The tyranny of the terminally cheerful

Interestingly, as for all strange fads, obsessions and trends that float down to us from the West, the strongest and most convincing criticisms and rejections of these happen to come from the West too. And so here we are - at last; someone has said it: Enough already with the positivity and positive attitude business. There’s only so much that good cheer and smiles can do when you’re having a rough time. Psychologist Barbara Held, author of Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching (seriously, this is what she has titled her book), believes that “there is no one right way to cope with all the pain of living. ... If we are prevented from coping in our own way, be it 'positive' or 'negative,' we function less well."

We have forever been hearing about how the power of positive thinking is the only way that will take us to being happy, healthy, wealthy and wise. Of course the positive thinking jag has a role to play, but sometimes I suspect that in our 21st century bid to look at the bright side of everything, we tend simply not to listen to friends in real emotional trouble, or to ourselves in trouble.

To put it very simply: everyone has different temperaments, and sometimes, all that your friends need when they come to you feeling awful, is not an over-bright, brassy lecture on ‘look at the positive side’, but just the space and permission to feel lousy for a while. Someone needs to tell us, that feeling weighed-down at times and not upbeat 24/7 is perfectly ok and understandable. And for us to know that feeling bad is not automatically the same as being mentally ill. Taking a leaf from the West, we’ve become, here in urban India, a little too quick to label even a bad-hair day as Depression. As Barbara Held says rather simply: “Some of my one-session "cures" have come from reminding people that life can be difficult, and it's OK if we're not happy all of the time.
What a relief to hear that. I mean, enough with this chronic cheerfulness. Sometimes it just gets you nowhere. Seriously. For instance, picture this scenario: you’re forward-planning something, looking a little worried about whether to travel on X date to Mumbai, anxious about avoiding some nut-job group that is going to stop the trains and tear up the tracks (or worried that the monsoon is going to flood the drains). Around you is one of those think-positive people, who asks with a bright smile: “But why don’t you think on the positive side?” Array? I’m not thinking positively here, because by thinking ‘negatively’ I can reduce the number of variables that will make my visit a total wash-out, that’s why. So the point is, while you’re really not supposed to sweat the small stuff, you need to at times plan out worst-case scenarios, so that you’re not caught with your pants…in the washing machine, if you know what I mean. No point being inappropriately optimistic and ill-informed, in the haste to be smiley-cheerful all the time.

On a more serious note, Randy Pausch, battling with cancer, also echoes this mistrust of the positive-attitude-as-panacea business in his book The Last Lecture. He talks about the double-whammy burden on patients who are constantly told by friends and family that they need to be positive. With this, patients who are having a tough day healthwise, feel worse because they’re made to feel that somehow they’re not grinning their way to good health. Barbara Held puts it nicely: “First you feel bad about whatever's getting you down, then you feel guilty or defective if you can't smile and look on the bright side. And I'm not even sure there always is a bright side to look on.”