Mindcoolness

A Cool Mind for a Full Life

  • Blog
  • Book
  • Glossary
  • About
  • Contact

Why Positive Thinking Is Bullshit

June 26, 2018 Dominic Reichl

positive thinking is bullshit

I recently wrote an article onĀ How to Live a Good Life by Doing Your True Will, and you might have noticed that nothing in that post refers to thoughts, beliefs, or the power of mind. This is because these concepts are hugely overrated and commonly misused.

What makes thoughts useful is that they can be structured by reason to make plans and solve problems. Likewise, beliefs are useful if they map on to reality. And the power of mind? Well, there are psychological mechanisms like placebo effects and self-fulfilling prophecies, but they are not what most people mean when they give their advice to “think positively,” “follow the law of attraction,” and “change your beliefs to change your reality.”

Your reality does not exist; only reality exists, and the rest is delusion. If you tell yourself, “I’m strong and beautiful,” this doesn’t change the reality of who you are.1 But having such a thought is odd anyways. In fact, all self-help beliefs are odd: “I am confident,” “I will be rich,” “I can do this.” They are all centered on the ego.

While I would rather think positively about myself than negatively, I find thinking about myself useless altogether. To repeat, what makes thoughts useful is that they can be structured by reason to make plans and solve problems. Therefore, useful thoughts are not self-centered, but focused on ideas, plans, problems, and solutions.

The solution to the negative thought “I’m such a loser” or “I’m not good enough” is not to think positively about how you are actually a good enough winner. Rather, the solution is either to stop thinking, or to think about how to become a winner, that is, to set a goal and make a plan. Instead of changing your beliefs to feel better about yourself, why not exert willpower to work on yourself so that your accurate belief about reality naturally becomes more positive without you having to talk yourself into positivity?

The path of mindcoolness is not to transform negative self-talk into positive self-talk, but to empty your mind of all self-talk, using your thoughts only for other-talk (conversations), truth seeking, decision making, and problem solving. The rest be silence, stillness of mind.

See, the world is so full of experiences to take in without negative or positive judgment, so full of intelligent ideas to think through, and so full of meaningful purposes to pursue. Why fill your mind with beliefs about yourself if you can fill it with beliefs about the world around you? Why use your mind to think about how to change your mental states if you can think about how to do your True Will? So get your head out of your ass and get after what you want, directly, unmediated by positive thinking, and with full force of will.

Continue Reading

  • The Detriment of Self-Knowledge
  1. This is not necessarily true; see here.

Blog psychology, rationality

Latest Post

Newsletter

Please check your inbox to confirm your subscription.

Copyright © 2022 • Content Disclaimer • Privacy Policy • Affiliate Disclosure • About
Dear reader, this website uses cookies for analytical purposes. We'll assume you're ok with it, but you can opt-out if you wish.
OK Give me more information.
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT
Posting....