Elie Wiesel, Victor Frankl and Positive Attitude

Two major voices came out of the Holocaust: Victor Frankl and Elie Wiesel. Frankl's message was self-empowerment; Wiesel's message was despair. Yet Wiesel became more influential than Frankl.

How can this be, some may say. Isn't positive attitude everything? Don't you have to be positive in order to be successful, and aren't negative people losers? Well there is nothing loserish about Elie Wiesel. He became a crusader for human rights, and his influence extend far beyond the Jewish community.

In fact there have been many people who were negative who achieved significant things. Nixon was negative. Charles Dickens was negative. Lou Reed was negative. Russians tend to have a negative outlook, but for several decades Russia credibly rivaled America for leadership of the world. Clearly what we know about positive attitude being prerequisite for success is untrue.

Positive thinking causes more problems than it solves. You think positive, you fail to anticipate problems, you do foolish things. Negative thinking is not the solution either. The negative thinker would believe that our problems are too much for us to solve, which is untrue. The solution is real thinking, where we analyze the conditions and put into place rightful solutions to our problems.

Indeed quite often the positive thinker would become a bully, attacking people who do not have positive attitude without figuring out why they don't have a positive attitude. I'll give you a hint. It consists of two words: Global warming. We have problems up the wazoo, and in some cases a negative attitude is justified. What is not justified is inaction in the face of these problems – something that we regrettably see both from people professing a positive attitude, who want to deny these problems, and from people possessing a negative attitude, who think that these problems are too much for us to solve.

So I say do away with both positive thinking and negative thinking and try real thinking. And pursuant real thinking, real action to solve the problems of the world.