Here’s Why Positive Psychology Doesn’t Work
Matt McShane Sabatino Mangini English Composition 100 Introduction: My Entry into Three Good Things I’m running late for school, once again. I’m blaring my iTunes music on my phone instead of listening to the radio in my car. Anxiety is flowing through me as I start to think that I will be late for Sabatino’s class. Today, we were supposed to be talking about a journal activity called the “three good things” project. That’s where you write down three good things that happened to you for every day of one week. But as I round the turn in the bottom of my development, disaster strikes. I hit a storm drain at almost thirty miles an hour, and my back right tire explodes with a loud bang. I click on the four ways, and jump out to examine the damage. “I need to get to school today” I sigh. “Today’s the day we’re talking about positive psychology and the “three good things” project in Sabatino’s class. I can’t miss that”. So, I go back around to the driver’s side of the car, and I get in and cruise away, at a slow twenty miles an hour, all the way down Gradyville Road. And you know what? I just made it in time to class. But through the morning drive to school, I thought of something very important. Does positive psychology work for me? No, it doesn’t. Positive psychology just doesn’t work for me. And here’s why it doesn’t work for me, and tons of other people. Literature Review - II Positive psychology is being “interested in building the best things in life as in repairing the worst; and as concerned with making the lives of normal people fulfilling as with healing pathology”. Furthermore, another term that goes hand in hand with positive psychology is well being. Well being is, of course, “fourteen distinct and recurring constructs: happiness, vitality, calmness, optimism, involvement, self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-worth, competence, development, purpose, significance, congruence, and connection”. In addition, another term related to positive psychology is gratitude. Benedictine monk, Br. David Steindl-Rast, suggests that “two qualities belong in our basic definition of gratitude. The first is appreciation: You recognize that something is valuable to you, which has nothing to do with its monetary worth. The second quality Br. David mentions is that gratitude is gratis: freely given to you”. In the second part of gratitude, he explains, “we recognize that the sources of this goodness are outside of ourselves…We acknowledge that other people…gave us many gifts, big and small, to help us achieve the goodness in our lives.” According to Dr. Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, the “three good things” project helps to boost your overall gratitude. The three good things project, as it were, is the process where you write down three good things that happened to you every day of one week. And according to Dr. Seligman, this process is highly effective. Some research that suggests gratitude does not improve well being is one study found that middle-aged divorced women who kept gratitude journals were no more satisfied with their lives than those who did not. Another study found that children and adolescents who wrote and delivered a thank-you letter to someone who made a difference in their lives may have made the other person happier — but did not improve their own well-being. Findings - III Positive psychology really does not improve a person’s overall gratitude. According to Dr. Martin Seligman, “40% of your gratitude is inherited from your parents”. You can try the “three good things project” however, to raise your overall gratitude. But I have found, in my own research, that it really doesn’t work. In my findings, I discovered that there are lots of small variables out there in the world that are constantly trying to belittle your gratitude. And sadly enough, I am one of many who allows himself to be affected by this. Positive psychology is just yet another one of those things that works for certain people and does not for others. It’s a sad story, for sure, but not much can be done for people that are either high strung or just naturally sad. There is, of course, steps that can be taken to lower the amount of depression. But it would prove to be a real uphill battle to not let yourself be tempted by everyday life into losing your temper, or something of that nature. The “three good things” project, as I have mentioned, can improve your overall gratitude. But, just like every other test out there which is not completely backed by science, that is certainly not a guarantee of the project’s success. Like a lot of variables, it really depends on the person, or the circumstances. Like for example, yours truly. It did work for me in the beginning, but I forgot how slightly overbearing parents can sometimes be. For me, personally, I’ve always had a bit of a temper, and it’s been known to flare from time to time. However, almost everyone can relate to that in one way or another. But, many people will tell you that allowing your temper to flare up like that is bad for your mental health. I happen to agree with that, but I just can’t help myself sometimes. And that’s why positive psychology doesn’t work for me. You see, I left out a lot of the dialogue concerning the drive to school. Why? Oh, no reason, other than the fact that there’s a lot of words in there that would really spice up the dialogue, if you know what I mean. And that’s yet another reason why positive psychology doesn’t work for me. Like many people, I exclaim and curse when things don’t go my way. I dwell on the distant past from time to time. Society today is way too high strung, and I can see that and certainly understand it, but an effective solution has yet to be found for it. Conclusion - IV I think I shall continue with the three good things project. While I have stated previously that it did not work for me, I should have also mentioned that I thought just one week was too short a time to prove whether or not the project was successful. The length of time for the “three good things” project should be something a little more like two or three weeks. Testing “gratitude journals” for only one week, in my personal opinion, anyway, produces, at the very best, inconclusive results. My main takeaway from this project is that there is an ever increasing number of sad and depressed people out there in the world today, and there is an equally ever increasing number of solutions for these depressed people. And, my introduction to this project is a perfect example as to how said outside forces of the world can belittle your personal gratitude.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Matt McShane
I will use this work to explore the written word. Archives
December 2018
Categories
|