Is thinking positively being naive?

On the contrary! To my way of thinking, keeping a positive attitude means that I’m open to new ways of accomplishing things and new avenues of success.

Maybe. Depends on the circumstances.

It can be. I agree with Sunny2 and sometimes its just damn annoying.

I believe one should think realistically. Not thinking positively enough is cynical, misanthropic and can fill you with despair and hopelessness. Positive thinking alone, in the face of real negatives, without action is stupid. If you are in a life raft and there is a big hole in your boat neither negative nor positive thinking will do you much good at all. Acknowledge that you have a hole in the boat, fix it as well as you are able to, and hope for the best!

@lillycoyote I agree completely sometimes it just makes one look foolish under the wrong circumstances. It’s likened to a bus coming careening at you and thinking “Happy” thoughts in the hope it wont hit you.

LOL

@GabrielsLamb Yes. I’m not opposed to positive thinking, I just think it has it’s limits. LIke protecting you from that oncoming, careening bus you mention. Best to simply get out of the way, in my opinion.

:-)

Depends on what you consider thinking positive, I always liked the joke that an pessimist is an optimist with enough life experience, but that doesn’t apply to every situation. First of all, you cannot expect the positive without accounting for the negative (in basically everything situation from stock trading to cancer), plus you always have to expect that other people will act in ways that are bad for you (e.g. if you buy something used on ebay), so a good portion of doubt is important, but don’t always expect the worst possible outcome.

A simple example for this is any kind of con operation, this is based on the fact that people are naive enough to expect a good outcome but not account for the bad possibilities, e.g. if the widow of an African dictator sends you can email that they want to transfer you millions of $, you cannot expect to get anything, even though expecting the positive would mean that you might get some money.

Thinking positively is better for your health, and is more likely to help you find a solution. As others have said, there’s a difference between positive thinking and stupidly hoping. But basically, if you’re thinking “There’s got to be a way to fix this,” then you’re more likely to end up fixing it than if you think “It’s broken, completely broken, I’m all alone and life sucks.”

Optimism actually creates unhappiness.

Pessimists are the happier ones according to Schopenhauer
His logic is, that since ‘shit’ undoubtedly happens every day, the optimist becomes increasingly irate and disappointed with all of these setbacks in life whereas the pessimist accepts the shit that happens because they expected it and they are pleasantly surprised when things go well.

@Boogabooga1 Yes, and there is the theory of depressive realism, and there is some data to back it up, that people who suffer from depression simply have a more accurate perception of reality. They’re depressed because the world is kind of a depressing place. :-)

Thanks @lillycoyote . That link on depressive realism appears to me to be more accurate than some of Schopenhauer’s philosophies.

@Boogabooga1 Well, Schopenhauer was a philosopher, not a clinical psychologist or researcher. You kind of have to give him credit for kind of figuring it out without the studies to back him up. :-)

I have always thought, and tried to instill in my kids, the twin concepts of “hope for the best but plan for the worst”. It has worked for me for over 50 years and allows me to keep a positive attitude without being caught out unaware.

Depends.

Cf. depressive realism.

No, or at least, not always.

I think optimism is naive when it’s optimism without a plan. I don’t know what the hell to do if things go wrong, so I’ll just hope they go right. This is relying on luck, and it’s liable to leave you direly unprepared in a bad situation.

There is nothing wrong with hoping for the best if you have a game plan for if the best doesn’t happen. In fact, optimism is often useful. Choosing to believe that everything’s gonna go to shit and there’s nothing to be done about it is not only depressing, it is demotivating. Whereas maybe you could have fixed things, you’re giving up prematurely when you think that way.

@lillycoyote What can I say… I think the bus driver should know better.

@Hawaii_Jake
I agree my attitude gets me through a difficult life.
I Advocate for my autistic son and I never give up.

@philosopher Kudos!

@the100thmonkey How come your link to “depressive realism” got 2 GAs and my link to depressive realism, that I cited before you did, only got 1 GA? Once again I did not get my due! Now that is depressing! See? Evidence of the theory right there! :-)

Heh. What can I say, @lillycoyote? I guess I got a great answer for not reading the thread properly. Perhaps there was some epic quality to my failure.

If “thinking positive” is about thinking something bad is not going to happen just because you’re thinking good thoughts, then yeh, it’s naive. If “thinking positive” is about thinking that something bad is going to happen, but you’re going to survive and overcome and etc., etc., then I think you’re on the right track.

@the100thmonkey I think it’s because the world is basically a messed up place and life is intrinsically unfair. That’s why I find it all so depressing, not because of a chemical imbalance in my brain. :-)

@lillycoyote Is life really unfair or is it just uncaring and only seems messed up from our individual perspectives?