Positive thinking is a way of life of for me. I strongly believe that we can be transformed by our thoughts. The principles laid out in Dr. Peale's book are in line with several well-known strategies for positive living. While I agree with the content, there are a few issues with the presentation that readers should be wary of:
1. The book is based on Biblical/Christian principles therefore people of different religious beliefs may find it difficult to connect to the content.
2. Dr. Peale portrays positive thinkers as viewing everything as rosy. Positive thinkers are not immune to anger, disappointment, and other negative emotions. They instead use positive thinking to overcome the negative. In the chapter "Power to Solve Personal Problems", Peale tells a story of a couple, Bill and Mary, wherein Bill gets passed over for a promotion after several years of working for a company and essentially having been promised the job. Mary is raging mad and wants Bill to act out. Peale prays them through the issue. Bill remains calm the whole time but Mary has to force herself to come to a more positive state. I know I was supposed to gravitate to Bill but I tended to gravitate more to Mary. She had to work at being positive. It didn't just come to her and this seemed more realistic to me.
3. Many of the stories are one-off encounters. What happens to the people after they have their kumbaya moment? Positive thinking is typically not a one-time deal; one has to work at replenishing their reserves.
4. Many of the stories are based on encounters with the author. It may take time to notice because it is masked in prayer and Bible passages but several of the stories take the form of "life was crappy, then they met me, I prayed with them, and then life was great." While prayer does transform lives, there are several people that can serve as conduits for its power. I guess the author has to speak from encounters he has had, however it seems (I didn't actually count) that there are fewer stories of people reporting changes to him and more of him leading them to change.
5. Majority (if not all) of the stories have a happy ending. I believe that true positive thinking is demonstrated when stuff does not go well. People lose loved ones, jobs, relationships, people have illnesses that are incurable...this stuff happens. How we chose to deal with it, rather than whether or not we can make it go away, is where the rubber meets the road.
6. Many of the stories are told in the two extremes - life was crappy, I failed at everything, then I started thinking positively and everything went well. Even negative thinkers get some things right and sometimes positive thinkers fail repeatedly or never make it out of crappy situations. Life rarely plays out in extremes. There is good and bad and positive thinking is about choosing to focus on the good.
Like I said, I do agree with the general content but the presentation feels more like the author is trying to sell something. This book came out in 1952 and at the time was quite controversial. Several members of the mental health community disagreed with Peale saying that it was hard to prove that positive thinking was as life-changing as claimed. When faced with having to sell one's ideas in that climate, it would almost seem necessary to sugar coat things a little bit. It is hard to prove that people's lives are better because they think more positively since it could be argued that maybe they just think their lives are better than they actually are. At the end of the day, you have to be the judge. Do the strategies in this book work for you? If they do, then it doesn't matter what others think or how the author presented them.
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