Reflections: Positive Thinking, Empathy and Point of View, Part 2

In Part 1, I discussed The Secret and the philosophy of positive thinking in general.  In the end, if you fail, if you are not rich, if you are not healthy, then this so-called “law of attraction” becomes a dictator that blames you for your circumstances, warranted or not.  I also ended with some phrases that even some in the Church have used that blame people going through trials for their circumstances as well.  In a nutshell, there are many of “Job’s comforters” out there.

Today, I want to point out that positive thinking is a cheap substitute for faith.

Do we have no control over our circumstances?  Unfortunately, the tendency of human beings seems to be jumping from one ditch into the other.  You really have to have a goal to shoot for.  You must get off your duff and do something.  You really can have a hand in shaping your reality, even if it’s only within certain bounds.  And, that is the problem with many of these positive thinking “gurus”: they teach you to deny reality.

Being too optimistic is not realism.  It leads to arrogance!  Being too pessimistic is not realism, either.  It leads to the victim mentality!  Either extreme can land you in a lot of hardship because you are butting up against Reality, and that is a lot bigger than all of us put together.

The real trick isn’t to try to change reality, really.  It’s more that you be inventive enough to do the best in the circumstances you are in.  Inventive means turning negatives into positives.  The expression “turning lemons into lemonade” seems trite, but the triteness is not giving that expression its due.  After all, why are lemons such a bad thing?  If you want lemonade, if you like lemonade, then they weren’t bad to begin with.  Rather, someone took a look at the lemons and figured out a way to use them to their advantage.

Isn’t that really what success is all about: Looking at your circumstances, figuring out the best thing you can do with them, setting a goal, and working towards that goal until it is achieved?

Now we are getting somewhere!  Should you be positive?  Sure!  Once you set a realistic goal, it’s time to create the circumstances that can make it happen.  Realizing this, it should shape your viewpoint and help you to realize that it isn’t you that creates the reality.  At best, you shape it somewhat.  More importantly, it helps you to realize that people who have not achieved, people who really are victims really do need a hand, not some pat advice that they created their own problems when it isn’t true.

And, that only points to the tip of the iceberg of the problem with the philosophy of positive thinking!  After all, what feeds the arrogance that leads to blaming the victim?  What feeds the pride when one achieves and the depression when one does not?  Isn’t this all just a variation of being self-centered?

For example, the Wikipedia article “Law of attraction” points out:

The book “The Science of Getting Rich” by Wallace D. Wattles espouses similar principles — that truly believing in the object of your desire and focusing onto it will lead to that object or goal being realized on the material plane …

Notice the bolded words above!  At its base, all of this talk about positive thinking, law of attraction, etc., are talking about drawing what you desire to yourself.  That’s what a lot of the belief in magic is based on!  It is just another way to try to manipulate the environment through something other than creativity and hard work to get what you want!

Worse than the fact that it evades facing reality, the problem with the philosophy of positive thinking is that it focuses upon self.  Let’s say that I want to be a positive thinker.  So, I decide to set my mind to focusing on my ability to shape reality to how I want it in order to get my desires.  Is this any less selfish than the pagan who goes through an animistic ritual to bring them “luck”?

Someone named “Bill” wrote a page about The Secret and wrote up quite clearly:

THE REAL SECRET  IS THAT

“THE SECRET”

DOES NOT UNDERSTAND

THE REAL LAW OF ATTRACTION

The law of attraction has been polluted into a vehicle for people to get what they want, money, a job, a car, a healing , whatever.

The real law of attraction and the real Secret is to allow yourself to receive the Christ mind via meditation so that you receive not what you want to have, but what God wants you to have.

What God wants is not for you to have cars and millions of dollars, but compassion and concern for the less fortunate, love and respect for nature, and all living things.

Not competition and desire for things, but compassion and desire for peace.

This jives quite well with the Bible:

³¹Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

~ 1Co 10:31

This is the polar opposite of what most self-help gurus will tell you.  All of the world’s philosophies all add up to various means and ways to get what you want – to glorify yourself!  They appeal to lust for power, money, sex, food, drugs, etc., etc., etc.  The Bible has a command against such things; a command so important that God spoke it from Mt Sinai and wrote it on tablets with His own finger.

¹⁷Thou shalt not covet…

~ Ex 20:17

This was so important to prompt Paul to write of this command:

³For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

⁴When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

⁵Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:

⁶For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:

~ Col 3:3-6

By promoting the lusts of the heart (cf Jer 17:9), these pied pipers of positive thinking are leading their followers to destruction.  They blame the victim and promote the self.  Basically, it reflects the attitude of Satan himself who promoted himself in his eyes to the level of God.  After all, he positively thinks he can and will defeat God in spite of all that has occurred and all that will occur.

Is it any wonder that such thinking lacks empathy?  That such thinking blames the tsunami victims for their fate?  That blames families for a child’s birth defects?

God’s way promotes selflessness.  God’s way promotes empathy.  Why was God so angry with Job’s three friends at the end of the book?  After all, Job and his three friends held very similar views.  Why wasn’t Job included in God’s anger?  Because Job’s three friends were falsely accusing Job of terrible sins, outright crimes, against humanity, even though he was innocent of what they accused him of.  Instead of comforting Job, helping Job carry his pain and offering him help and aid, they made the problem worse!

The “Golden Rule” is often touted but misunderstood.  “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  What does that mean?  I like German chocolate cake.  Should I then give you a German chocolate cake on your birthday?  After all, that is what I’d like someone to do unto me, so it should be fine to do that unto you, right?  Wrong.

³¹And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

~ Lk 6:31

How would you really like to be treated?  If I like blue and give you a blue shirt, then am I treating you like you would want to be treated?  If I like blue and you give me a red shirt, how would I feel?  Would I feel honored?  Important?  Or, perhaps could I feel as though my feelings aren’t important to you?

Empathy is the ability to discern how you feel about something and to an extent how you think.  It requires the ability to share that feeling, while simple sympathy does not require this.  Empathy means you can imagine yourself in the other’s shoes.  Remember this, as this is a very important point that I will draw out later!  You have to be able to see the other person’s point of view.

Am I making too big of a deal out of this?  I don’t think so.

¹⁷Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

…

²¹Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

~ Ep 5:17, 21

It is interesting that “submit” is used of each other in the Church as well as wives to husbands.  Speaking of wives and husbands, that is the largest area for empathy that ever existed on the physical plane:

²⁴Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

~ Ge 2:24

You cannot get more empathetic than that!

The Bible stresses empathy over anything remotely like positive thinking.  However, the Bible also stresses faith.  Faith, however, is not positive thinking.  Faith is not about what you can bring about because of how you think or feel.  You cannot whip up some emotional state and call it “faith”.  Even faith is placed in something external.  Again, the philosophy of positive thinking is self-centered.  Essentially, it means you are making yourself God!  You place your “faith” in yourself under this philosophy!  The Bible stressed faith in the real God, Who is outside of ourselves.

And yet, if we stop here, we stop very short of what is required.  That’s why there will be a part three.