Hope, Growth Mindset and Fake Positivity - Balanced Overview | post 27
Optimism is so gorgeous, as long as it is within the safety limits. Hope is a great source of the limitless energy, stamina and patience; which are the pre-requisites - that which is needed beforehand - for starting any and every long duration journey.
Similar to the carbohydrates or the sugar, be it the natural ones or the artificial gifts from the Food Technology advancements...
Sweetness is good in the healthy amounts; beyond which, only the huge medical bills, and a marathon of the appointments, shall await you and me, since we would have invited the troubles, with our very own... tongue.
Hope and Logic
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| Illustration 1: Hope, an Abstract Geometric design, by Akp51v. |
Human is an emotional being; and the greatest joke is on us - we have the potential to be the intelligent species as well. Such a beautiful co-existence, for two strikingly dissimilar forces, is the USP of Mother Nature, Brother Wing and the Clouds.
I mean, we don't really have to look outside for any troubles or noises; most of our mind is made up of dramatic ups and downs.
And amid such a chaos, we have empowered ourselves with mathematics, data, facts, jargons and literature.
However, once we are in the panic mode, no amount of practical way of thinking, can convince us that the logical conclusion for our perception of a challenge or a threat, is quite measurable and predictable. To avoid the absolute insanity and the total anarchy, all of us need hope.
The quickest way of summarising this might be a set of some rephrased statements.
"Hope is necessary, for the Logic."
"Logic needs Hope, for it to work."
"Logic is Hope."
"Hope is Logic."
~ akp51v (simply playing with ideas)
Even if we have the required data, the necessary mathematical or material tools, and the support of others; nothing will move, unless we do.
And we won't do anything, unless there is hope. Despite of a low chance of success, we might take up the risks involved, only if we have some hope.
In fact, the hope works pretty well, irrespective of whether we have enough data or resources (or not). This is a good thing when we must proceed without any other options, but to move ahead in the total uncertainty.
But, the same Hope is a bad thing, if we are knowingly refusing, to acknowledge the crystal clear Red Flags, indicating a big unfavourable reality.
Growth Mindset for the tomorrow's norms
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| Illustration 2: Growth Mindset, abstract by Akp51v. |
Somewhere, on this blog, a word was highlighted; though similar to satisfaction, that idea is far from anything pure or beneficial. That word (and that idea) would be read as stagnation.
Being satisfied is actually our main goal.
Just like the atoms and the molecules, which are struggling since the origin of the material universe; we humans struggle for the meaning, the purpose and a sense of being whole again, like when we were born, without any emotional or social baggage...
Not a single sign of incompleteness, is to be tolerated.
The smallest units of the matter, seek the electrons, for attaining the stability; we seek a gazillion things, experiences and the ideas, to stop feeling the negative emotions.
And just like every other thing in life, such as the popularity, the wealth, the recognition, the approval, the accomplishment and the demonic pleasures; positive emotions can be addictive.
Welcome to the comfort zone; even if nothing new happens... even if we disagree, with some aspects of this real state of ours... we continue, to do, the exact same things, on a regular basis.
It doesn't matter, if our knowledge expands.
It doesn't matter, whether our skill-set grows.
It's no longer necessary, to create something new.
To abandon something obsolete or irrelevant? Not a chance.
Let everything stay the same; don't mind the stunted growth of ours.
Growth - whether quantified in the terms of the tangible assets, or the more abstract aspects - is not something 'optional', especially in the 21st century of ours. The world is moving faster and faster, in a futile effort, of keeping up with the modern technological innovations.
No matter how fast you and I might run, there is absolutely no way of us overtaking the speed of the race-car.
And as such, our skills need to encompass the wider market demands, something that the artificial intelligence and the automated robots can never take away from us.
Maybe, today we are okay with one job, one home, one specific set of the skills, and an academic qualification of certain specialisation.
This is purely because of the difficulties, in deploying a full scale automated manufacturing framework.
Just like the voice recordings on the customer support numbers, or the lasers and cameras near the doors; we would be easily replaced, with our less hungry and more consistently accurate counter-parts, from our silicon-based brothers and sisters.
Even if the connectivity, the electricity and the sophistication issues were to be resolved in the next two to three decades; earlier peers, our generation and those, who are not even born yet, will NOT be able to retire.
Please note that I believe it would be a good thing, before the 'label them to silence them' trend tags me as a luddite.
See, the growth mindset, we are discussing here, has very little to do with our currently available job profiles. I would love to see the automated mecha-humanoids replace the physically harassed members of the working age population.
This author sees no distinction between the physiological strain and the psychological stress.
They causes the purely unnecessary pain to a human being; it is not always the meaningful or character-building pain, that we might recall from our final year thesis preparations, or the sports events, or maybe from some illness, marathon, gym or a difficult time in our life.
In short, hard-work and valueless-work are the two different things.
Let the automated machinery do the repetitive step-wise unilinear valueless-works, where the human intervention doesn't add any extra benefits. Humans might have more time to be spent on the hobbies, the side-projects, the family, the friends and the selfcare 'me time'.
Anyway, everyone, be it you or me, can start from the scratch, and over a passage time, we can learn how to serve the clients or the employers in our specific industries, as per the current norms.
Internet has made the knowledge, the information, as well as the exposures to the diverse cultures and perspectives, accessible to each one of us.
We don't need to depend on the college buildings, the libraries, the heavy books, the exploitative rules, the laughable tuition fess, or the paywalls, in most of the cases.
You have to just start somewhere, then encounter the problems, and type them, even speak them, into that tiny microphone of your smartphone.
And that's all it takes to get a business website... without spending a dime (akp51v-creator.business.site) using a single button in your Google Accounts page. You can do this when just starting out, or just for fun.
It's good enough for the small business owners and local vendors. You don't need to learn code to add your information to that site.
More on that?
Yes, but some another time.
Of course, once you have a basic site like that, you might like to get a proper Self-hosted WordPress site (akp51v.com), from the paid hosting services, such as Hostinger.
To start putting your pics on the public display and get responses: Instagram.com/akp51vc
To share with others - what you know or think... via Quora, or to learn from them.
For instance, I had totally forgotten about the <sup> tag, which I needed for making 21st, look like 21st, in one of the paragraphs above.
In other words, the growth in the skill-sets, in this written piece, is solely intertwined with the industry norms of tomorrow.
And while nobody can predict them with accuracy, let's just say that the humane qualities are going to be in an even greater demand, be it in the construction, the sales, the disaster management, the population management or the counselling (training).
Once the humans have a greater amount of the leisure or free-time, another golden era for the Art, the Empathy-based Communication and the Transferrable Skills as well as the novel ways of Expression, from the Literature to the Community Management, will be waiting for us.
Until the beginning of this century, how many of us had a smartphone?
Instead of the months, if we use decades or even year as the unit range, how many of the software or the laws have been the same without any frequent changes?
That's why we would be focused on the unique features of the humans - to adapt, to feel and to imagine.
Since the tastes and the culture of the human population, which is till lacking a primitive cellular connectivity, will be an entirely different world of the ideas, the possibilities and the needs or the wants; Adaptability, Empathy and Creativity shall rule this century (provided that, those in power, won't lose their self-control).
The problem? All three of these super-mysterious special powers of ours... are being numb and dumb, due to our inability of distinguishing between the satisfaction and the stagnation.
Fake Positivity as a popular temporary bandage
Unreasonably self-reinforced hope, and satisfaction, can result in a highly undesirable and self-defeating scenario, of the stunted growth.
Even the slow progress may be absent; as the superficial spirit of so called positive thinking, might be more about 'sweeping the problems under the rug'... or a self-imposed deliberate negligence, towards the problems, the negative risks or the inefficient operations.
As clarified earlier, Positivity, whether as hope or satisfaction, is essential for leading a healthy and sane life, especially in this increasingly competitive and rapidly changing world of ours.
The catch?
While positive psychology comes with the necessary warning signs, that could reduce the risk of illusionary fake positivity; whatever else is being offered with the tag of positive thinking, is far from anything helpful in the same manner.
Not a clinical advice; just some facts are discussed.
According to the literature from my old bookmarks, as well as some more reading done for this section, Fear and Anger are the brilliant tools, installed in us by Mother Nature, to increase our focus in the urgent situations; imagine a carnivorous species predator suddenly appearing in front of you!
Not a great selfie moment, right? You shall run, to survive that.
Fear can make you run faster; don't underestimate its prowess.
Positive Psychology studies all such factors to understand, and then promote the 'human strengths'. In other words, every emotion (and naturally possessed instinct) of ours, even if seemingly bad or negative, helps our brain to boost its ability, as per the situation.
Your brain is NOT wasting your time, whenever you go through the Nine Stages of Grief.
And thus, the practically comprehensible State of Happiness, differs from Feeling Happy, not by some tiny margin here and there, but in a huge way.
If this explanation doesn't provide the hint, about the usage of scientific and multidisciplinary knowledge-base, by the qualified professionals, who must have an on-ground real-life experience; then here is the straight-forward short version.
Positive thinking, Self-help Books, Motivation Gurus, Personality Development Courses and something called happiology (seriously?), have absolutely nothing to do, with a legally recognised Positive Psychology.
This entire 'cashing in on something popular' confusion, becomes even funnier, when we discover that, there is an entire industry, repackaging the Self-Help Content; as if it was grounded in the good quality, mathematically sound statistics.
Positive Thinking can be used as an excuse for literally pressuring an individual or a group to practice the fake smile and speak in an awfully childish happy-go-lucky manner.
Those, who would dare to point out any flaws, or potential Negative Risks, might be branded as a mood-ruining negative minded person, if too many people have bought the 'always be positive' idea.
Discussing the realistic and the problematic aspects, can earn you a label of being too 'cynic'.
And eventually, you yourself might start feeling the guilt of 'why can't I feel good all the time, 24x7x365?' And during this entire time period, the neglected or underestimated risk-factor, will only go on increasing.
The scientific community and the research journals have been witnessing the criticism and the peer reviews related to the potential pervasive incentives, or the side-effects, of a 'thumb rules' style highly individual-centric Content-based Positive Psychology interventions, for decades.
This is the closest thing to the Positive Thinking shallowness, where every negative emotion or non-positive experience is to be shunned, and forcefully abandoned, with all that positive self-instructions; which make people like me, feel extremely stupid.
So, yeah, it is partially personal melodrama; but there are technical sides to these objections.
We all love talking about, and share the info about the importance of smiling, hoping, trying and caring; but imagine, if someone used such content, to try to 'instruct' you what to feel, and what feelings should be suppressed!
Emotions Policing, huh? Like the thought crimes from George Orwell's 1984.
No thanks.
They can keep their e-books and live webinars, we will keep our realistic worldview.
But there is the good news; turns out, the evil side-effects, such as when we feel really bad, after actively trying to be happy, and when others make us feel as if we are the wrong party, just because we said, "Be careful"... that evil has been recognised, voiced by the wise people, serving the science and the natural philosophy.
And thus, there are solutions to prevent such unwanted effects of Positivity Interventions.
Context-based Positive Psychology will include our socio-economic backstories, and won't try to brainwash us into believing, that our identity (or behaviour) has nothing to do, with the bittersweet and ugly experiences, in our entire lifespan till now.
In short, you won't have to feel guilty or bad, just because you worry more, plan more, question more, or think a trillion times before trusting any sweet-talker.
Also, the reference number 4 proposes the Systems Approach, which would mean that the full spectrum of all kinds of emotions, might get a reasonably fair treatment, in the positive psychology; and the risk of emotions policing, or feeling unhappier due to the fake smiling and the baseless self-instructions, will be lowered.
It reminds me of the LSM or Limit State Method of structural designing in RCC construction, from the college days.
The more traditional designing methods were the Working Stress Method (WSM), and then the Ultimate Load Method (ULM).
But a structure's performance was never limited to the stresses sustained due to the imposed loads, or the maximum load it could carry.
There were many other factors, big or small , related to the casting and setting of the concrete elements, and even the aspects relating to the fire hazards, which would affect the effectiveness of the final design.
Instead of addressing each of them separately, LSM incorporated them all into a single method, in which all aspects were represented by Limits representing the range of safety.
Thus, let's have faith in the Policy Makers, that they'd not let any form of Emotions Policing, ruin our naturally provided practically necessary negative emotions, and some realistic system, as proposed by the scientists community, would help us, in using the entire spectrum of good and bad emotions, for living a more 'rationally positive life'.
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Now, wrapping up, we have hopefully explored the concepts, such as Hope, the Growth mindset and the Fake positivity in a healthy amount, so as to understand how the sweet-seeming ideas can backfire big time.
With this awareness, about these side effects, let's be more careful with the artificial smiling or the harmful hyper-optimism.
