Oliver Burkeman

In Oliver Burkeman’s essay, “The Benefits of ‘Negative Visualization’”, he discusses how Negative Visualization is more likely to make people happier than positive visualization. Burkeman supports his argument by describing Ottogen’s experiment and how one spends more time in thinking how well things will go instead of achieving one’s goal due to one’s lack of motivation.

Throughout generations people believed that having positive visualizations can make situations better, but when you are in a situation that gives you a negative outcome you become devastated. In the essay “The Benefits of “Negative Visualization”’ Oliver Burkeman discussed how negative visualization is more likely to make people happier than positive visualization. Burkeman supported that negative visualization makes an individual happier rather than positive visualization; he supported this claim by describing how spending time and focusing how well things would go reduces one’s motivation to achieve their goal, having tranquility would give individuals the opportunity to focus on negative emotions, positive thinkers are less prepared and more acutely distressed, “negative visualization” causes less stress, and being prepared for the to the worse-case scenario helps establish what to expect. When using negative visualization, it would be beneficial to use it to prepare oneself for the worse-case scenarios and to reduce both fear and anxiety. In regards to Burkeman’s position, I can relate to the information he is presenting and apply it to my personal life. Therefore, I can strongly agree with his point of view that negative visualization is more likely to make an individual happier than positive visualization.

Throughout generations, people believed that having positive visualizations can make situations better, however when you are in a situation that gives you a negative outcome you become devastated. Oliver Burkeman in his essay, “The Benefits of “Negative Visualization”’ discusses how negative visualization is more likely to make people happier than positive visualization. Burkeman supported that negative visualization makes an individual happier rather than positive visualization; he supported this claim by describing how spending time and focusing on how well things would go reduces one’s motivation to achieve their goal. Tranquility gives individuals the opportunity to focus on negative emotions, positive thinkers are less prepared and more acutely distressed, “negative visualization” causes less stress, and being prepared for the worst-case scenario helps establish what to expect. When using negative visualization, it would be beneficial to use it to prepare oneself for the worst-case scenarios and to reduce both fear and anxiety. In regards to Burkeman’s position, I can relate to the information he is presenting and apply it to my personal life. Therefore, I can strongly agree with his point of view that negative visualization is more likely to make an individual happier than positive visualization.

As human beings we are naturally wired to seek happiness wherever we can find it. When we don’t, we may enter a stage of anger, anxiety, or distress. That’s why it is our personal goal to look for happiness and preserve it once we acquire it. Many have explored ways to find what triggers this feeling of “happiness” and what we can do to keep it; nonetheless, the evidence found is hardly sufficient to make a public statement on how to find happiness. For this reason, most of the time we speculate what might provoke this feeling of contentment. “Happiness is a glass half empty,” an essay written by Oliver Burkeman, highlights the importance of happiness and discloses how we can find delight through unorthodox methods. The prime objective of this piece of writing is to inform the audience about the effect of happiness on their lives and how their usual attempts of becoming happier can sabotage achieving this feeling. Furthermore, he wants to promote the benefits of pessimism and describe how it can help us in the long run. The author utilizes pronouns, logos, and pathos in order to prove his point and draw the audience into his essay, in an attempt of making them reconsider the way they live their lives and adopt this new pessimistic way that would greatly boost their level of happiness.

There are many different views on positive thinking whether it is to be positive all the time as suggested by the film The Secret, be a realist and don’t be delusional as stated by Barbara Ehrenreich in her speech “How Positive Thinking Undermines America”, or just be somewhere in between such as a person who is optimistic but not to the point where they expect something they want to come out of the blue, they have to work for it.

“Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality. Alter your thoughts, alter your reality” (James “William James Quote”). This sentiment from William James who was a leading philosopher and psychologist at the turn of the 19th Century inspires one to challenge their labeling of a current circumstance, suggesting happiness is a perception that can be manipulated. This mind over matter approach to life’s struggles has become commonplace in the repertoire of motivational speakers, close friends, coaches, and other well-meaning influencers alike. This ambiguous concept has the ability to produce very real consequences, even death. In

The essay “ The benefits of Negative Visualization, written by Oliver Burkeman talks about how negative visualization Is more likely to make people happier than positive visualization. I believe that Birdman is right and negative visualization is much greater than positive visualization. He gives many ways that support his claim. For example, he stated that “spending time and energy focusing on how well things could go, it has emerged, actually reduces most people's motivation to achieve them”. “For the Stoics, the ideal state of mind is tranquility, not the excitable cheer that positive thinkers usually seem to mean when they use the word “happiness” and tranquility is to be achieved not by chasing after enjoyable experiences, but by activating a kind of calm in differences towards one's circumstances. The find way Berkman uses, to support negative visualization is in paragraph seven, where He states, “all Too often things will not turn out for the best. but it is also true that, when they do go wrong, fails almost certainly go less wrong than we feared”. Through these three ways Berkman uses to support the benefits of negative visualization over positive visualization, it is very hard not to be convinced or even argue his claim.

Within The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, he mentions that there are two ancient truths concerning how the mind works. The first truth is the foundational idea of the book: the mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict with each other. The second truth is Shakespeare’s idea about how “thinking makes it so.” (or, as Buddha said, “Our life is the creation of our mind.”) Like a rider, on the back of an elephant, the conscious, reasoning part of the mind has only limited control of what the elephant does. Nowadays, we know the cause of these divisions, and a few ways to help the rider and the elephant work as a better team. We can improve this ancient idea today by explaining why most people’s minds have a bias toward seeing threats and engaging in useless worry. To change this bias, we can use three techniques to increase happiness, one ancient, and two very new.

As human beings we are naturally wired to seek happiness wherever we can find it. When we don’t, we may enter a stage of anger, anxiety, or distress. That’s why it is our personal goal to look for happiness and preserve it once we acquire it. Many have explored ways to find what triggers this feeling of “happiness” and what we can do to keep it; nonetheless, the evidence found is hardly sufficient to make a public statement on how to find happiness. For this reason, most of the time we speculate what might provoke this feeling of contentment. “Happiness is a glass half empty,” an essay written by Oliver Burkeman, highlights the importance of happiness and discloses how we can find delight through unorthodox methods. The prime objective of this piece of writing is to inform the audience about the effect of happiness on their lives and how their usual attempts of becoming happier can sabotage achieving this feeling. Furthermore, he wants to promote the benefits of pessimism and describe how it can help us in the long run. The author utilizes pronouns, logos, and pathos in order to prove his point and draw the audience into his essay, in an attempt of making them reconsider the way they live their lives and adopt this new pessimistic way that would greatly boost their level of happiness.

Some people argue that happiness helps make good decisions because happy people strive for the best result. David states, “[Positive emotions] help build vital social, physical, and cognitive resources that lead to positive outcomes and affiliations” (124). David points out that with the right amount of positivity, people make good judgments. The author acknowledges that happiness can have benefits, but she states that too much happiness could hurt human development because the mind does not consider the consequences of an action. Julie Norem, a psychology professor, points out, “’If you’re a pessimist who really thinks through in detail what might go wrong, that’s a strategy that’s likely to work very well for you’” (qtd. in Wallis). She explains

“‘...”positive thinking” is also a soft and fluffy term that is easy to dismiss...it carries the same weight as words like “work ethic” or “persistence”’(Clear). Positive thinking can help you through many tough situations. As victims of the Holocaust, both Anne Frank and Sophie Scholl displayed positive attitudes during their hardships.People can best respond to conflict by staying positive and seeing the brighter part in situations.

There are skeptics who believe positive thinking practices are a mere trend and wants society to stop encouraging it. Myth buster and author of Bright-Sided, Barbara Ehrenreich, goes as far as saying positive thinking has damaged America. In her book she comes down on positive thinkers insisting they need to be more realistic about the struggles that undoubtedly are coming into their lives. Disagreeing with certain peoples’ beliefs about the method of simply thinking goals into existence.

The son of a fireman and the brother of a hero, Michael Burke, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, exposed his feelings about the firemen and first responders that were not invited to the ten year anniversary of the September 11 disaster in his persuasive article: “No Firemen at Ground Zero This 9/11?” To assist him in persuading his audience, Burke used various techniques to prove that Mayor Bloomberg was unjust for not allowing the firemen and first responders to participate in honoring their deceased brothers and sisters. Burke utilized pathos, imagery, and organization to prove his point.

There are times in this world when rolling out of bed and putting on a brave face is the only thing that seems sensible enough to get you through the day. You slurp down your morning cup of coffee, glare at yourself in the mirror, and wonder what’s the point of it all? Why am I living my life half exhausted wandering from place to place doing what I’m told when I’m told to make myself a living? This is exactly how a pessimist often thinks;, they tend to see only the worst in a scenario or believe that only the lowest possible situation will happen. I have chosen not to live my life like that, I have chosen to not only try to lead each day with a positive mind and a healthy attitude, but I have also decided to spread optimism to others by the simple gestures such as a smile. I will admit that at times being an optimistic person isn’t always easy because

For many, pessimism is not ideal, and optimism is their route of choice, as it develops through the arising