The catch is, according to Perkins, that it's not just optimism, but "optimism that is checked by reality."
With "optimism," I always think of the way people baselessly think that everything will turn out fine without commitment of any effort to whatever they are tasked to do. According to Free Dictionary, optimism is defined as "a tendency to expect the best possible outcome or dwell on the most hopeful aspects of a situation."
I don't think that optimism in terms of positive thinking is useless.
Working at UNIQLO, there are so many times that I get scolded or cautioned by other staffs, many times about mistakes that I just happened to make that one time which makes me have all these "negative" feelings like sadness, frustration. The worst occasion is when I get scolded about leaving a shelf messy, with clothing all over the place and unfolded, when I've been away from my designated area for a long time attending to customers. It really sucks because that means that they are perceiving me as someone who hasn't learned the way the store operates, and the store's philosophy of keeping the store organized at all times. The frustration sometimes almost inhibit me from appreciating what I have been told, but I always care to say "thank you" to the person. It might be different from "positive thinking" since it is pure etiquette as well as my responsibility to improve the way I work. Nonetheless, this has helped me feel more gratitude towards the person and learn better from my mistakes.
"Negativity" isn't all that bad, though. There's this article "The Power of Negative Thinking," which talks about how negative thinking - thinking about worst-case scenarios - is highly effective in reality assessment as well as determination of future decisions.
I've always been what Perkins might call a "pessimist" when it comes to exams during middle and high school. No matter how much I studied, it never seemed to be enough; I was always worried that I'll fail. So I just studied more. Here, negative thinking didn't result in inertia or inaction - it always gave me more incentive to take actions, to study.
I feel that the "Positive Thinking/ Optimism" encouraged by Perkins and "Negative Thinking/ Pessimism" promoted by the WSJ article are basically the same thing. The difference is just about the ratio of positive to negative. The former has more of the "positive," obviously, because it focuses on the future, what possible steps can be taken rather than on the risks, while the latter focuses more on the risks, and formulate future steps based on them.
Being able to encourage and give hope to others is important, perhaps indispensable for being a leader, but I believe that the important thing here is to always have the mentality and the drive, the energy and power to keep moving forward, even when times are dire.
Well-stated, as always, and I love the polar bear pictures at the end. Lots of very successful people, I might add, have been able to harness their fear of failure (e.g. negative thinking) into being very good at what they do.
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