The Power of Negative Thinking

Writing a self help book is an easy way of making a few bucks, especially if you're a charismatic writer. You don't really need to make sense. Just don't make things too complicated. Oh, and tell people they can use magic to get what they want. Chicks dig it when you tell them you can teach them how to do magic. And that's why The Secret is popular. But even before The Secret there was this law of attraction bullshit, and The Secret seems to be based largely on that.

The gist of the law of attraction is that when you think of shit, it happens. So if you think about bad things, you're making them happen and if you think happy thoughts they come true too. And in The Secret, they tried to say this is all about quantum physics, which of course is a convenient way of giving yourself credibility by referencing something scientific that people are too lazy to look into and too stupid to figure out if they ever try to look into it.

So, yeah, in a nutshell, the really hocus pocus self help stuff is pretty much garbage, but there are some psychological principles behind them that are worth understanding. While you don't "send out waves to the universe that make your thoughts into reality", pessimism does encourage procrastination and discourages effort. You don't need quantum physics to explain that. Every day experience makes that pretty clear. Positive thinking doesn't necessarily ensure that you'll get what you want out of life, but if you're more confident than your actual abilities warrant, and you're good at making others have the same irrational confidence in you, you're going to be more successful than someone who is more talented but less "unrealistic". It's a sad truth, and it's why Michael Bay gets to keep making movies. As long as you're not doing things that are obviously insane, foolish or dangerous, having a bit more confidence than your abilities than your abilities really warrant is an advantage more often than not.

The main thing to remember is that negative thinking will weigh you down more than positive thinking will help you out.