Thursday 4 November 2010

Positive Thinking in Skill-Acquisition and in Life - Part 1

By WithoutWriting

1. Defining the Terms:

By way of introduction, I am a blogger who writes predominantly on martial-arts related topics; the acquisition of skill in the area of combat preoccupies me to an unhealthy degree.

In this guest article (Many thanks to the Man in a Bottle) I intend to discuss the reasons why I think a positive attitude is quite simply a pre-requisite of not only any learning process, but an advantage in several areas of daily life.

I should perhaps first make my position on positive thinking and optimism perfectly clear:
I don't consider myself to be a particularly optimistic individual. I consider myself a realist, and I react rather badly and in a knee-jerk way to self-help doctrines that demand that one take a positive outlook on EVERY circumstance in one's life, regardless of how difficult or painful that circumstance might be. However, either consciously or unconsciously, I have developed an extremely positive, nay, some would say an unreasonably optimistic outlook in several discreet areas. These areas are: My study of the martial arts, and my opinion of humanity which feeds directly in to both my political and philosophical beliefs.

Secondly I should define exactly what I am talking about when I use the terms "positive thinking" and/or "optimism":

To me, in all cases one should form one's opinions based on evidence. This is the only intellectually defensible way to form opinions in my view, and certainly the only way to learn about the world and oneself. Therefore- in my opinion- a positive attitude should not be held in regards to things, people or actions which have an overwhelming amount of negative evidence attached to them. An example: No amount of positivity will prevent one from crashing to the ground in a painful heap if one jumps from one's second floor window in the morning, instead of taking the stairs. The evidence of both the force of gravity and one's past experience with falling simply do not support a positive attitude to flinging oneself from high places.

However, when one moves away from such extreme examples, decisions about what attitude to take to events in one's life become blurred and difficult. Why should we keep forming relationships with people when we have been hurt in the past? Why should we keep trying to learn to ride a bicycle when we've fallen off so many times during the process? And why should we continue to train in say... a martial art, when for months and years we have been the veritable punchbag of everyone else in the gym/school/dojo?
Believe me when I say that unless you are formidably naturally talented, any complex skill will take serious time and effort to acquire. There are few skills more complex than martial skills, and few areas of study in which the consequences of mistakes are as painful. Why should one presume that one's skill will increase? Why should one be optimistic about one's progress in the art? Why should one be positive?

The answer is that observation of the success of others offsets and outweighs the evidence of one's past experience.

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