消极思考力量.docVIP

消极思考力量 　　Holidays pose a psychological conundrum1）. Their defining sentiment， of course， is joy—yet the strenuous effort to be joyous seems to make many of us miserable. It’s hard to be happy in overcrowded airport lounges or while you’re trying to stay civil for days on end2） with relatives who stretch your patience. 　　So to cope with the holidays， magazines and others are advising us to “think positive”—the same advice， in other words， that Norman Vincent Peale3）， author of The Power of Positive Thinking， was dispensing six decades ago. During holidays， Peale once suggested， you should make “a deliberate effort to speak hopefully about everything.” The result all too often mirrors the famously annoying parlor game4） about trying not to think of a white bear： The harder you try， the more you think about one. 　　Variations of Peale’s positive philosophy run deep in American culture， not just in how we handle holidays and other social situations but in business， politics and beyond. Yet studies suggest that peppy5） affirmations designed to lift the user’s mood through repetition and visualizing future success often achieve the opposite of their intended effect. 　　Fortunately， both ancient philosophy and contemporary psychology point to an alternative： a counterintuitive6） approach that might be termed “the negative path to happiness.” This approach helps to explain some puzzles， such as the fact that citizens of more economically insecure countries often report greater happiness than citizens of wealthier ones. Or that many successful businesspeople reject the idea of setting firm goals. 　　One pioneer of the “negative path” was the New York psychotherapist Albert Ellis， who died in 2007. He rediscovered a key insight of the Stoic7） philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome： that sometimes the best way to address an uncertain future is to focus not on the best-case scenario but on the worst. 　　Seneca8） the Stoic was a radical on this matter. If you feared losing y