I’m a big, big proponent of positive thinking…but when it’s used as a mask/excuse to avoid accountability, shirk discipline, and people attempt to replace results with platitudes…
Well in my opinion, that’s one of the most negative things one could do to themselves, regardless of how positive the thought may be.
I agree completely. I know a few people who use positivity as a sort of mask to hide their true selves; it’s incredibly unhealthy and spreads duplicity. Thank you for giving a voice to this phenomenon. 🙂
I do not quite understand your meaning. How does one use positive thinking as a mask or excuse to avoid responsibility? (I think the phrase “positive thinking” has a different meaning for you than for me.)
I would suspect that we have different meanings as well. So from what I’ve seen, when people fail because of a gap in capability, they won’t bother to examine it. When asked to address it, they’ll simply say something like, “It’ll work out.” or “Everything happens for a reason.” or “Better luck next time.” I’ve also seen people laud themselves for the effort they put forth and put no focus on the actual factors that caused them to fail. IN many of these cases, my feeling is that fully exploring these factors would point out fundamental changes they would have to make to their identity or perspective which would force them out of the comfortable worldview they’ve already established. I fully understand and empathize with this ignorance (who HASN’t engaged in this kind of thing? I certainly have) I just don’t condone it.
I think he is right. Positive thinking can be used by people as a mask to evade responsibility. As in you may claim to be hoping for the best, for a better tomorrow, but you do not do anything to that effect. You just hope that things will turn themselves to be alright.
Right. There’s a legion of people who read “The Secret” and get zero results, because they hope to get by on nothing but ardent wishes.
please comment on my article, ” Religion is vague; I ran away from church” I think it has insights closer to the idea you have expressed in your article. Its here https://nguvalltimes.wordpress.com/2017/05/09/religion-is-vague-i-ran-away-from-church/
You and I have definitely talked on this before – you are completely right. It’s not even spiritual bypass its spiritual escapism. Positivity can be a compass – seeking the silver lining and also establishing the mind and thoughts to give the outcomes you would want, but non duality dictates that there is no good or bad. Positive thinking might say “I’m going to have an amazing day” but to your point – discipline, etc karma itself will give you the outcome. It is not enough to just think happy thoughts. They should structure the fruit of your action, to give you the karma you wish. If you can go so far as to come away from even positive or negative, strip duality as much as possible, you see that you reap your intention, and your thoughts will drive your intention. Thinking “I’ll be the best (blank) ever” while
Sitting on your ass will net you nothing positive hahaha.
Exactly! That’s why I like to use functionality as a rough gauge of whether something’s good or not. Of course it has to be done within ethics…no one should be an evil banking CEO no matter how good they are at making a profit…but I feel like that’s why we have the “real world” 😉 to kind of use as a lab to validate our theories and actions
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Kent Wayne 
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