Why Trying to Solve Our Problems Just Makes Us Unhappy
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” — Søren Kierkegaard
Why is trying to relax so stressful? Why do our attempts to fix our depression and anxiety only send us deeper into the spiral? You might think positive thinking holds the answer, but according to writer and journalist Oliver Burkeman, author of The Antidote, this only makes things worse.
What’s wrong with positive thinking?
In 2009, a Canadian psychologist called Joanne Wood set out to test the effectiveness of positive affirmations.
In one set of experiments, people were divided into subgroups of those with low and high self-esteem, then asked to undertake a journal-writing exercise; every time a bell rang, they were to repeat to themselves the phrase ‘I am a lovable person.’ According to a variety of ingenious mood measures, those who began the process with low self-esteem became appreciably less happy as a result of telling themselves that they were lovable. They didn’t feel particularly lovable to begin with — and trying to convince themselves otherwise merely solidified their negativity. ‘Positive thinking’ had made them feel worse.
