Pol·ly·an·na
n.   A person regarded as being foolishly or blindly optimistic.

[After the heroine of the novel Pollyanna, by Eleanor Hodgman Porter (1868-1920), American writer.]

In the novel, Pollyanna is the irrepressibly cheerful orphan who triumphs over adversity through the power of positive thinking. Her infectious optimism brings life to a beleaguered New England town and its inhabitants. What’s wrong with that? It actually sounds like a really moving story, the type of story that Hollywood might consider remaking with a modern twist, since they’re so good at recycling stories from the past. Maybe they will do a centennial film to commemorate the publication of the book.

Anyway.

The term “Pollyanna” has become derogatory in nature, however. It is often associated with foolish naivete, but I think this is unfair. No good ever came from focusing on the negative in life. In fact, a lot of situations can be made worse with negative thinking. Negative thinking defeats goals. It is the antagonist to goal-oriented activity. Negativity fulfills itself. If you believe bad things will happen, they will, if only because of the actions you take or don’t take as a result of thinking of your situation as hopeless or a lost cause.

Growing up in an inner city, I saw this sort of self-fulfilling prophecy a lot. Now, granted, there are a lot of complicated socioeconomic and political issues that are involved in the decline of our urban centers and the challenges that inner city children face. However, that said, one of the biggest barriers to achievement that I encountered was the pessimism and cynicism of other children. There is a culture of underachieving, or achievement only through socially acceptable means, such as sports. Academic achievement is often considered above one’s natural station and pursuing academic achievement is considered either a fool’s errand or getting “uppity.”

You know who the main detractor is of people who think positively? Cynics. Pessimists!  When you think of cynics and pessimists, what words come to mind? For me, the first word that comes to mind is misery. Why would I want to be miserable all the time? I don’t. I don’t want to be miserable. Cynics and pessimists often call themselves realists, however, they are often writing their own reality complete with their own painfully rigid boundaries. They are often the authors of their own dysfunction.

I used to have a job selling shoes and above the doorway leading to the sales floor was a sign that said “It’s Show Time!” I remember resenting it at the time (along with other distressing store dynamics, like the whole everyone sleeping with everyone else including the married bosses with the college aged staff), but the reality was that we sold more shoes and had more fun when we plastered smiles on our faces and made the best of it. There’s a reason “grin and bear it” is so cliche. If you go onto the sales floor with a grimace and a sigh, you won’t sell as much and you’ll look and feel like a piece of chewed gum in the process.

So what, exactly, is wrong with Pollyanna? As smarmy as it sounds, the power of positive thinking has healing power and I fullly expect that if I want to recover again (and I do!), it’s going to take 90% attitude and 10% skill to get there. I may not feel like smiling right now, but if I smile enough, eventually the smile will stick all its own. Not because I’ve developed apoplexy (though we can’t exactly rule it out), but because I am happy. How can anyone argue with happiness?

This article in Prevention magazine talks about how pessimists are killing themselves slowly with their cynical ways (OK, I might be paraphrasing).

References, because I am a good egg and all that:
pollyanna. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pollyanna (accessed: February 26, 2009).