Pessimism In Bright Side By Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright Side

Improved Essays
“The alternative to positive thinking is not, however, despair. In fact, negative thinking can be just as delusional as the positive kind” (195/196).
Positive thinking can hurt us, churches, and corporations just like negative thinking can as said by Barbara Ehrenreich in Bright Side: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. I never thought about pessimism as ever having a positive connotation until Mr. Polking asked me about it. Pessimism doesn’t always have a negative connotation; it helps us in our survival and instincts. Ehrenreich agrees with this by saying, “Realism--to the point of defensive pessimism--is a prerequisite not only for human survival but for all animal species” (200). Humans and animals
…show more content…
Catholics are most known for displaying this behavior, but is that changing? Is there a new church revolution like there was in the 1500’s? In a way, yes. Megachurches are becoming more and more popular. They often preach positive thinking; rarely mentioning sinners and damnation, “Gone is the threat of hell and the promise of salvation, along with the grim story Jesus’ torment on the cross…” (124). These megachurches are revolutionizing into something the world has never seen. Some say “...the megachurch looks like a corporate office building or headquarters; its pastor is more likely to wear a business suit than clerical robes; religious symbols and icons have been stripped away” (145). I’ve never noticed this about new churches popping up until Bright Side mentioned it. The book also mentions how corporations are straying away from their own traditions as …show more content…
But with this new idea of CEO came workers and CEOs who were unfamiliar with each other. This detachment lead to easy firing and laying off workers. Soon enough, those who underperformed or whose branch was no longer relevant, lost their jobs. The life as they knew it fell apart around them, but some didn’t let this bring them down because “The purveyors of positive thinking did not slink off into the night like foreclosed-upon homeowners...they seemed to redouble their efforts” (192). By thinking positive, they got to keep up their lifestyle and income too. When they could’ve fallen into anger and despair, they rose

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Becoming a leader is not just about being the one in charge, to be a positive leader is evaluating one’s self-views and acting on the perceptions others have on you. Through the ideas brought up in the chapter: Cultivate Positive Identities by Laura M. Roberts, a well rounded response is needed to strengthen the views presented. The use of personal tie-ins and statement, evidence and comment (SEC) strategies will help aid the reader in relating personal triumphs to effective leadership. In order to cultivate a positive identity in the workplace, Roberts explains that one must ensure that they focus on the way others perceive them as a leader.…

    • 933 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Escape From Babel Summary

    • 1276 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Although not completely conceptualized until the concluding summary in the book, the title, Escape from Babel, is a biblical reference that alludes towards a characterization of the competing doctrines in psychotherapy at the twilight of 20th Century. Within the multitude of contending theories and models, each replete with their own distinctive verbiage and techniques, Scott D. Miller, Barry L. Duncan, and Mark A. Hubble suggest that a voice of unification can be found through focusing on the common factors that emanate from under each theories penumbra. Further, the already existent and thorough research literature on effective therapeutic approaches and outcomes provide the critical ingredients to efficiently and effectively work in the…

    • 1276 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Biological Perspective The biological perspective is one of the major perspectives in psychology. It is the only approach in psychology that studies a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors from a biological and physical stand point of view. Therefore, all that is psychological starts out as physiological. There are some biological aspects that can help explain human behavior.…

    • 230 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A person’s mindset can be described as their attitude and the way that person views the world and life. In the short stories, “Seeing” by Annie Dillard and “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace, both authors explore how having different observations and ways of thinking can change someone’s mindset and attitude. In comparison, “Seeing by Annie Dillard”, shows how vision can either cloud or open the mindset of the bigger picture. However, “This is Water” by Foster Wallace, shows that focusing on oneself and neglecting others, can lead to a repetitive negative mindset of the world. Using vision and thought, you can drastically change the mindset and attitude that you see in the world.…

    • 1069 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    An experiment was conducted to see if thinking optimistically increases how long a person will live. Research proved that thinking optimistically about situations can drastically decrease the chances of dying early (Mindfulness and Positive Thinking). If people just have a positive attitude instead of a negative attitude when facing conflict, then they could be increasing their lifespan. In another experiment the conclusion was made that “Greater optimism predicted greater antibody production and better immune outcomes” (Mindfulness and Positive Thinking). In the long run, having an optimistic personality will make the immune system stronger and the body less likely to become ill.…

    • 856 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Walking along the shore of a sandy beach, whether feet be bare or booted, each step will leave an imprint within the sand. Varying from deep to shallow from indistinct to detailed, each step will change the sand no matter the foot. But as the waves should have it, each footprint will be washed away and erased, leaving the beach still a beach but the grains of sand sorted new. Author, Laura Hillenbrand, wrote the novel, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, to establish that should one choose to look with sanguinity any situation is not impossible to overcome, even if one is changed in the end.…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Success has powers that can take control of us in both positive and negative ways. Margaret Mead explains that success is great, it's the winning prize,but it can also affect us in many ways. She also explains that with being successful, we feel threatened by others who are more successful than us. Lastly, she says that Americans are confused with being successful and how we should react. I agree with Mead because success can come with positive outcomes,but it can also come with negative outcomes such as:/ No one cares how they get successful all they want is to get successful and how others envy others with different types of success.…

    • 587 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Happiness is a Glass Half Empty The phrase, ‘You are what you eat’, influences people to analyze their nutrition and diet and modify their lifestyle. However, people rarely stop to think about or even consider that ‘You are what you think’, and that this form of living vastly affects an individual’s life. People in general perceive and measure happiness by how successful they are in life. Oliver Burkeman, author of the “This Column Will Change Your Life” section for The Guardian Newspaper, writes in detail about the way human thinking affects their feelings of happiness.…

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Everyday, there are wins and losses throughout the world. From being promoted to getting fired is something that people hear of happening daily. It’s how people get to these points that really matter. With William Shakespeare’s novel, Macbeth, it tells a story about how individuals will push themselves to achieve but often the individual on the other end will fail. This relates to the author because his works weren’t exactly recognized to their fullest potential during his time, however, as time went on he turned out to be known as one of the most talented playwright and poet.…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    How does one define success? People have different viewpoints on success. Some people usually think success is all about how much money you some people think success as you are being happy. In my opinion success is being able to support the ones you love, the ones who make you happy, and the ones who support you in your time of need. Many people strive to be successful however not everyone becomes successful.…

    • 1337 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Every experience that a person has may change the outcome of his or her entire life, and its burden on his or her thoughts may range from inconsequential to monumental. The numerous trials that someone has gone through in order to become simply another person walking in a crowd reach deeply into the feelings of the present. Even for those people who appear to be going through their lives normally, there are memories that they feel may have been better off forgotten. Negative emotions, especially, seem to cling to the forefront of the mind and adversely affect self-esteem, self-confidence, and interpersonal relationships. Stories like those told in the movie The Joy Luck Club, based on the eponymous novel by Amy Tan and directed by Wayne Wang,…

    • 1574 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Essay On Optimism

    • 1053 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Optimistic people naturally have the ability to think positive. If a person is not a natural optimist, there are ways that person can practice to become an optimist. It requires forcing oneself to work at having a positive outlook. It requires changing the mind to think positively over negatively. If a negative thought enters the mind, one has to be aware of it.…

    • 1053 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Having a positive outlook on negative situations can help in tough times, even where there is no hope. Keeping your outlook on the world, even when it’s turned on you, is a true spirit. “Just because something in life appears to be hard, that does not mean it’s impossible.” In Anne Frank's diary, she wrote like nothing was wrong, even when things were. Or in Dear Miss. Breed, the Louise Ogawa is tortured at the camps, but when she writes about it, it doesn’t sound terrible, She keeps her rosy look on the world.…

    • 549 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This world has a cultural bias that has spread land to land into the minds and hearts of almost every person. This bias is hurting everyone, and forcing a sense of false optimism and blinding us to the truth. This bias says that people are at their own personal fault for not being happy and it is killing the varied emotions that have grown through evolution to help the human species survive. The idea that a person should be happy, simply because another person is worse off is hurting everyone.…

    • 1320 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    We are going to be freshmen again. That’s right, freshmen: bottom of the food chain; inexperienced; grunt work monkeys et cetera. You get the idea. We started as freshmen here at NYU and have grinded our way to the top of the food chain as graduating seniors. We have learned about ourselves in the process, but have also been influenced by our environment to think a certain way and believe certain things.…

    • 2321 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays