We all know the game sucks and no matter what we can do, in the end we'll be flushed away down the toilet ! Life is like a 85 sided sword, bound to stab and slice you at every turn, BUT, knowing that, it is mind game. I believe the human mind is the most powerful thing going, and if you feed it enough good and positive thought, you WILL find a way to deal with some unbelievable bad shit, BUT, as we change from day to day with our experience, we also change moment to moment, as every thing and person and thought you encounter WILL effect the YOU who is being built and changed moment to moment !!!! the circle game described !!!!! ENJOY !!!!! the good old saying of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll ain't too bad neither !!!!

I think there is nothing wrong with having a positive outlook and a dose of realism at the same time. Too quickly we as humans are ready to point and highlight the bad instead of praise the good.

Being realist, I accept that yeah some things are shit. But if I try and find good or some sort of silver lining it makes the shit a little less. Perhaps some people call that naivety, but hey, to each their own.

Seldom are things ever perfect. Life is full of compromise. It's easy to be caught into the trap of only seeing what's wrong, and not to see what's right. Concentrating on what's wrong, can blind you to what's right. That's where the positive thinking comes in. Being able to see and recognize what's right, instead of what's wrong.

Nobody reports that your house didn't burn down today. They only report when it does. So, it's so easy to collect what's negative. It's good that you make the point to be positive once in a while.

Yep, just another fairytale.

When it comes to dealing with people, I can usually adhere to, "Praise in public, critique in private." The rest of the time, I work on denying my nature by trying to keep upbeat and projecting a positive attitude. Might have to deal with a shit sandwich from time to time, but dammit, it's gonna have a smile smeared on it!

You ask many good question and are clearly a learner. That’s very cool. I’m not sure of the connection between logic and negativity. It’s not clear to me that they are necessary connected. Communication in the best of time is very difficult, but the process can be helped if we can spend a bit of time focusing on expressing what we want and determining what the other person needs. You state that you need to correct your employees all the time. It could be that they don’t really know what you need at that particular moment. As managers we often get in trouble when we attempt to manage actions rather than communicate desired results. Managers need to allow their employees the space to be engaged and creative in the way they solve your “results” request. It hard for many managers to let go of this. The temptation to micromanage is great. You indicate that it is easy for you to see how things don’t work out. It sounds like your own bias is ruling the moment. Positive thinking is not the be all or end all but the notion that we “become what we think about” has a lot of good current science to back up that claim. We now know that we are imperfect seeing, feeling, understanding humans and that our brain can and will change will internal and external influences.

P.S. one of the best resources on improving understanding and communication is called Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. It is very accessible and practical.

It is fairly difficult sometimes to get your fact based points across to people who don't want to accept them. Honestly when I see they are not going to listen to what I or the statement I am reading is saying, I change the subject. It's not worth my time.

The positive thought aspect though I kind of agree with. Not that I think everything is awesome all the time but for the most part nothing is ever as bad as people say or as good. Yes, the umpa loompa is rediculous but I guess he could have been NERO or Saddam.

In many cases, pointing out inconvenient facts will appear as negativity to those for whom the facts are inconvenient.

Another moron simply says "fake news" when presented with inconvenient facts.

I never associated the two together, logic and negativism. While reading your post I seem to see it and being the same way I thought maybe you have a point. But, perhaps with many people not being logical it's depressing which leads to negativism. "Logically" the two have nothing to do with each other Being optimistic is a preferred state unless there is too much to be pessimistic about. I've found that being optimistic works as well at fixing a negative situation as believing that god will fix things. Of course you can try being positive and seeing if that helps you--it can't hurt

Logic is a way of acting, negative is a way of being

I think the difference is self confidence and the idea that the odds still exist for things to go well, and the more prepared you are the better those odds get.

A positive outlook is not the opposite of a negative outlook. If you see the world and it’s creatures as beautiful it is because you are looking around and perceiving reality as it really is. If you see ugliness it is because you are not looking. You are wrapped up in judgmental, untrue thoughts—a wholly different category. Your thoughts really do matter IMO.

Are being agreeable and being contrary mutually exclusive?

I believe that positivity is a thing and does affect my life. I know it sounds like voodoo mysticism but I have spent a lot of time thinking about this. I like to think I'm a logical person but I do realize that my superpower is justification so I can't say for sure whether my thoughts are justification or the truth.

Let's take for example something minor, an idiot driver on the way to work. I'm in a hurry and his lack of attention is slowing traffic around him. I could react negatively, yelling or maybe just negative thoughts which put me in a bad mood. When I get to work that negativity is still going to be on my mind. I may be less forgiving when I run across co-workers who seem to be hindering the process, causing them too experience negativity and put them into a funk as well. These micro-negativities will ripple outward and reflect back into my own psyche as I interact with my coworkers all day long.

Now let's assume instead of getting upset at the driver on my way to work I choose to thank the universe for teaching me patience. If I think about what's important in life I may realize that enjoying life is more important than punching a time clock at a certain time. Yes there are consequences to being late but there are also consequences to ignoring opportunities to see the beauty that surrounds us. I may choose to slow down and look at the trees or clouds and appreciate nature's beauty, lifting my spirits. I arrive at work a few minutes later than planned but I inform my boss of the horrible traffic in a can pleasant manner and perhaps I get off with just a warning this time. Now when i interact with my coworkers I'm happy and smiling with the thoughts of nature's beauty rattling around my head, or maybe it was a song, whatever joyous thing I chose to focus on instead of the negativity. Now my mood is equally infectious, ok not going to make the office break out into a dance number like in a musical, but I will impact my coworkers moods in tiny ways throughout the day. Those ripples of happiness are going to impact my mood all day long as I continue to interact with coworkers. At the end of the day I'm going to feel like I've accomplished so much more in this version of the day than I would have stressing the negativity around.

Sure, there's a chance something could snap me out of my funk in the first scenario making the day a success just like there is a chance something could bring me down in the second scenario. However, choosing the positive reaction will result in a happier me (and my coworkers) at the end of the day more times than not. And that's not even taking into account all of the people we touch after we leave work. My happiness ripples affect the checkout person at the grocery store, me neighbors, my workout class taking Tai Chi, and the deli counter attendant at Subway.

I suspect you & I may think alike in some ways. Please don't be offended but do you have Asperger's? I do. My realism is often mistaken for pessimism. My logic is often mistaken as doomsaying.
My wife studied Psychology. She said there is a part of human nature that focuses on negative things. That has certainly been my experience. Take airconditioning for example. No-one notices it if it's working properly. But everyone notices it on the one day of the season when it is not perfect. Or acoustics. No-one notices if the acoustics of a hall, or a cafe, are great, but if they're crap everyone hates it. I definitely, emphatically disagree that positive thinking creates positive events but I absolutely agree that positivity changes your thoughts, feelings and behaviours and in turn, that absolutely influences the world around you and your experience of it.

I don't mind my Rose colored glasses. I know they're on. They come off when I get home. But in my field, dealing with 1st graders, I can't be the grumpy old atheist that I want to be.

You seem balanced. Corporate culture isn't.