Starting from when we were just beginning our lives as babies, our parents and friends have taught us how to be happy either by helping us solve our problems or by finding silver linings in our tough situations. People who are close to us love to see us be glad and most times want to see us be the best we can possibly be. It is an expected behavior to want to see the people you hold dear to your heart be just as joyful on the inside as they appear on the outside and vice versa. We know that when we see our loved ones in tough situations they stop taking care of themselves, or shut down for a while, something essential is usually being sacrificed. It is human nature to want close friends and family to be successful, and happiness can play a huge role in that. When we are happy our best work gets done, we have and/or maintain the best relationships, and we are more motivated to take care of ourselves because we are so overwhelmed at the greatness of life. We are all obsessed with being happy and that’s not a coincidence, we want to be happy because we know we are the best to ourselves and those around us when we are content and at peace within.

We have often been told that if we think happy we will be happy, and that good things come to positive people. But does the way we think actually affect how successful we are in our health, work and relationships? The more positive we think can correlate with the amount of success we will have in our relationships, careers and even in our physical aspects. As our brain finds ways to be resilient from bad situations it tends to expand to give us more ideas and thoughts making everyday life more interesting. Countless science studies, some of which are mentioned below explain how we can actually record the differences of someone’s thoughts based on their attitude. This topic is important because this small element of our minds can possess the power to completely determine how confident and successful we are on any given day. If reading this paper can influence the reader to think one more positive thought than normal the course of his/her day could be totally different. Thinking positively can help us manage stress better reducing our risk for numerous health risks and can make us look at challenges as a chance to grow instead of being intimidated by obstacles. 

Barbara Fredrickson, professor in the department of psychology at the University of North Carolina shares examples of actual studies conducted on positivity. She explains that people who tend to think more upbeat generally have a bigger pool of actions and internal ideas. In a problem solving experiment with a carefully selected positive and neutral/negative thinking group Fredrickson and Michael Cohn (source mentioned later) found “Studies that show that positive affect broadens the scope of thinking can be taken as indirect evidence that positive affect will also broaden the scope of action” (Fredrickson) therefore, the positive thinkers were quicker to come up with the actions to solve the problem. This explains why when we think more optimistically we get more done and become more successful because we think quicker and have more options on how to react to certain situations and learn how to more efficiently control our outcomes. In other words, Fredrickson believes the more upbeat we think the more opportunities we will be presented with in everyday life just by having a new mindset.

Michael Cohn shared a role in developing the broaden and build theory and worked on several brain experiments with Fredrickson. In his article he shares the study they conducted on college students which determined if there is a correlation between our daily emotions/ego-resilience and how satisfied we are in our lives. He conducted this study by recruiting participants through magazines and newspapers and having them fill out a questionnaire and excluded all students who had depression to avoid bias. Everyday once a day he would have them log into a website and fill out a survey on their day on the events that happened and how they reacted and at the end made them take a personality test.  At the end of their study it was concluded that “ego-resilience generates positive emotions, suggesting an upward spiral in which ego-resilience and positive emotions maintain and build on one another” (Cohn) which further supports my position of positivity stemming from how resilient we are. The students whose results revealed they were more positive than negative wrote less obstacles for their day and reacted calmly when hardships occurred and did not focus on them as much as the more negative students did. He also mentioned that after preforming this study that they had concrete “evidence that positive emotions actively help people create desirable outcomes” (Cohn) thus making our lives more successful because we have more control over the things we want to happen. If we tell ourselves we have control over everything that will go on today every morning, the less anxiety and uncertainty we will experience throughout the day.

This is not an argument of nature vs. nurture; some people like to state that the way we were raised and the events that shaped us through our childhoods make permanent mindsets that we have little control over. That the events that happen to us are how we are going to be shaped into having our permanent thought process, but it really all depends on the way we respond to things that happen to us. Things that we have overcome or perhaps are still going through that have stemmed from our pasts are not holding us back, we are doing it to ourselves. At any given time, we can defeat our old attitudes and become the people we were supposed to be before any undesirable events were brought in our lives. Julianne Chiaet, successful newspaper reporter, writes how science proves it’s achievable to train our brains to be able to create honest long-lasting cheerfulness. By doing so, we can become more motivated, creative and productive, as well as better at handling unplanned life events and rebounding from failure or tragedy. She quotes psychologist Shawn Anchor “When the brain is negative, it splits resources between the problem you have in front of you and the negative emotions you’re feeling” (Chiaet) which leaves us exhausted and most time with a prolonged unsolved situation.  When we waste our time being pessimistic we mentally do not possess the brain capacity to make rational decisions because we can’t give our undivided attention to the matter. What she really stresses is that the brain is just another muscle we have to strengthen and we can everyday by being more resilient to obstacles throughout the day. She continues to quote Dr. Dranovsky “If you have overcome a challenge, it’s because of this resilience that’s exhibited by different structures in the brain has allowed you to do that” (Chiaet) which completely stresses what I’ve been talking about this whole paper. Every time we problem solve our brain expands and we become more positive people. She says “negative emotions stifle creativity and restrict a person’s ability to come up with different options” (Chiaet) which explains why when we dwell on a problem, it seems to get worse and we are blocked (literally) from a solution because our brain is actually shutting down in some parts. When we think positively with our problems we are quicker to come up with a resolution because nothing is stopping us from thinking clearly.

The way we think correlates with how we act, so if we are more optimistic we are more likely to be a joy to be around. Keith Harrell, motivational speaker recognized by the Wall Street Journal explains how we are in control of our own thoughts and our actions are direct results. He is a promoter of positive thinking and believes it to give its partakers a positive impact. He even lists ways to think more positive, so he would disagree that an attitude has nothing to do with success. He explains it like this “Your mind is a computer that can be programmed. You can choose whether the software installed is productive or unproductive. Your inner dialogue is the software that programs your attitude, which determines how you present yourself to the world around you” (Harrell) and whatever we chose to put into our brains is what’s reflected back into the earth. We are in full control of what we chose to put in our heads; what we think about is a direct mirror to how we act on the outside. He goes onto say that “it’s not what happens to you that matters; it’s how you choose to respond” (Harrell) and that proves it has nothing to do with nurture, it is never too late to fill your head with positivity.

Credible author of the New Yorker, Maria Konnikova, poses the age old assumption mentioned in my introduction of if we think happy we are happy. She pulls examples of tests done to test this theory. She describes a study consisting of depressed and not depressed college students and how they react to how much control they think they have in various situations. In a specific case the students had to push a button and see if a light would come on, it was designed so that each group would experience success, about half the time. When they finished the experiment and interviewed the kids they found that “the depressed individuals were much better at identifying those instances when they had little control over the outcomes, while the non-depressed students tended to overestimate their degree of influence over the light” (Konnikova) the positive kids expected success while the negative kids didn’t. In another study she performed she followed around a group of pregnant women throughout their third trimester. While getting to know the ladies she recorded their personality’s and measured they optimism. After the women gave birth to their babies and the experiment was over, she rerecorded their levels of enthusiasm. The final results disclosed that “initial levels of optimism predicted the lower likelihood of postpartum depression” (Konnikova) meaning the more positive the moms were before the children were born had a direct correlation on how the mother dealt with her post-delivery mindset.

James Clear begins by telling us that now scientists are actually able to execute reports on how positive thinking affects us in the long term. He is a journalist who focuses on emotional studies performed by above source, Barbara Fredrickson. Fredrickson, in a study, developed the broaden and build theory which explains how when people experience positive emotions, their minds broaden and they open up to new possibilities and ideas. He summarizes the experiment by saying “Negative emotions prevent your brain from seeing the other options and choices that surround you” (Clear). This makes sense when we think about depression suicide cases, these people literally cannot see any other possible way to escape their misery. The negativity has completely transformed their brain and made it so all helpful pathways seem too far and out of reach. Clear goes on to tell us different ways we can expand our brains therefore gain more skills that make positive thinking a constant and easily achieved experience. He included many helpful ideas that are very doable such as meditation, writing, and making time to reminisce on our achievements. Ending on a cheerful note Clear encourages his readers to “Seek joy, play often, and pursue adventure. Your brain will do the rest.” (Clear). If we do the things we love and keep ourselves joyful by only focusing on the good things that surround us, we can manipulate our brains to constantly be a happy place with blissful thoughts.

On the flip side of things, Olivia Goldhill, psychology writer, argues that the emphasis is on being positive thinking has turned happiness into an unattainable burden. If we are just so optimistic all the time we will over commit and have a false sense of what is actually achievable.  She believes we need to act like we think and respond to negative events and be able to be sad and be down for a couple of days if needed. She goes onto justify her claim by stating “Guilt and shame are essential to a sense of morality. Anger is a legitimate response to injustice. Sadness helps us process tragedy” (Goldhill). While this is a good argument due to its ability to be understood easily and make sense to the reader, it mirrors how too many of us are living. If we stayed positive, from all of the sources in this paper we know we are more resilient. What if through every hard time, we thrived and looked at it as an opportunity to strengthen our minds whether than break down and mope? What if we viewed being over busy as an opportunity to learn our limits and actually not have any time to think negatively? While the above qualities are essential, I believe they are to be achieved in other ways. We gain morality by being raised up right, and clinging to our faith or whatever makes us second guess our decisions. Anger is an emotion that is natural when we are wronged but that is a perfect example of something an optimistic person wouldn’t pester over because of how minor they view complications. We learn how to process tragedy by talking things out with people who care for us and always looking for hope, even when the tunnel looks dark, because that’s what positive people can do! Although Goldhill makes an interesting point in her discussion that happiness is a chore, I’m not convinced that thinking positively can damage personality traits in anyway or can be viewed as destructive. 

While this topic might seem like a waste of time because it is more of an emotional event than other topics are and is mainly based on personal cases, I think being positive is so important. Especially since scientists have found ways to measure optimism and really look into how people’s reactions are formed and why they’re formed. Not only have we discussed the multiple health benefits that come with being optimistic, but I have given multiple examples of studies where positive people are less likely to linger on their problem. We must learn how to control our thoughts because the world is becoming so sensitive and if we add a whole lot of negative thought processes to that mix, we are in trouble. With all of the chaos in the world today with a new president, new genders, and mass shootings we all need to take a step back and always remember when we think positive good things will happen; when we focus on what could go wrong, the more likely something tragic is to happen. I will leave my reader with my favorite quote which appropriately wraps up this essay, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right” (Henry Ford).
