inside a Christmas present because I don’t like the wrapping paper.

One of my favourite books in this area is Learned Optimism, by Martin Seligman.  He’s carved out a niche researching and publishing in this area, and one of his best fun nuggets is this:

In every field of human endeavour, research shows that optimists outperform pessimists every single time. With only one exception.

Optimistic sportspeople outperform pessimistic sportspeople.  Optimistic business people outperform pessimistic business people. Politicians, musicians, teachers likewise. Are you expecting me to say that church leadership is that exception? Nope.

So you want to know the single exception now. It’s not a career; it’s an attribute.  It’s the correct perception of reality.  Let me say that again: the correct perception of reality. If you want to know how things really are, pessimists are way better are getting that right.

The problem, you will have spotted, is that they won’t do very much with that information, because it’s the optimists who will run with the ball.

If you want to describe reality, ask a pessimist.  But if you want to change it, you have to grab an optimist.

If you want to describe reality, ask a pessimist.  But if you want to change it, you have to grab an optimist.

Let’s try a thought experiment.

• Would you agree with me that being around a negative person saps your mental, emotional, even spiritual energy?

• Would you agree with me that having a negative person in a team makes the whole team tired?

• Would you agree with me that being married to a negative person would be a draining experience?

• Would you agree with me that approaching a meeting, a church service, a day of planning, with a predetermined negative attitude will colour your whole experience of the event? That you’ll enjoy less, worship less, achieve less, feel lower levels of satisfaction?
• And is pessimism infectious?

If you’ve agreed, you’ve just decided that there is money to be had writing a book called The Power of Negative Thinking.  Because you’ve just agreed that a person’s negative mood and attitude can profoundly inhibit not just their own performance, but of those they are with.

Negative people set the thermostat in the room.

Negative thinking has power.

So why shouldn’t the reverse also be true? And what would happen if we not just noticed that, but actually chose to live in the light of it? Like, we chose to be positive.

Let’s try the reverse thought experiment.

• Would you agree with me that being around a positive person warms your mental, emotional, even spiritual energy? And so why are we suspicious?

• Would you agree with me that having a positive person in a team makes the whole team lift? And so why are we suspicious?

• Would you agree with me that being married to a positive person would be a life-giving experience? And so why are we suspicious?

• Would you agree with me that approaching a meeting, a church service, a day of planning, with a predetermined positive attitude will colour your whole experience of the event? That you’ll enjoy more, achieve more, maybe worship more, feel higher levels of satisfaction?
• And is optimism infectious?

Soooooo why are we suspicious?

I think, in part, at best, it’s because we have a strong theology of the Fall, and the embedded Futility that follows.  We know that plans fail, people let us down, and stuff stops working.  We’ve learnt to anticipate the brokenness of reality.

But put that in a British setting where we have a preference for the ironic, the mockery, the exposing the clay feet, and right there you have a guaranteed recipe for British Christianity to be default-defeated.

Right there you have a guaranteed recipe for British Christianity to be default-defeated.

And if those thought experiments are true, that is a self-reinforcing piece of stupidity.

Was anything great every achieved without the determined, deliberate, daily, persistent optimism and faith of those in charge, in the face of overwhelming difficulty?

Let me ask you some other questions.

• Is God cynical, or tired, or frustrated? Does he expect the worst, because it’s safer? Does he always have a Plan C, because Plan B would never work? Is he betting on everything being sorted out at the return of Christ, but in the meantime just lets out a sigh of inevitability?
• Are all God’s promises ‘Probably Not’ in Christ? With a few of them set to ‘Maybe’?
• Will the negative mindset of the Lord accomplish his plans?

Let me get off that soapbox and just ask one question.

If (as you agreed) negative thinking has a destructive power, and if (as I imagine you guardedly agreed) positive thinking has a constructive one – which mindset would be the best one to choose to adopt, as a default?

Because I have a hunch that our God is the original eternal optimist.

You know the drill – pile in!