Two major voices came out of the Holocaust: Victor Frankl and Elie Wiesel.   
   Frankl's message was self-empowerment; Wiesel's message was despair. Yet   
   Wiesel became more influential than Frankl.   
      
   How can this be, some may say. Isn't positive attitude everything? Don't you   
   have to be positive in order to be successful, and aren't negative people   
   losers? Well there is nothing loserish about Elie Wiesel. He became a crusader   
   for human rights, and    
   his influence extend far beyond the Jewish community.   
      
   In fact there have been many people who were negative who achieved significant   
   things. Nixon was negative. Charles Dickens was negative. Lou Reed was   
   negative. Russians tend to have a negative outlook, but for several decades   
   Russia credibly rivaled    
   America for leadership of the world. Clearly what we know about positive   
   attitude being prerequisite for success is untrue.   
      
   Positive thinking causes more problems than it solves. You think positive, you   
   fail to anticipate problems, you do foolish things. Negative thinking is not   
   the solution either. The negative thinker would believe that our problems are   
   too much for us to    
   solve, which is untrue. The solution is real thinking, where we analyze the   
   conditions and put into place rightful solutions to our problems.   
      
   Indeed quite often the positive thinker would become a bully, attacking people   
   who do not have positive attitude without figuring out why they don't have a   
   positive attitude. I'll give you a hint. It consists of two words: Global   
   warming. We have    
   problems up the wazoo, and in some cases a negative attitude is justified.   
   What is not justified is inaction in the face of these problems – something   
   that we regrettably see both from people professing a positive attitude, who   
   want to deny these    
   problems, and from people possessing a negative attitude, who think that these   
   problems are too much for us to solve.   
      
   So I say do away with both positive thinking and negative thinking and try   
   real thinking. And pursuant real thinking, real action to solve the problems   
   of the world.   
      
   https://sites.google.com/site/ilyashambatthought   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)