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Article Excerpt
MY COLLEGE FOOTBALL COACH WAS THE kind of guy Stanley Kubrik must have had in mind when he conceived the over-the-top drill sergeant for his classic Vietnam film, Full Metal Jacket. During one game midway in my sophomore year, my offensive-line cohorts and I were having trouble opening holes for our ball carriers. Coach pulled us aside at hag-time and lined us up against a wall. He then walked the line and--from a distance of maybe two inches--screamed into each of our faces in turn, "I WANT YOU TO TELL ME NOW, ARE YOU EVER GONNA MISS ANOTHER BLOCK!?" There was a pungent Anglo-Saxon gerund between another and block, but good taste compels me to omit it.
The only acceptable answer was "No sir!", which we too were expected to scream at earsplitting volume. This would assure Coach of our mettle, dedication, and worthiness to have him browbeat us for the rest of the season. But to me, Coach's question sounded unreasonable. I still had two-and-a-half seasons of football ahead of me. What assurances could I give? And so, when my turn came, I drew a breath and said, "Look, Coach, I certainly don't want to miss another block! But probably yes, I think I will miss a few. Now and then."
From the bewildered look on Coach's face, you'd think I'd just morphed into a six-foot-four-inch wombat right before his eyes. For a moment he just stared at me. Then he exploded. Labeling me "a smart-ass" who was "out to show him up," he banished me to the end of the bench. Not long after play resumed, however, he quietly inserted me back in the game. It seems my replacement--one of those players who would "never miss another block"--was missing quite a few of them.
There's no mistaking the allure of an outlook in which you'll make every block, get every job you apply for, close every sales call, and win the heart of every man or woman who catches your eye. This became clear to me many years post-college when I began research for a book about the human-potential movement. I quickly realized how invested Americans were in their optimism-and how irate they'd become at being challenged, or even just questioned, on it; I was encountering what essayist Barbara Ehrenreich, writing later in Harper's, would bracket as "pathological" hope. It's a world-view that's seductive and uplifting and ennobling--all of that--and yet, evidence and common sense suggest it has nothing to do with setting (and implementing) realistic goals, establishing (and observing) priorities and, perhaps most important, recognizing valid limitations and obstacles.
In a culture whose unquenchable thirst for self-improvement is projected to reach $14 billion in direct expenditures by 2010 (as forecast by Marketdata Enterprises), the primacy of a "positive mental attitude" (PMA) is unquestioned. Faith in the catalyzing effect of optimism, self-confidence, and the other variously labeled components of a PMA may be the defining trait of the zeitgeist. Positivity is the touchstone, the sine qua non of successful American living.
The Rise of the Positive Mental Attitude Movement
Cultural reinforcement of all this is potent and ubiquitous. Positivity is central to many an Oprah Winfrey Show, while optimism and the general maintenance of a "can-do spirit" form the themes of every other self-help best-seller. Google "positive mental attitude" and you will be rewarded with a quarter-million hits. That's not as astonishing as the fact that on the 20th page of hits---the point where most Google results have long since degraded into tertiary meanings---the results for PMA remain tightly focused around the core idea: improving your life through happy thoughts.
Positive thinking even enjoys the imprimatur of the psychological mainstream, thanks to Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life and father of so-called positive psychology. "Posipsych" advocates a glass-is-half-full approach to therapy, and endorses the idea that upbeat thoughts are their own self-fulfilling reward. Last October, hundreds of psychologists from two dozen nations attended the annual Positive Psychology International Summit, cosponsored by Toyota.
The corporate world is fully bought-in. According to the American Society for Training and Development, increasing portions of the $50 billion or so that companies invest annually in training are earmarked for motivational speakers, off-site seminars, and "wilderness programs" designed to instill a positive, confident outlook. When Meeting Professionals International surveyed its membership in 2004, 81% preferred celebrity-delivered motivation over skills-intensive training. On the lecture circuit, Tony Robbins and his fellow motivational speakers and self-help coaches have been joined by a colorful and improbable cast of self-styled gurus including victims of Alpine disasters, former gang-bangers, and confessed crack addicts; there's even room for a mob turncoat like erstwhile Colombo Family underboss Mike Franzese. All dutifully...
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