Are we afraid of unhappiness?

by Gordon McGowan

Are we afraid to be unhappy?

At what point do we have to face facts and allow ourselves to accept that things are actually just as bad as they seem?

It has been argued recently that overtly-positive thinking sometimes gets in the way of our perception of reality.

Self-help books like Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret have been topping bestseller lists for a while now; peddling the idea that the ‘secret’ to health, wealth and success in life is merely self-belief and positive thinking.

The book went down a storm, for according to Byrne anyone can be rich if they just wish for it hard enough.

Forget about education and hard work; books like The Secret will give you the information that this exclusive club of wealthy people doesn’t want you to have; it is a worldwide rich person conspiracy, and you are allowed inside for a mere £12.99.

Interestingly enough, a recent report shows that the gap between Britain’s richest and poorest is now wider than ever, with the richest 10 per cent now 100 times better off than the poorest – evidently, their thinking has been just that bit more positive.

Self help

Byrne’s book shares many similarities with countless other self-help gurus over the years, who have proven more than capable of convincing their many followers that the only obstacles in the way of their successes are just their own pessimism and scepticism.

Particularly large in the USA, positive-thinking is now a multi-billion dollar industry in itself, with countless books, life coaches and seminars charging poor people to teach them how to get rich.

Many programmes charge extortionate fees, offering impossible guarantees: if you didn’t get rich, it was obviously because you were too cynical of the system.

Failure, poverty and illness are simply attributed to a lack of faith and belief.

Barbara Ehrenreich

Author Barbara Ehrenreich writes in her recent book Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World that this mentality even extended to her treatment after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000.

She was advised to completely deny her anger and any negative emotions she would naturally have been feeling, and even think of her cancer as “not a problem at all, not even an annoyance – it is a ‘gift,’ deserving of the most heartfelt gratitude.”

Ehrenreich believes that the positive-thinking phenomenon has taken a choke-hold on the consciousness of society, with a constant delusional glass-half-full attitude being forced upon us, even when the glass is clearly empty.

Not that we should necessarily become a world of depressives and pessimists, but at times, perhaps we should accept that it is impossible to put a positive spin on a cloud for which there is clearly no silver lining.