Eddie Says Have A Positive Day. Have A Martini!
This article comes to us from The Alliance For Positive Thought. So, here goes-thanks folks, Eddie's passing the good word on.
Today I am looking at an article that purports to show that the science of positive thought is ambiguous. But the interesting thing about the article is that it cites many resources showing that positive thought works and one lonely study that shows that positive thought does not cure terminal head or neck cancer. Throughout the article there is ominous foreshadowing of some death-knell citation, but those mentions of doubt (without scientific support) only serve to reinforce the impression of the reader that there is no doubt.
You might call Maarten van der Weijden the anti-Lance Armstrong. Last week, the Dutch Olympic long-distance swimming champion and cancer survivor told the British newspaper The Telegraph that he didn't want to be compared to the American cycling star.
"Armstrong says that positive thinking and doing a lot of sports can save you. I don't agree," said van der Weijden. "I even think it's dangerous because it implies that if you are not a positive thinker all the time you lose ... The doctors saved me. I am just lucky." There are many reasons why many people are attracted to negative thoughts as well as positive thoughts. The range of emotions that we experience and express helps us to enjoy. Exuberance is unexceptional without sadness, spontaneity is blasé without boredom. And there is no way to get rid of the range of emotions even if we decided we wanted to. Life has always been and always be a struggle. Those of us who are willing and able to harness the power of the mind to enhance our health, and our chances of survival, may wish to do so.If you said, “I am cynical, and I'm unhappy that I am cynical,” why is that good? What benefit do you derive from being cynical? If you said “I enjoy being cynical,” I would say “way to be positive!” Because you are being positive, because you are accepting and relishing who you are.
Maarten van der Weijden is a person we all know – he's a sourpuss. If he enjoys and revels in his sarcasm, and I would call that enjoyment an expression of positive thought. If he is making himself unhappy and miserable, then I would say he is not practicing positive thinking. Of course, whether you are enjoying the experience or not, being stressed all the time can still cause damage.Suppose van der Weijden is a negative thinker who got better despite his destructive thought patterns. He has still been influenced by the placebo effect. He did receive treatment from a doctor, and he believed that this treatment was going to be effective. Perhaps it was the treatment alone that cured him, or perhaps his belief in its ability enhanced its effects because his attitude affected his body’s response.Even those who are negative about everything manage to survive and succeed. It doesn’t mean that positive thought doesn’t work, it means that it is one of many factors that facilitate success.
