The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking

by Oliver Burkeman

The point here is not that negative capability is always superior to the positive kind. Optimism is wonderful; goals can sometimes be useful; even positive thinking and positive visualisation have their benefits. The problem is that we have developed the habit of chronically overvaluing positivity and the skills of ‘doing’ in how we think about happiness, and that we chronically undervalue negativity and the ‘not-doing’ skills, such as resting in uncertainty or getting friendly towards failure. To use an old cliché of therapy-speak, we spend too much of our lives seeking ‘closure’.

Fits in neatly with growth mindset thinking.