The Dangers of Positive Thinking

In a recent discussion about the dangers of positive thinking in an Appreciative Inquiry listserve, I enjoyed the following comment from Jerry Kaiser of http://www.caringmatters.com/. It's a nice complement to last week's Provision on The Help of Hope. Enjoy and let me know what you think.

Sure positive thinking is dangerous...if you think you can fly off a building. But that's delusional.

Hope is positive thinking, and there would be no success without hope: no invention, no motivational energy to meet a challenge. Hope is what helped Viktor Frankl live through the concentration camps; why dying grandparents miraculously hang on to see their grandchild married; and, according to Suzanne Kobasa's research, why some managers thrive in difficult circumstances, while those who don't have it wither.

The absence of hope is despair, which is why, post WW II, the Soviet bloc countries had the highest suicide rates...and Hope is what made my grandparents leave their homeland with nothing to journey thousands of miles in a cramped ship to a place they'd never seen that spoke a different language...and where they knew that "their kind" were still discriminated against.

If that's the "danger" of positive thinking, let me have more!

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