…as there won’t be a test, but I was on radio this a.m. on WNPR’s “Where We Live,” as the sidekick interviewer for Barbara Ehrenreich, a fabulous author with a new book out, “Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.”
In her book, Ehrenreich, who has written extensively on the economy and the job market, maintains that rose-colored glasses do little more than cloud our vision. She promotes a more realistic approach to issues and challenges. I admire her work a great deal. I admire my radio work a good amount less, but the host of the show, John Dankosky, is an excellent interviewer and he’s kind to have me on.
Dating Jesus 
I listened and you were great. I love John Dankosky, but I did notice he handed over the response to you at one point to a tougher comment and you handled it beautifully. I emailed a comment early on, but he didn’t go to email comments. It must be that phone comments come first.
I enjoyed the show. You are great on the radio.
You are kind to say that. I really enjoy conversations, whether they’re on-air or off.
Ooh, I want to read that book.
I’m more of a pessimist in life, and Pollyannas drive me up the wall, especially when you add Christianity to the mix. Oh, my prosperity gospel days in my mom’s church…*tries not to puke*
I’ll listen to the interview when work is over. Nothing like this to mull on on a late fall afternoon :)
It’s a pretty good book, actually. I started reading it thinking, “How can you make a whole book out of this topic,” but the author certainly was able to do that. And she did look at properity gospel. That feels like a whole other book to me.
I just caught ya on the evening replay. I’m not sure I completely agree with Dr. Erenriech but she had some good points. I laughed out loud when John D. asked how God would give everyone the good parking space and you said, “loaves and fishes!!” I also like the way you laugh.
Kind of like I’m being choked? That laugh? I slipped that in and then thought, “Maybe six people in the audience will get that reference.” Thanks for listening. It was fun to do, but I don’t think being on the radio often would be as much fun. (When I was in junior high, someone told me my laugh was too loud and I worked really hard to make my laugh sound like Angie Bruner’s. She was a wonderful singer and super-popular and when she laughed it sounded like someone was pouring champagne over diamonds. Sadly, I could never quite mimic that.)
I was thinking that the endless promotion of positive thinking just makes it more difficult for people who struggle with depression. It adds to the stigma by placing blame on the depressed person; it enforces the attitude that a person should just be able to snap out of it if they would just think more positively.
My other observation on the topic is related to people dealing with serious, chronic illness. Healthy people often comment on the bravery of a person who is chronically ill and yet looks happy. Whereas, a person who is hurting and says so, is often not perceived as brave. I don’t think that people are comfortable with being in the presence of a person in pain. As a result, it’s not tolerated in the same way as a person who is in pain who doesn’t let on that they are in pain. Does that make sense?
Yes, it does, and Barbara Ehrenreich touches on that in her book. She writes about trying to comment on a breast cancer message board (she had breast cancer a few years back) and she wrote that she was angry, and then got jumped by the others online who told her she had a bad attitude. I think anger is perfectly appropriate — as did she. You don’t want to stay in anger, but you also don’t want to stay in happy-denial. Anger in the face of illness can be a powerful motivator. Anger in the face of any adversity can be a powerful motivator, come to think of it.
Motivator AND a not-unreasonable place to start.
As I listened to the replay last night there were two places where I’d have called in if it were possible:
1. I had a biopsy a couple of years ago (just calcification, phew), and one of the nurses gave me a heart-shaped pink pillow, packed in a pink fabric envelope, to use under my seatbelt until the tenderness left. A pillow for this purpose (made by a well-intentioned volunteer, in this case) is a good idea, but the presentation was a little TOO precious. Petty thought, probably, but I thought it was an off-shoot of the “Smile!” philosophy.
2. The sale of “happiness:” nearly every ad for consumer goods shows the model(s) wearing / driving / using the proferred item, and clearly thrilled with it. The new car will make you happy; the new smart-phone will make you happy; the new wall-sized TV will make you happy — and your life will be finally truly worth living. And you get into the car, you program the smart-phone, you set up the TV, and funny thing, that little surge of “happiness” doesn’t really last all that long.
I hate to sound all cranky, myself, but if someone hands me something pink — of any shape — I’m inclined to hand it back. I don’t do precious and I feel when I’m in those situations as I feel when someone comes up and hugs me and I don’t want to be hugged. No. Thank you. I realize your intentions are probably good, but no thank you. As for the happiness that products don’t bring, I used to sit in front of the television with my son when he was quite small and we’d analyze the commercials. I once asked him during a truck commercial what he thought they were selling, and he said, “The girl?” There was a beautiful woman draped over the hood of the truck, kind of like an animal sacrifice. I thought that was pretty astute of him and told him so.
Yes it can.
Maybe we (most people) need to learn to be more comfortable with anger and sadness. Sometimes, all it takes to move beyond those feelings is accepting the emotion as true, justified and ok, by the people around you and you. The more you deny those emotions, the deeper the feelings become because you can’t always just make yourself happy.
We didn’t explore that a great deal on the radio show (none of us are mental health professionals, or I imagine one of us would have brought this up for a longer discussion) but the whole stuffing the feelings thing is a killer. And putting on a happy face when you don’t feel like a happy face qualifies, in my book.
Speaking of anger, I recall at a very sad time in my life I said I couldn’t feel anger. I think that was because “anger”, in my mind, was a bad thing and people might not like me, whereas “sadness” was more acceptable to me. I think I was very angry deep down, but I couldn’t let it surface. I found out that it’s really useless to repress feelings because they eventually come out – they don’t usually disappear. Now, I think anger is actually a step in the right direction from sadness. Sadness, anger, positive action – it’s as if the negative energy moves from inward to outward and then is converted to empowerment. I’m fine with being around an angry person as long as the anger isn’t directed at a nearby person or me.
And I have had times when I couldn’t feel sad because I shot on through to anger (and stayed there, just ask my ex-husband). I do think it’s a step in the right direction, but for me, anyway, it needs to be followed by action. I don’t want to stay in anger. I want to use it as a springboard to get out there and change something — myself and/or the world. Them’s lofty goals, but they keep me off the streets at night.
That’s my husband – shoots on through to anger. I don’t like it, but I’m used to it. Maybe both sadness and anger have their place, in a good/bad way. If you’re happy and content, then how do you get motivated to improve the world? If you get angry enough to change something, then that’s kind of good. Your goals make sense.
As I age and deteriorate, I see the point of moving through anger. That’s my go-to emotion/reaction, but staying there is kind of dumb. And certainly ineffective.
All I need to do to get angry is read a few comments on the newspaper blog. No wonder it happens so automatically for you!
Oh, I came to my anger long before the internet opened up comments on newspaper blogs, I promise. The path between zero to 60 for me is quite short, indeed. God made me that way.