Тема для обсуждения Английского разговорного клуба: Positive Thinking
Part I
What do you think about positive thinking? Do you think that your luck totally depends on your frame of mind?
Is positive thinking a kind of self-hypnosis?
In what situations positive thinking is helpful?
In what situations can it be harmful?
Is it essential for everyone to be optimistic?
Do you agree, that pessimists attribute their misfortunes to inner (“I’m such a looser!”), constant (“It’s always the same!”) and global (“Whatever I do, everything goes wrong!”) reasons? And do they attribute their luck to circumstances, unstable and contextual?
Do you agree that optimists attribute their luck to inner, constant and global reasons (“I passed the exam. There is for my intelligence and assiduity. I’m also good at other subjects”) and account their misfortunes to circumstances?
Are you a pessimist or an optimist?
What do you typically do, if things come tough:
shut down completely;
turn to friends/family for support;
remind yourself to focus on the good things in your life instead of the bad;
try to look at it from different angles in order to come up with a solution;
refuse to give up, no matter how tough things get?
Part II
Why do people become pessimists or optimists (under necessity of circumstances, because of inborn features of character, etc)?
Is being a realist is neither being pessimist, nor optimist?
Is there pressure in our society to be always optimistic?
“This isn’t much of a recipe for making more diverse societies happier and healthier. For that, we’ll need to stop chasing the notion that one or another frame of mind is the Best One To Have. Optimism, pessimism, introversion, and extraversion – maybe they can all work, except when we insist that everyone makes the same choice.” Do you agree with that?
