The Happy Pessimist – why negative thinking is positive | Mattias Lundberg & Jan Bylund | TEDxUmeå

for two years ago we got an idea the idea to write a book called the happy pessimist why negative thinking is positive and the idea that came from sprung from a sort of a frustration within us Ammar around the truth about positive thinking and yes we call it the truth about positive thinking because it has become a very established truth in Sweden as in many onic many other countries that positive thinking is a good thing it not only good thing is almost necessary to think positive to become happy or reach happiness with our project the book we wanted to show an alternative our way our view how to reach happiness to become happy another way by the happy pessimism and during that work describing happy pessimism which basically basically is built on the fact that you should have low expectations really low expectations because then you don't get so disappointed when things go bad you will prepare extremely well so we can have different options to act on when things goes bad and of course you will always assume the things goes bad that sort of happy pessimist shortly so when we started to describe that we also felt that we have to really look at the arguments that your optimism optimists had what are the arguments for positive thinking and pretty fast we found that positive thinking isn't based so much on science is based at all at large studies with numerous of people followed year by year no no no no the truth about positive thinking is based on short small affirmations or you can call them logan's that sounds really really good and of course positive and there are short-term slogans as well and we like to describe them like balloon filled with air because you all met optimists speakers talking it's it's about the same situation you see they come up on stage through the fog you hit tina turner's simply the best in the end and the speaker would like all of you to clap your hands together simply their best just to feel the positive energy yeah you're looking good you're looking nice ah and the person on stage he or she well-dressed good-looking have a tan white smile and its really paws on eyes and these slogans come up one after another we can start off by say believe in yourself believe in yourself my first thought is what's the opposite what no I don't think about myself at all I don't believe in myself at all I don't cookie to ergo sum' no no cogito ergo dumb in a way and it's rather vague and broad sentence as well believe in yourself what does it mean it's like saying remember to breathe today or if you land in water don't drown please so of course every person believes in themselves they otherwise you're not a human being and another slogan is nothing is impossible that's a beautiful world word because impossible it contradicts the actual word in itself either it's possible or it's impossible nothing is impossible I I'm sure you all know a lot of things that are impossible you can name like ten things immediate on top of your head like a version of it nothing is impossible more air in the balloon and forget a little bit afraid if you can dream it you can do it I'm sorry you can't not do that I dreamt a lot of things including flying and a date with Beyonce and I'm pretty sure nothing of that will happen I'd rather be flying that meeting Beyonce unfortunately reach for the stars aim for the stars that's one thing you hear all the time you got to reach for the stars aim for the stars why the stars are very far away it's pretty cold up there I don't think you know the actual way to the stars and the main thing is it's impossible to reach for the stars so there's a lie in the beginning reach for the stars why not reach for the treetops it's much easier I'm starting to get really dizzy over here yeah yeah that's the good thing for optimists want their audience to be a bit dizzy and disorientated so they can show these slogans all the time give it 110 percent that's my favorite I'm not a mathematician but I think that a hundred percent isn't that everything so 110 percent is everything and a little bit more and that's impossible as well you can do anything you want yeah you can do and I'll count the people in the world I think there's one person who can do anything he wants it's a small guy my height wearing high-heeled shoes living in North Korea a head of state there I think he's there otherwise you can't do what you want you're not a four year old kid who thinks the world spins around you you're not you cannot do anything you you can be anything you want yeah go for that women American Idol yeah you can be anything you want mattias in his younger age wanted to be a hair model I wanted to be a professional basketball player it didn't turn out that well nowadays we play ping pong for fun that's as far as we got and and and one other thing when you're gonna do team building they have this saying like a walk on cold hot coals just to feel that you can do anything the feeling to do anything what yeah your step you can walk on hot coals well everybody can walk on hot coals is due to that that the souls under your feet have bad conduct to a to heat and you're just happy that you survived a stupid trick so it's all about physics it's nothing to do with you being a positive and optimistic here I can do anything now I walked up cold you can walk on french fries or in hamburger oh haha it's the same it's just slogans but we eat it up or feel it were there yeah so we didn't do have had to do a lot of work looking at scientific databases to find out that these small slogans well they didn't have so much substance in them but why have we then bought the truth of positive thinking well there is a number of reasons of course it's pretty it sounds good of course to be positive but it's also very hard to discuss with positive male optimist about positive thinking because if we ask the question and it's challenge them about positive thinking you almost always end up in a discussion like well you just challenging positive thinking because you're thinking negative if you would be thinking positive about positive thinking you would realize how positive positive thinking is ah it's like wrestling in a waterbed if you can't get a grip anymore something like that I guess there's some logic in that too I don't really you know exactly well we realized of course that we will have some problem with convincing people that actually pessimist would be something that they would consider a good thing and the first the first sign of that was when we when we contacted our publisher and present the idea of actually Publishing a book about pessimism he was quite kind of skeptic yeah he was and that was not only because he also is the publisher of Menace health fel self-help books by one of a couple of Swedish top optimists when you come to that area he thought of the market with the market out there by the book is it interesting to read something about pessimism so we were skeptic in the beginning well become instant yeah because we contradicted the truth that optimism is the it's the God in our country we live by optimism and we saw when we finally release the book we saw some small signs that the the optimist wasn't that happy that the book has come out okay our publisher told us that some of the books has disappeared in in bookshelves not by buying them unfortunately but hidden away which was quite a cause we a book about pessimism is under the self-help books or health so suddenly our book was behind sauna yoga and crystal therapy instead of being in the front line so apparently there's been a small but attack in a way we thought it was kind of cute because it was on different places the same way that maybe some new author that is interested in sauna yoga or something that no pessimism we want to be sweaty instead it's much better sweaty and positive and then when we went on a tour because we have a tour we have a small show that we call the happy pessimism or booking agents told us in confidence of course that our colleagues or competitors are optimist consult friends has told them that maybe it isn't such a good idea to give these guys a tour around the country with a quote a quote quote that said it's not good for the industry and it made us happy yeah absolutely making optimists pessimistic about their agenda is very funny and when they start to talk about optimism as an industry then we're very close to being a religious sect I think then it's all about the money and we saw several signs of that cause some don't follow us on Twitter anymore Facebook kind of lost some friends there a lot of coaches in different stages in lifestyle coaches and so forth cause they thought no pessimism isn't for but we use it as a tool it has nothing to do with them they they can coexist and and be a dominant factor of course but we need to have another voice that's the only thing we had thank you sure but we got some other reactions as well from those people who actually found the book that were hidden in the bookshelf and what motives and rhythm and those people who has been watching our show come up to us and says finally finally someone who tells something else or finally someone who tells tells us how life really are but we can have set accept the life is pretty messy sometimes so that was very important to hear not from the ones whose has the largest or biggest voices but from those who actually live their lives and looking for answers they might not have so because we could actually by challenging the truth of optimatus optimistic and positive thinking give them an alternative so the thoughts and truth about positive thinking might not be the most important truth to challenge this truth it's not the one that affects most people or have the hardest consequences for people world wild but still it seems so important so important to maintain the true of the positive thinking and it seems so threat for one to well two guys ordinary guys write a book that hasn't sold in that many copies I tell you when I do that it's so threads fold actually they take actions to stop it from doing it that's quite interesting and then we have to think you consider all the more more important truths out there economic truth political truth social truth many other truths that people really want to maintain all these truths has to be challenged and various our message to you today always always keep challenging the truth because the truth may or may not be true but it can also be a balloon filled with air thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 23,177

Rating: 4.7095437 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Sweden, Entertainment, Positive Thinking, Psychology

Id: l3RF1cxQRk0

Length: 14min 17sec (857 seconds)

Published: Wed May 20 2015