Newsletter #31: Fooling Yourself - Not a cure but a tool!
Why I changed my mind about positive thinking
Positive thinking always seemed to me like a cheap mental hack. Something you use to fool yourself and try to escape reality. I thought that it's better to just imagine things going wrong and be prepared if they do.
Recently, I experienced something that changed my mind about this. I was attempting my second Visa interview.
The first time, since I was against positive thinking, I had done my routine of thinking about all the ways things could go wrong and what I would have to do if they did.
However, as things turned out, I was about to receive a rude awakening. What ended up happening, is I thought about the unfavourable scenarios too much. Instead of being prepared for them, I became obsessed with what shouldn't happen and focused less on what I should do.
Now, a lot of people told me that there is a big luck factor involved in getting a Visa but I feel too much ‘negative preparedness’ did have a toll on my overall confidence.
After this rejection and having to take an unexpected and unwanted gap, it's safe to say that I was not in the best of shape.
The second time, I decided to give positive thinking a try. I focused on only two things, preparing for the Visa interview and thinking about how it will go right, and I did end up getting the Visa.
Although I agree that the process was pretty much down to luck, I did feel the importance of positive thinking.
So here are my observations about positive thinking and why it helps:
You do fool yourself, but that's a good thing
Positive thinking alone does not help achieve anything, but it helps you to keep your confidence levels high and it also helps you remain less stressed.
Here's a video of successful comic Bill Burr giving the same advice; he says
[Paraphrased] Isn’t it better to live life thinking you will be fine and figure out what to do only if anything goes wrong? Instead of constantly worrying.
Circle of Concern and Circle of Control
This is a very famous concept. You focus on things you can control and not your concerns and some of your concerns are out of your control.
The problem is, no one tells you how!!
Well, I feel positive thinking is one way. This is because it helps you to remove the worry of things that are out of your control.
Word of caution
Although I have changed my mind about this, I do feel being cognizant about not going overboard with this is necessary.
Sometimes we tend to associate positive thinking with a guarantee of a positive outcome. However, it only helps you to reduce the amount of time under stress in case of a negative outcome.
Think about it this way,
Let’s say you really wanted to win a marathon. You prepared for it well, you followed all the dietary restrictions as well as did all the stretching routines. However, you still could not win.
We can split up your mental phase into two parts,
In the first case, you think positively and don't get the desired outcome. The misery and worrying start after the result. What I mean is you enjoyed the process, you gave your best effort and during the effort phase, you did not worry about the result.
In the second case, you keep worrying that what happens if you get injured or fall sick or your shoes break on race day, etc., and it impacts your efforts and you don't get the desired result. Time spent thinking about your concerns is too much in this case.
And although you did not get the desired result in both scenarios, “time under stress” was significantly less in the first one. One more way to look at it is that in the first case, time spent on the circle of influence was more, and time spent on the circle of concern was less.
Conclusion
In the Hindu Scripture Bhagavad Gita, there’s a famous shloka called “Karmanye Vadhikaeraste”, which says you have the right to action alone and not its fruits, but this fact does not give you the right to do no action at all. So be consistent with your efforts, and patient with the results.
(Here’s an awesome huge Twitter thread on the same if you want to dive deeper. I strongly recommend reading this thread, it’s my favorite thread on all of Twitter!)
I feel that if we frame positive thinking as a tool for optimizing efforts instead of a medicine to cure uncertainty, we can better use it as well as set the right expectations while explaining it to others.
I hope this gave you some food for thought!
That’s it for this issue. I hope you found this article interesting. Until next time!
📜The article corner
Learning to be a loser
An interesting philosophical read.
Cioran turned his poverty into a badge of philosophical honour. For the most pressing needs of his body, he would rely on the kindness of strangers and the generosity of friends. He wore other people’s hand-me-down clothes or entertained them with his wit and erudition in exchange for a meal. He would do anything, except take a proper job.