The Dissonance of Positive Thinking
1. In search of a quick “right answer,” I chose the golden rule
Last time, I wrote that I saw despair in my morning notes,
but I omitted the preface “for me at that time.”
The morning notes themselves weren’t the problem.
I simply couldn’t accept it back then.
Seeking salvation in self-help books,
the next one I grabbed was the well-known
‘The Power of Positive Thinking’.
I thought that if I read that thick book,
I could surely escape this state
and get NADA back on track too.
The book was filled with dazzlingly sound principles.
At first, I took notes
and underlined passages,
seriously trying to make it my own.
But when I chose this book, I also felt a twinge of fear.
What if even a slightly bad thought
also manifested into reality?
Would my dark, messy thoughts become reality?
Would my pathetic, self-pitying thoughts materialize?
Would this helplessness of mine — feeling down because people said NADA couldn’t possibly work in Japan — also become reality?
Even though the book itself said nothing of the sort,
I started spiraling out of control all by myself.
2.24-Hour Thought Monitor
Inside me, another “thought monitor” existed,
and I began feeling suffocated,
as if constantly watched by this monitor around the clock.
I thought knowing the Golden Rule
would at least bring some progress,
but every day was just spent being watched by the thought monitor.
I had turned Positive Thinking vs Negative Thinking
into a zero-sum game:
Increasing positive thoughts = decreasing negative thoughts.
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My messy, raw feelings
were nothing but warnings in this game.
“Will NADA be accepted in Japan?”
“What can I possibly do right now?”
Even such legitimate anxieties
prompted the thought monitor
to blow its whistle:
“Those negative thoughts will attract the reality of failure!”
Once the whistle blows —
and this is another one of my quirks —
my brain replays that single whistle over and over.
A single whistle gets replayed ten, twenty times…
It’s just a constant barrage of whistles…
3. To Stop the Dissonance (Howling)
Once again,
I find myself closing the self-help book.
Morning notes won’t do.
The Golden Rule won’t do.
For me, positive thinking
was a 24/7 thought police officer wearing the mask of “salvation.”
The low note of despair I stared at in my morning journal
overlapped with the high-pitched whistle of the thought monitor,
creating a jarring dissonance (a howling) that made me want to cover my ears
(or that screeching sound when nails scrape a chalkboard!).
I had to stop this immediately!
And so, I sealed away the self-help books meant to save me.
Even sealed away, the lingering echo of “that sound” clinging to my heart wouldn’t fade.
When you keep listening to unpleasant sounds, your body naturally stiffens.
My inner environment was the same.
Caught between my own sludgy thoughts and the 24-hour thought monitor,
my heart had become rock-hard.
How could I loosen this rock-hard inner environment?
