Positive Action, Not Happy Thoughts, Are Needed to Overcome Problems

Amy Stark’s prescriptions for a better world in 1992 struck me as silly and counterproductive (“Positive Thinking Can Make 1991 Problems Ancient History,” Commentary, Jan. 5). A psychologist, she proposes that the antidote for the social, political and economic ills that left people reeling last year is nothing more than a positive attitude.

We must learn “not to take our current life events personally,” she writes, but rather “change our focus and stop worrying.” She suggests that someone feeling overwhelmed by the world should simply list his or her achievements and remember “that problems don’t last.”

What a bunch of psycho-babble. I do not dispute that depression and negative thinking can handicap people who are wont to pick up their lives after a job loss or an illness. But be real. The recession, violent crime and AIDS aren’t going to go away while we’re sitting around affirming ourselves.

In keeping with Dr. Stark’s advice, if I were confronted with a gang coming into my neighborhood, I should lock the door, ignore the graffiti and concentrate on the areas of my life that are not degenerating. I think I’d be better off getting mad and forming a Neighborhood Watch group.

“Power is not . . . control over events or control over others,” Dr. Stark asserts. She is wrong. In many cases it is. The world won’t change because we think happy thoughts. It will change because we become disturbed enough to see the necessity of taking power and enacting solutions.

JAMES M. RANALLI, Anaheim