If you embrace 'positive thinking,' you are - by definition -

Hear the voice of Srikumar Rao, a teacher of wisdom in the modern age, who declared: “If you embrace ‘positive thinking,’ you are—by definition—spurning ‘negative thinking.’ So it’s as if you were on a teeter-totter and are trying desperately to put all your weight on one side—the ‘positive thinking’ side.” These words strike at the heart of human striving, for they reveal that true balance is not found in clinging to one side of the seesaw, but in understanding the whole. Rao speaks not against positivity, but against the illusion that it can exist by banishing all that is negative. For light and shadow are born together, and to deny one is to misunderstand both.

The meaning of the teeter-totter is profound. It shows that when we force ourselves always to be “positive,” we are locked in struggle against the other side of ourselves. We waste energy pushing down the weight of sorrow, fear, anger, and doubt, pretending they are enemies to be destroyed rather than signals to be understood. This is not peace but strain, not balance but imbalance disguised as cheer. Rao reminds us that wisdom is not to load all our weight upon one side, but to recognize that the seesaw itself is the nature of life—up and down, joy and sorrow, hope and despair, inseparable as night and day.

The ancients too spoke of this truth. In the East, the sages of China gave us the image of yin and yang, the eternal dance of opposites. Within every light lies the seed of shadow; within every shadow lies the seed of light. To embrace one while rejecting the other is to tear apart the wholeness of being. In the West, the Stoics taught that suffering is not evil, but a teacher; Marcus Aurelius himself wrote that even pain can serve the soul when met with reason. Rao’s words echo both traditions, calling us to embrace the totality of our experience, not to cling to one half as if it alone were life.

Consider the life of Abraham Lincoln. He was known not for shallow optimism, but for his deep melancholy, which haunted him even in youth. Yet it was this melancholy that gave him compassion, patience, and an enduring strength of spirit. Had he sought only positive thinking, denying the shadows in his heart, he might never have possessed the depth to lead a nation through civil war. His greatness arose not from one side of the seesaw, but from embracing the whole of his human experience, weaving both sorrow and hope into wisdom.

Thus Rao’s warning is not a rejection of joy, but a rejection of false joy. He teaches us that when we cling desperately to positive thinking, we risk fragility; one blow of fate can topple us, for we have denied the soil in which resilience grows. But when we accept both joy and sorrow, when we sit calmly in the middle of the seesaw, then no rise or fall will shatter us. This is the deeper positivity, born not of denial but of harmony.

The lesson is clear: do not force yourself always to smile, nor to curse your pain. Instead, acknowledge the whole truth of your being. Let your happiness be full when it comes, but let your sorrow also teach you when it visits. Resist the urge to exile “negative thoughts” as if they were poison; instead, examine them, learn from them, and see what wisdom they hold. For often the very thoughts we call “negative” are signposts pointing us toward growth.

Practical actions flow from this wisdom. Each day, when a “negative” thought arises—fear, anger, doubt—pause, breathe, and ask: what is this thought showing me? What lesson lies beneath it? When joy arises, embrace it fully, but without clinging, knowing it too will pass. Meditate on balance; practice gratitude not only for blessings, but also for trials that shape your soul. And above all, learn to rest in the center of the teeter-totter, where stillness abides even as the world rises and falls around you.

Thus, the words of Srikumar Rao endure as timeless guidance: life is not about rejecting the negative for the positive, but embracing both in balance. For only when we cease the desperate struggle to weigh one side down can we find true harmony, and only then can we walk in peace that neither fortune nor misfortune can take away.