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Showing posts with the label positive thinking

Positive Thinking

Source The concept of positive thinking gained undue popularity in the last few decades.  It does help us much in dealing with certain problems and obstacles that life brings inevitably.  But does it have some drawbacks too? Psychology tells us that we are already programmed for over-optimism.  ‘Optimism bias’ is what psychology calls it, according to which we have a natural tendency to think that bad things will happen to us less often than they will happen to other people.  Earthquakes and floods and other such disasters won’t occur where we live.  The airplane which is carrying us won’t crash.  The train on the other track may derail but not ours.  There is actually a part of the brain that sustains this sort of optimism which is a kind of inbuilt defence mechanism.  The problem with this defence-shield is that it can make us over-optimistic.  It can make us blind to certain potential hazards and threats.  It can blunt...