An article in the Wall Street Journal discusses the positive benefits of negative thinking. it talks about how thinking about worst case scenarios can mentally prepare you for the worst, make you feel better able to handle them, and actually make you happier. It is a psychological benefit of prepping. It is subscriber content, but here is an excerpt:

Fortunately, both ancient philosophy and contemporary psychology point to an alternative: a counterintuitive approach that might be termed "the negative path to happiness." This approach helps to explain some puzzles, such as the fact that citizens of more economically insecure countries often report greater happiness than citizens of wealthier ones. Or that many successful businesspeople reject the idea of setting firm goals.

Seneca the Stoic was a radical on this matter. If you feared losing your wealth, he once advised, "set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: 'Is this the condition that I feared?' "

Moderators let me know if that is too much of a quote. it is a lengthy article.

For everyone else, the entirety of this WSJ article can be accessed for free through Google News. Just search for The Power of Negative Thinking in the Google News search. That's how I read it.

I found the article a bit disjointed since the writer pulls together references about different, but somewhat related, topics. Some of it does talk about "preparing for the worst" rather than "hoping for the best" (as in normalcy bias), but he does go on to topics like goal setting versus more free-form "do your best" kinds of thinking when talking about positive vs negative thinking. Goal setting can be a trap for preppers just as much as head-in-the-clouds types. Just look at all the lists on the web and on Youtube. "The twelve must have types of firearms for a prepper!" a video might extol. Are you an abject failure if you can't afford to get all twelve? Some "experts" make you feel that way. Are you well prepared just because you have all twelve? That would also be a mistake.

For me, the nugget from the article that spoke to me the most was this quote:

So much of procrastination and putting things off is driven by overt or subconcious anxiety, and anything that can lessen that anxiety and allow us to break through and actually take some action is a positive thing.

As with all things, there is a downside to negative thinking, too. I just happened to run across this article this morning called When Daily Stress Gets in the Way of Life. It's kind of a counter-weight to this idea that thinking of the negative, worst case is somehow "better" than thinking of the positive. Not to say one way is better than the other, but it's informative to consider arguments for both ways.



Negative outcomes are associated with anxiety and many/most of us are not well equipped with deal with it, particularly on a chronic basis. It would be great if taking a hard look at bad things allowed us to lessen our anxiety, but that's a tall order in many cases. Unfortunately, in many cases, there are forces around us that encourage that fear for financial and political purposes. (Ugh, TSA comes to mind, but I digress...)

Especially with all the horrendous, almost Biblical calamities we have witnessed within a relatively short period of time, I'm sure there are many folks out there who are consumed with the negative, with the worst cast scenario. Oftentimes, that probably also leads to paralyzing inaction or indifference as well. And on a more community level, probably doesn't help either. Like one small example, do we worry more about hiding from looters by not running the genie and hiding in the dark at night after a hurricane, or more about keeping people warm and keeping the kids (and the adults) entertained and their spirits up with lights and inviting people over? There's not necessarily a right or wrong answer to this or many other choices, but your mindset can certainly shape the outcome so it's best to be careful about what we fill our thoughts with.

I was hoping someone would find the article available without a subscription. Thanks Arney. when i posted this morning I was just hitting the headlines as I was getting to work and wanted to get it out there before I forgot about it.

You got the point of it, being realistic about the challenges being faced, and preparing for them, is much more helpful than unrealistic positive thinking. As I have always been taught "hope is not an action verb"; a better way to look at the concept of hope is just never giving up, never stop trying to fix things. Hope without action is useless.

Stress is a killer, but it need not be. If the stress is not physical, such as cold, heat, or sleep deprivation, then it is largely based on perception. The perception that the needs or challenges being faced are beyond your capabilities to handle. By thinking more realistically about the challenge, you remove a great deal of the stress. You can analyze the challenge by breaking it down into its component parts, take them on in manageable chunks and overcome the challenge. Unrealistic positive thinking about everything can result in nasty surprises as reality blind-sides you.

Unrealistically optimistic people tend to have an external locus of control, or the belief that they do not control things, "someone else" does. This can also be said about people who suffer from debilitating depression. The idea is to develop a realistic outlook, one that can handle the unexpected, and occasionally nasty, surprises and not be devastated by them. This applies to this community by encouraging a realistic attitude toward what you are preparing for, and as the article says, go out and practice the worst case scenario and learn to handle it. then the stress during one of those nasty events will be greatly reduced.

This "negative" attitude is not to see everything in a negative light, but to not be unrealistically optimistic. As stated in a favorite movie: "Always look on the bright side of life!"

Different things work for different people. Here's what works for me: If I think of what could go wrong, and prepare for it, I feel better. If the Mayan apocalypse comes while I'm traveling next week, there isn't a darn thing I can do about it. But if my wife and kids get snowed in the whole time I'm away, I know they'll have what they need, and that makes me feel better.

I do feel good when things go well and I don't need anything prepared, but I get a special frisson of joy when something I have "just in case" gets used.

While this may qualify as "negative thinking," whatever that means, it would be misleading to extrapolate this example to mean Stoicism is about negative thinking. The context of such a statement has to do with a key tenet, that "happiness" (eudaimonia), or a good flow of life, derives from the rational selection of the primary things according to nature. The "primary things" refer to the things you need to live, to survive. So if you choose rationally and in a manner that agrees with nature (not Nature, meaning the mountains and the trees, but the inherent order of the universe), you should be fine. Why? For the Stoics, if you can maintain your life, only your virtue matters. The rest means nothing, because you recognize that you have no control over it, over this ever-changing world. This attitude is illustrated in the story: a man runs up to a Stoic and announces sorrowfully, "Your son is dead!" The Stoic responds, "Yes, I knew my son was mortal." So the "negative thinking" in Stoicism usually involves recognizing the nature of the world: bad things could happen, so don't be surprised or emotionally affected. They cannot harm your virtue.

As for the technique of emotionally conditioning, I'm not sure, but it looks analogous to Aristotle's technique for correcting character in the Nicomachean Ethics: if you are too stingy, spend overly generously and eventually you'll find the golden mean. If you're too generous, be stingy for a while and you'll train your nature to get used to the middle ground. So the example mentioned in the WSJ seems to the technique adapted to address fear. The underlying Stoic assumption is that poverty is nothing to be feared, because it does not interfere with your "happiness"

An American soldier survived being a POW in Vietnam by adhering to Stoicism. Look up James Stockdale.

I'll take a look at the article when I have more time, but I just want to point out what I suspect to be a misrepresentation, or at least a simplification, of Stoicism.

I read the article. (Can't sleep.) As long as we keep in mind that it's excerpted and adapted from a book, and that it has nothing to do with prepping -- not directly anyway -- it's not too disjointed or anything.

The article does confirm what I've observed. People who have been raised/trained to be positive and confident (with praise and positive reenforcement) can often crack when confronted with real adversity. On the other hand, people who have been raised with criticism and challenges tend to be more resilient. Their sense of self-worth is not tied to everything always going well, or the belief that things will turn out well. Things can go badly, and they are still who they are. Heck, mommy & daddy have been telling them they need to do a better job since day one, so what difference does it make that they're stranded in the desert? They'll just have to work their way out of this as usual. Whether they have a healthy sense of self-esteem is another thing. There was actually an article comparing American and Asian child rearing precisely on this point.

I think real confidence is built from conquering challenges, not from empty praise. Then, when disaster strikes, you have to remain equanimous and rational, so as to make the best survival decisions. This is just a guess, because I've fortunately never been in a real survival situation, but perhaps some people need to think positively, and others need to think negatively, in order to take a realistic look at the situation. The positive thinkers are prone to negative thoughts that amplify themselves, and the negative thinkers really need the vaccination of negative thinking to realize that things aren't so bad. So negative thinking leads to positive thinking.

I don't know if I got the negative / positive thing right.

What I have noticed is that most pampered people are the negative ones . They keep whining and complaining about the 1% that is not available and forget about the 99% that is in front of them. They are the ones that will sit and do nothing , expecting someone else to serve them. These are NEGATIVE in my opinion.

POSITIVE people - in my dictionary - are the ones who shine in hard times and always find a way to get out of trouble and perform what they want to do , despite near impossible odds. They are the ones who have expected bad news way back, when everyone else was being pampered , and prepared for them mentally, physically, and trained until hard times become a 'normal' part of their life.

I am usually loathe to respond to these types of threads, however the above statement is a gross miscarriage of thinking in it's own right and is bitingly stereotyping beyond any reasonable doubt and rationalization.

There are plenty of "pampered" people in this world who have more then once proven that they too are just as capable and done some very heroic things...even against seemingly impossible odds.

Case in point and one shinning example that I know personally about. My SO grew up in fairly well to do family line in which they had everything and anything they ever wanted or needed. Yes she was pampered just like her other family members but they have never flaunted it nor have they ever sat back and did nothing and expected someone to serve them. Rather this family has made some very significant contributions to their community and society in many different areas...including the ultimate sacrifice in 3 major wars.

After university, My SO could of sat back on her pampered butt for the rest of her life and do nothing but whine, instead she has spent years of her life including NGO work overseas (where she is currently once again) to make other peoples lives better.

In every day life and especially whenever the chips are down, it is these positive thinking and "pampered" people whom I would rather surround myself with...

TH, you are absolutely correct. A guy by the name of Jack Kennedy comes to mind. His family certainly had the influence to stay out of WWII had they been inclined, but that was not the case. Of course, JFK wound up with a government job, and we all know how soft and cushy those can be.....