The Antidote

Through positive thinking and related approaches, we seek the safety and solid ground of certainty, of knowing how the future will turn out, of a time in the future when we'll be ceaselessly happy and never have to fear negative emotions again. But in chasing all that, we close down the very faculties that permit the happiness we crave.

I got a lot of use out if this book. It's also very quotable:

“Who says you need to wait until you ‘feel like' doing something in order to start doing it? The problem, from this perspective, isn't that you don't feel motivated; it's that you imagine you need to feel motivated. If you can regard your thoughts and emotions about whatever you're procrastinating on as passing weather, you'll realize that your reluctance about working isn't something that needs to be eradicated or transformed into positivity. You can coexist with it. You can note the procrastinatory feelings and act anyway.”“And here lies the essential between Stoicism and the modern-day ‘cult of optimism.' For the Stoics, the ideal state of mind was tranquility, not the excitable cheer that positive thinkers usually seem to mean when they use the word, ‘happiness.' And tranquility was to be achieved not by strenuously chasing after enjoyable experiences, but by cultivating a kind of calm indifference towards one's circumstances.”“True security lies in the unrestrained embrace of insecurity - in the recognition that we never really stand on solid ground, and never can.” “The effort to feel happy is often precisely the thing that makes us miserable. And that it is out constant efforts to eliminate the negative - insecurity, uncertainty, failure, or sadness - that is what causes us to feel so insecure, anxious, uncertain, or unhappy.” “Sometimes the most valuable of all talents is to be able not to seek resolution; to notice the craving for completeness or certainty or comfort, and not to feel compelled to follow where it leads.” “It is alarming to consider how many major life decisions we take primarily in order to minimise present-moment emotional discomfort.” “Pain is inevitable, from this perspective, but suffering is an optional extra, resulting from our attachments, which represent our attempt to try to deny the unavoidable truth that everything is impermanent.”

A must read in this ocean of positive thinking and impossible goal settings society. This book teaches you a lot about how the whole positive thinking movement can do you more damages than good, while thinking about possible failures and the possibility of death can, inversely, lead you toward a better understanding of life and its challenges.