Positive Thinking Vs Constructive Thinking.docx

Before some days, I was travelling back to factory, during the journey, to kill the time, I started browsing net and luckily I got a video comparing positive thinking vs constructive thinking. I was really impressed with the video and started to search and read more ’n’ more about constructive thinking. I have always been a huge advocate of positive thinking but realize what we need is to think constructively. To describe this I have gathered some facts from various articles on net which I would like to share with you. I am not to say here that constructive thinking is not positive; it typically is, but constructive thinking is the foundation of the reasoning that World Class Thinkers utilize to come to their conclusions. Conversely, positive thinking is taking an emotional situation or premise and simply replacing negative thoughts about its meaning with positive thoughts. When we listen with a purely emotional heart, we can become vulnerable and may distort or reframe facts through a lens that supports the feeling and not necessarily the facts. Positive thinking is not always realistic or necessarily attainable, sometimes it's just plain delusional. Imagine you are playing Chess. Positive thinking is useless. The computer that will likely make mincemeat of you is incapable of positive thinking. What’s needed is clear thought without a smear of extraneous false optimism glistening on top of it. Positive thinking doesn’t fix the leaky faucet, stop the war, bring about social justice, cure the disease, or save the environment. It does what the master tells it to, and it doesn’t object. Constructive thinking is automatically positive anyway, because it brings about positive action. If you are driving home and you are low on gas, positive thinking will say, “I’ll make it if I don’t worry.” Constructive thinking will pull into a gas station and fill the tank. Positive thinking will send soldiers on a suicide mission and tell them to have a “can do attitude” and believe they will triumph. Constructive thinking would probably not have gone to war in the first place. Positive thinking sticks its head in the sand and believes that a miracle will prevent global warming. Constructive thinking acknowledges the problem and takes action now to prevent disaster. Anyone who is involved in social media likely gets inundated with inspirational quotes, and some of these have become so common that they begin to underpin peoples’ daily conceptual framework. People start to believe them, and quote them. They are often used in the corporate environment, where they very conveniently function to silence dissent and reinforce hierarchy. So called “positive thinking” is not necessarily “positive” or “thinking”, and often just a proscribed attitude adjustment to smilingly acquiesce to authority. “Positive thinking” cannot be objective, and is thus impaired and compromised thinking. Leave the emotion out of it, positive or negative, and think constructively. This idea is actually subversive in the work environment – even if it puts logic and productivity first, and subjectivity and relativism on the sideline – because it doesn’t meekly follow hierarchy. The technician who warns that the oil rig is unsafe isn’t considered to be thinking positively. On the contrary, he or she is guilty of “poisoning the well”, being “insubordinate”, or challenging someone’s authority.

So, if someone tells you to think positively, be a little suspicious, because someone doesn’t want you to think objectively. It really says, “Don’t think!” In the work place it’s code for being submissive, and in politics it’s used to silence dissent and maintain the status quo, even if doing so will doom a given government, country, society, or civilization itself. Constructive thinking is the essential first step on the road to fulfillment. It is optimism expressed as a result of understood circumstances, taking responsibility and committing to an outcome that will support a healthy, achievable and sustainable thought or proposition. How can we create a process that will identify a robust conclusion, and encourage optimism in the face of confusion, attack, hurt, and anger? It is recommended taking the time to look at the situation in different ways. Look at the situation with an irrational, emotional mind and think of the absolute worst thing that could happen (or did happen). Be creative and extreme. Logically we know this is not going to happen but put it out there, being the worst case that you can imagine. Develop a scenario that is the best thing that you want to see happen. Ask yourself what likely happened? Spend time and determine what you want, how you want it. Ask yourself what do I want or need to do realistically. Choose to see the situation as a constructive event, try removing any irrational emotion. Try to come up with an unrealistically good scenario, something that is so extreme that you know it will not ever happen. For those situations when we find ourselves in a moment without the luxury of review or preparation, try to create as much space as possible. Try to come back to it later, after you have had some time to give it some constructive thought. The more we utilize processes like the steps above, the more they become part of our muscle memory and the more we can live a life filled with realistic optimism.

Think Constructively ~ Think World Class Abhishek Bhardwaj A.M. (Secretarial)