Ever hear one say, “Sometimes I’m busy making others happy, that I forget to make sure I’m okay.”? After reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided I have learned that balancing both positive and negative thinking is the single most important life lesson shown throughout the book. Ehrenreich tells readers that the power of positive thinking Is undermining America and how being too positive and too optimistic, can lead to trouble. One that knows how to balance the amount of positivity and negativity will create a proper outcome for their future.
Ehrenreich opens up her book at an extremely difficult time in her life, battling cancer. Not only is she battling cancer but she is at a time where she is being exposed to the darkest times to positive
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She argues that a positive outlook will not make one cancer free, give one a job, make one wealthy or do you constantly happy. The beginning of the book made me realize that the balance of positive and negative thinking is the most important life lesson. She shows the readers how staying positive through her battles of cancers is going to make it easier, but Ehrenreich is trying to explain to the readers that it is okay to be negative. Ehrenreich gives the readers more of a negative side and thinks being positive is beginning to harm us. I can understand why she was thinking so negative while she was battling cancer, she was told by a cancer patient, “I know that if I get sad, or scared or upset, I am making my tumor grow faster and it will have shortened my life” (Ehrenreich 43). Ehrenreich sure did give the audience a way of understanding as to how people rely too much on positivity. She tells us that one will need to …show more content…
Michael F. Scheier and Charles S Carver say, “Psychologists have approached the notion of positive thinking from a variety of perspectives. Common to most viewers, thought, Is the idea that positive thinking is some way involved holding positive expectancies for one’s futures”. Well, that being said, when one is becoming too optimistic and positive, the won 't be prepared for events that will come to them. Ehrenreich says, “Sometimes we need to heed our fears and negative thoughts, and at all times we need to be alert to the world outside ourselves, even when that included absorbing bad news and entertaining the views of “negative” people” (204). In my opinion, I think it is very important to watch the news, some may think differently. According to the Huffington post, a blogger advised, “Studies show that you will sleep better with less news intake late at night” (193). With studies shows that you will sleep better because one isn’t getting the bad news intake that keeps you up all night thinking about it, that is one’s choice to watch the certain news they are watching. I think everyone should be aware of their surroundings, one cannot just be so optimistic because events like the great depression, 911 and other disasters that happened in America would have come more prepared as if you were being too positive nothing is going to go wrong
The biggest appeal that Ehrenreich makes is after she ends up walking out of the housekeeping job/waitress job because she cannot handle it anymore." I have failed I don't cry, but I am in a position to realize, for the first time in many years, that the tear ducts are still there and still capable of doing their job." (Ehrenreich, 48) This is the biggest appeal because Ehrenreich is quitting on the whole project. She is basically telling the readers that it is impossible for her, a "well-off", woman to live the life of a low wage worker.
Society pressure themselves to be happy; they often ask questions like, “does that make you happy?” What they fail to understand is that sometimes doing the right thing, for the moment, might not seem to bring happiness in one’s life, but after trekking the ups and downs of life, happiness might be waiting on the other side. From time to time people also judge good and bad through happiness. “If something is good, we feel good. If something is
The importance dispositional optimism as a facilitator of well-being, positive health, flourishing, and quality of life has been documented in the positive psychology literature. Dispositional optimism evaluated by the LOT-R is a positive personality trait characterized by favorable personal future expectation (Scheier et al., 1994). It has been emphasized that optimism is a malleable personality trait and that pessimists can become optimists by utilizing techniques such as positive psychology interventions (Carver et al., 2009; Seligman, 2011). In contrast to traditional psychological interventions, positive psychology interventions have a strong focus on cultivating positive personality traits including dispositional optimism.
This tyranny of cheerfulness has become so normalized that we as a society have become so normalized to the “cheerful survivor”. We expect women to engage in walks, campaigns and product purchasing to help the fight with cancer, to engage in the cheerfulness. We are expected to envision cancer as a cheerful woman, someone unaffected by a disease, a warrior, but what we are doing is simply masking cancer socially as
People can stay positive and not stay positive for many different reasons, even if they believe that things could get better.And in both novels Night by Elie Wiesel and Sold by Patricia McCormick deal with positivity in similar ways. So, by examining the novels Night and Sold we can see that staying positive is vital to survival which, is important because when someone is not positive anymore they will give up hope.
During the various stages of her experiment Ehrenreich strove to maintain equilibrium between her professional integrity and what was physically prudent. Whether she was working as at Walmart or as a waiter she always tried to learn the fundamental obligations her job required of her and the tricks that would make it easier. She could have honed the finesse this approach significantly but it worked well enough when she finally obtained a competent level of experience in her job/s. This approach created the basic pattern: get a cheap place to live, obtain a job, power through the
In the story Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting, Andrew shows us that optimism helps make bad situations better by looking on the bright side. First of all, Andrew has to walk to another terminal but he says he like to walk. Also, when the bird gets stuck in the terminal, Andrew tells the bird to not give up. Finally, when Andrew gets breakfast, he doesn't complain that he doesn't always get juice. If you try looking on the bright side of things, maybe your life would be happier no matter how bad it already
The article about the Chinese farmer by Evelyn Theiss is deep and very thoughtful. It actually touches a part of the way I think. Life is full of events, some of them might be good and others might be bad, and the way the person thinks affects how he/she sees these events. Personally, I don’t prefer negativity because it would always make things worse. On the other hand, I don’t like being positive too much because I would be so depressed if things didn’t work out the way I thought it would. Living life with balancing both sides is the best, in my opinion, and that Chinese farmer did exactly what the best (2009). I always believe that anything would happen to us is for a cause, even if it’s bad, we could learn from it.
In “The Delusion of Positive Thinking,” by Barbara Ehrenreich states that positive thinking does not help us succeed in life. Ehrenreich begins by mentioning that majority of the american people believe that we “are a ‘positive’ people”. Ehrenreich then states some positive aspects of being positive which are that being in a positive mood will helps us live longer, and smiling will help “generate positive feelings within us”. However, happiness can not measure positive thinking becauses different cultures have different definitions of happiness. Americans tend to associate positive thinking with happiness, yet, our nation is 23rd in being happy since, antidepressants is a common drug in America. In fact, positive thinking is just an “ideology”
Finding the balance of both optimism and pessimism is crucial in life. In the novel Candide, written by Voltaire, Candide, the main character, experiences pain, sorrow, and war. Candide fails to recognize and acknowledge that bad things do indeed happen and not everything is for the best. but getting him to that point wasn't easy. Throughout the book, Candide remains optimistic because he bases his philosophy off of his mentor, Pangloss. He is oblivious and doesn't see the world as it really is. People continue to take advantage of him and he doesn't recognize this. He sees the bad as good and the good as amazing. His philosophy is that he lives in the best of all possible worlds. Because Candide is incapable of thinking for himself, he only
According to Remez Sasson, “Think about happiness, good health and success, and you will cause people to like you and desire to help you, because they enjoy the vibrations that a positive mind emits” (“Positive Thinking and Action”). When a person is positive it compels people to follow their lead and keep a positive attitude. When Anne Frank stayed positive she helped her family go back to their normal life. For example Anne writes, “Yesterday Mother felt well enough to cook split-pea soup for the first time, but then she was downstairs talking and forgot all about it”(Frank). Without Anne, Anne’s family may not have been able to stay optimistic and keep on with their regular lives. Based on “8 Tips to Help You Persevere Through Adversity” “Positive thinking will generate positive thoughts and attract positive people and experiences into your life” (Keller). When someone is positive it attracts others and can make life much better during a time of
These information have been affirmed in a resulting longitudinal examination on a populace of guys matured between 64 - 84 years in which a converse relationship was accounted for between dispositional good faith and the danger of cardiovascular demise [13]. Matthews et al. [17] watched that in the three years following the menopause, carotid atherosclerosis tended to advance all the more gradually in hopeful ladies contrasted with their cynical companions. In reference to oncological patients, Schulz et al. [18] noticed that high scores on the cynicism things of the LOT (a measure of dispositional positive thinking) [1] essentially anticipated unexpected passing in youthful patients with bosom growth. Among patients with neck or head growth, confident people showed essentially more noteworthy survival a year after conclusion when contrasted with worriers [19]. In a current report, Ironson et al. [20] demonstrated how dispositional idealism, less avoidant adapting systems and lower level of melancholy decidedly impact movement of the ailment in patients experiencing
We all need more positivity in our lives, otherwise, we wouldn 't be able to sustain ourselves mentally. Positivity is a platform to hope, a warm greeting or even a smile. It enlightens your day in ways you can’t possibly explain. Judge for yourself through the following example. Imagine someone negative coming across people the whole day and having to go to work like this person always does every day. Now, the fact that he/she is negative is going to cut him/her completely to what he/she is normally supposed to do. This means that he will probably not return someone 's greeting or notice the time passing by. In other words, he/she is going to be distracted by a negative thought. On the other hand, when you have a positive attitude you know more or less how to get back to reality and carry on with your day.
Everyone should try and be optimistic because It helps many people get through their very tough situations. “ We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to cause them.” We need to always have faith that things will work out in our advantage. “You can’t have a rainbow without a little rain”, meaning that you’re life isn’t always gonna consist of you being happy all the time, there are days you’re gonna have to deal with problems. Just don’t let the problems bring you down because there’s a rainbow on the other
While retiring to bed at night, one should say "it was a nice day and now I can have a relaxed sleep. Let the tomorrow be brighter, fresher and cheerful" Psychologists insist on having just positive thoughts. When you recurrently habit yourself with such thoughts, your mind and body are used to the positive vibrations they set in. Once your body is a harbor of positive thinking, you can never run out of hope and optimism.