The legendary author of the powerful book; The Power of Positive Thinking, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale has left an enduring legacy through the creative expression of this ageless concept that inspired his nation and the entire world, especially during a devastating economic depression. He demonstrated the principles of positive thinking not only on the pulpit but in his secular life to inspire a society that was caving under the burden of a tremendous economic depression.
Positive thinking is a universal concept that can be found in all religions, culture and classical literature. The concept may have different embellishments depending on the milieu through which it is being expressed but essentially has the same message. Possibly because all humans essentially have the same psychological make-up. Negative thoughts are capable of depleting psychic energy crucial for human survival. Creative optimism flourishes in an atmosphere of positive thinking while there is thought paralysis when negative thoughts predominate. Ideas evaporate and the cognitive horizon becomes bleak and enveloped in darkness which may result in suicide. Aaron Beck, a psychologist, gave us the cognitive theory that explains depressive illness as a product of uninterrupted cognitive distortions. In between normality and illness; there is a thought pattern characterized by struggles between negativism and positivism. When negativism overcomes, there will be a loss of energy, loss of interest in usually enjoyable activities and undue sadness that qualifies the individual for urgent psychiatric intervention before committing suicide.
Negative thinking is encapsulated in the word pessimism characterized by fear, anxiety, hopelessness, worthlessness, guilt, doubt, frustration and disillusionment. Any human being overtaken by this thought pattern acquires a pessimistic lens through which he views his career, marriage, society and all of his undertakings. While there is the argument of a hereditary predisposition; the truth is that all humans have a natural tendency to indulge in negative thoughts that should be interrupted. Some individuals choose to employ immature defense mechanisms to explain away their negative thoughts by attributing them to forces outside of conscious cognitive control, thereby denying the experience and refusing to take responsibility. This may impair reality testing and frustrate creative problem-solving strategies. This approach readily breeds failure, frustration, and mental illness invariably. When the leader of a family is overtaken by negative thinking, the children will grow to become school dropouts, victims of drug addiction and failures in the game of life. There is a linkage between neurolinguistic programming and the predominant thinking pattern hence the counsel to speak positive words to create a positive force at home, workplace, and society. Negative thinking is perpetuated by neurolinguistic programming in the direction of self-sabotage.
A critical interrogation of the African culture is very crucial at this point to unravel the reasons for our underdevelopment despite an abundance of human and physical resources. Our cultural myths, superstition, and taboos annihilate our cognitive emancipation from situations that seek to imprison us because they reduce us to robots in our own personal experience and shift the responsibility of solution to a deity that is beyond us. Our leadership in the secular and much more in the religious realm exploits this paradigm for their own selfishness. Positive thinking is the interruption of our natural cognitive distortions through the universal principle of faith which connects the individual personally and consciously to the power of omnipotence. Faith, as a precursor of positive thinking, is a constant element in all religions of the world. Faith breeds hope, love, and joy as it eliminates selfishness, fear, hatred and other negative thoughts in the construction of a positive cognitive template that enhances problem-solving skills. The facility of imagination becomes activated as faith is applied. This is radically different from fantasy which is an idle, wishful and irrational projection of the mind as a form of escape from life challenges. This is actually the difference between faith and delusion. Faith acknowledges the existence of a problem but also facilitates your connection to the power of omnipotence in surmounting it while delusion denies the reality of a problem, explains it away by leveraging on myths and superstitions thereby assuming that a deity will take responsibility for its solution. This induces a certain degree of passivity in our own affairs while the cognitive facility is idle, disconnected, sink into negativity and may invariably compensate with escapism into myths that impairs reality testing with mediocre capacity for problem-solving. Nigeria although a very religious nation but our religiosity has failed to translate our religious efforts into positive thinking that should practically empower us in nation building rather than self-indulgence and mindless opportunism. Our leaders lack creative problem-solving skills just as we are deluded to rationalize our failures on the doorstep of the Almighty while all manners of material and sensual indulgence characterize our leadership in all ramifications.
Dr. Adeoye Oyewole
adeoyewole2000@yahoo.com
+234 803 490 5808 (WhatsApp Only)
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