A review by fbroom
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman

5.0

A fresh perspective on positive thinking and happiness. A Great Listen.


Notes
Today, people are used to hearing phrases like “think positive” and “visualize success”. Positive thinking is widely spread and yet people don’t seem to be happy. Author Oliver Burkeman argues that positive thinking may in fact lead to stress and unhappiness and doing the opposite by turning toward our fears, flaws and insecurities help us survive them.

"The ideal state of mind is tranquility not the excitable cheer that positive thinkers usually seem to mean when they use the word "happiness". And tranquility was to be achieved not by chasing after enjoyable experiences, but by cultivating a kind of calm indifference towards one's circumstances.”

“It's our relentless effort to feel happy, or to achieve certain goals, that is precisely what makes us miserable and sabotages our plans. And that it is our constant quest to eliminate or to ignore the negative – insecurity, uncertainty, failure, sadness – that causes us to feel so insecure, anxious, uncertain or unhappy in the first place.”


The premeditation of evils
Fighting negative feelings is counterproductive. Address those feelings and think about the worst case scenario and you will be surprised that it is not as bad as you thought it would be. The author refers to this technique as "The premeditation of evils” in which you imagine deliberately the worst possible outcome and although the answer might be bad. It is never 100% bad (Psychotherapist Albert Ellis). There is always a worse possible thing that can happen.

Facing your fears
Another technique is facing your embarrassment instead of trying to avoid them (Psychotherapist Albert Ellis). The author himself went on the subway and called out the names of the stations at every stop. Although he felt awful, it wasn’t as awful as he thought it would be. it was only uncomfortable.

Forget the future
Uncertainty is very uncomfortable and we tend to over come uncertainty by setting goals all the time that will help us get rid of the uncertainty in the present. As an example Burkerman cited the work of the psychologist Saras Sarasvathy on what make entrepreneurs successful. None of the entrepreneurs she had interviewed mentioned making business plans or doing market research. In fact the most valuable skill was the flexibility in adopting unconventional approaches to learning, not just which path to take but even changing the goal itself. They worked with whatever tools they had access to, started taking action immediately and never waited for perfect opportunity. "Uncertainty is where things happen. It is where the opportunities — for success, for happiness, for really living are waiting”

Embracing failure
"The truth that many people never understand, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer” — Thomas Merton. Failure is everywhere. It's just that most of the time we'd rather avoid confronting that fact. 90% of products fail on the market and yet we only hear about the successful ones. Bookstores are filled with autobiographical volumes of successful entrepreneurs. Oxford management theorist Jerker Denrell suggests that the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs are are just as likely to be the characteristics of extremely unsuccessful people, too. Instead of avoiding failure one should embrace it. Failure brings you down to earth.