Lovable

This came out last month but I just recently read about it.

A study done by researchers from the Universities of Waterloo and New Brunswick demonstrated that "trying to get people to think more positively can actually have the opposite effect: it can simply highlight how unhappy they are."

In the study, participants with both low and high self-esteem were asked to write down how they were feeling over the course of four minutes. One group was asked to think the thought "I am lovable" when prompted to at 15-second intervals. The results were that the "I am lovable" low self-esteemers felt worse after the four minutes than those who weren't instructed to think that thought.

I can't think of anything that would make me feel more pathetic than forcing myself to think "I am lovable". Talk about a Jennifer Aniston complex.

Thinking happy thoughts when I am anything but doesn't help me. I remember having a particularly bad day a couple of years ago: I had a headache and I was tired and had been feeling crappy for months. I had my head down on my desk, trying to get through the day. My co-worker offered the advice: "You just need to think positively!" I could have throttled her.