Just Think Happy Thoughts!
Whenever I hear some spiritual guru proclaim that all you gotta do is “just think happy thoughts!”, it makes me want to pop him one upside the head and see how long he can keep on thinking his “happy thoughts.”
Take as an example Miguel Ruiz’s bestselling Four Agreements, which exhorts readers to “Be impeccable with your word; don’t take anything personally; don’t make assumptions; always do your best.” The degree of profundity or usefulness of this advice is beside the point; it does a disservice to the reader. No effort was made to explain why it’s impossible to be impeccable with your word (in a society based upon lying to other people and yourself); not to take things personally (when all your social training is pointed at inflating your self-importance); not to make assumptions (in a society which discourages thinking for yourself, or thinking at all); or why it’s impossible to do your best (in a society which teaches you to cringe helplessly and wallow in self-pity). In other words, fluffy writing just adds more guilt to the burden of self-hatred which people are already carrying by making people blame themselves, rather than their hypocritical society, for their unhappiness. Fluffy writing may sound soothing because it’s simplistic; but it’s of no real help to anyone.
Who is thinking happy thoughts? The evangelizing proselytizers with their toothpaste-advertisement grins and their used-car-salesman spiels? If those people were truly happy in their hearts, would they be running around trying to make other people like them (in all senses of that word)? Being in denial is not the same thing as being happy. NOBODY (except maybe a few lamas meditating in caves in the Himalayas maybe) can control their thoughts. People can most certainly run away from their issues by distracting themselves, but that is not the same thing as controlling thoughts. It’s like masturbation was in the Victorian age – everybody was doing it while paying lip service to denial; and then feeling ashamed of themselves for being so “perverted”. Similarly, people are being lied to about “just thinking happy thoughts” – and then are made to feel worse about themselves because they are incapable of accomplishing this unattainable feat.
It’s all a lie – this “Positive Thinking” baloney, like so much New Age cant (oh yeah, that’s another one: “never say can’t!”). If you are not happy inside, then 1) it’s impossible to think happy thoughts (unless you’re in denial); and 2) thinking happy thoughts isn’t the way to change your mood in any case (it works the other way around: when you are able to control your moment-to-moment mood – or better said, relax into indifference – THEN your thoughts naturally tend to be happy). What creates your reality is your underlying mood, not what you tell yourself (not your thoughts).
The pundits of Positive Thinking have their cause-and-effect backwards. And they exacerbate people’s problems by blaming them for being unable to control their thoughts – as if society doesn’t heap enough blame and shame on people as it is … now in the New Age people have to blame themselves for being unable to accomplish the impossible. To expect that YOU – l’il ol’ nose pickin’ and pastin’ it under the furniture YOU – should be able to control your thoughts (and then chide yourself when you fail to live up to this ridiculous expectation) is completely absurd. Positive thinking is just another of society’s lies designed to make you feel crummy about yourself.
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