Mark Manson

Research also shows that actively engaging in positive thinking, such as when you imagine getting a job, doing well on an exam, or even successfully recovering after surgery, can actually result in poorer outcomes. Psychologists think that this kind of delusional positive thinking can make us complacent and lazy, as though we already accomplished something we have yet to accomplish, causing us to put forth less effort and to feel less motivated.

Other studies show that people who engage in “self-affirmations” and are then presented with information that threatens their affirmation (even healthy criticism or feedback) actually engage in more faulty reasoning than people who don’t use self-affirmations. In fact, people who indulge in delusional positive thinking ironically become downright angry when someone tries to contradict their wall of airy-fairy thoughts. The truth about their situation just becomes that much more painful to them.

Delusional positive thinking ironically generates greater closed-mindedness in people. They must always be vigilant and block out potentially negative feedback or criticism of their beliefs, even if that negative feedback is life-or-death important to their health and well-being.

On top of all of that, as I have argued at length previously on this blog, we are all really bad at predicting what will make us happy and/or miserable in the future. So, by using the law of attraction, we might spend all this time and energy building a “future life” that isn’t what we want at all. Maybe we envision having drunken orgies every night of our lives and so we seek outswingers and weird kinky sex groups on Craigslist and, turns out, it’s not all that great and it kind of makes us depressed… but The Universe gave it to us because we asked for it! I think it’s healthier (and more practical) to reserve judgment on what I will or will not like until I find out through my own experience, rather than just make shit up and hope it works out well.

The full article is so well written and complete it’s basically impossible to add to it.

Just read it.

(Especially, focus on the explanation of how The Secret sorta works and how such can completely, “Screw you up.”)

Call me crazy, but I believe that changing and improving your life requires destroying a part of yourself and replacing it with a newer, better part of yourself. It is, therefore, by definition, a painful process full of resistance and anxiety. You can’t grow muscle without challenging it with greater weight. You can’t build emotional resilience without forging through hardship and loss. And you can’t build a better mind without challenging your own beliefs and assumptions.

Truth.