Seems to always be one way or the other, doesn’t it? Positive or negative, paper or plastic… Dr. Kinsey said something to the effect of humans will always be inclined to lean more heavily in one direction, But a person is never entirely, 100% on wither side of the spectrum.
He was talking about sexuality, but the statement applies to other aspects of human inclination. For instance, positive or negative thinking, which do you prefer.
As you guessed I favor positive thoughts and intentions.
Lets examine some of the pros and cons of negative thought. Negatively focused thought lends credibility to ‘everything will go wrong’, people are inherently bad, don’t trust anyone, and people will always let you down.
There are more examples but this is enough to get the main definition across the table; negative thinking highlights any fear, loathing, distrust or general negative formation a person has.
The benefits are that you can plan for if the scenario goes sour on you. However the imagined scenarios almost never go down in the same way imagined.
The inexactitude often makes the projection useless. The negative deductions are usually based off emotion opposed to fact, so they will always be specialized to the perspective not the situation.
“The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.” James Branch Cabell
Cabell’s quote fantastically highlights the fact that positive thought and negative thought are directly connected, they are the sides to a coin. Rational thought and receptive perception is the the side of the coin following the circumference of the coin, despite our best efforts we normally only touch it for a moment when the disk is flipped. Both major perspectives are so heavily rooted in emotions that they frequently overlook facts, and are there for normally wrong.
If you are only going to be partially right, why not be positive?
The perceptions gleaned in this way are going to be off wither way. The positive assumptions though will be the better of the options. To be clear, I’m not saying to stop using your common sense.
You should always be striving to make the most objective and rational decisions, that take into account your ‘gut feelings’ and your intuition. That isn’t always an option though and frequently have to make due with what we got.
That positivity will spread to others as well, so its beneficial and conducive to group situations. As you can’t be sure what your neighbor is thinking its safe to cover your bases and try to be as empathetic and supporting as you can until you find out more details.