This post and the next one will form a “then and now” comparison series. I wrote this present post in the summer of 1995, at age nineteen, in the hope of publishing it on the Facts & Arguments op-ed page of the Globe & Mail. The Globe did not decide to publish the piece, but I remained fond of it for a long time. I still think it is a good piece, but I no longer stand by its claims – and I publish it here now, over thirty years later, for exactly that reason. The question it addresses, of positive and negative attitude, may well be the one on which my views have changed the most in the second half of my life to date – starting when I found Buddhism a few short years after this piece was written. Next time I will publish my current views on the same subject, with what I might hope is the wisdom of the years.

When I express certain views about the sorry state of the world, I often get a curious response: “You’re too young to be so cynical”, people say. “Why must you be so negative?” I used to think that perhaps they were right, that I shouldn’t have such a negative outlook on the way things are. But I now think I was right after all. I now believe that, ironically, there is something positive about a negative attitude.

I first came to this idea while working as a sales representative for a knife marketing company a year ago. Sales directors, of course, have read all the motivational literature. They know that positivity sells. And so the company went to great pains to create a positive environment, an atmosphere of rah-rah enthusiasm, team spirit, feel-good vibes. We were encouraged at every step to be totally enthusiastic about everything we did while working. The office was always full of happy faces, the manager gave us high-fives on the way out of a meeting, and the salespeople would give a rousing cheer for anyone who’d just sold a big knife set. Sounds great, right? A positive work atmosphere? Makes you feel good about yourself? Makes work enjoyable? Keeps up your spirits?

Problem was, the reality didn’t quite match their fervour. We were constantly told our working conditions were ideal even when they clearly were not. Managers and company representatives bombarded us with tales of the colossal sums of money we would earn if we were successful, though most of us earned a tiny fraction of that. They constantly told us “you can be your own boss”, but we were not even allowed to decide what to wear to a “casual” sales workshop. They informed us that “this job is great because you can set your own hours”, but we still had to wake up at the crack of dawn every morning to give the office manager a progress report — even if we had scheduled no sales presentations until late afternoon. Not a terrible sacrifice, perhaps, but significant for a night owl like me, and another reminder that reality flew in the face of the company’s grandiose claims.

Did I complain about these things? Of course. Why shouldn’t I have? They were real problems with working for this company, similar objections to those that any low-wage, low-prestige service worker might have. But whenever I did, I was taken to task for being “too negative”. The company didn’t just encourage a positive attitude; it insisted. The manager was far too diplomatic to say “cheer up or ship out”, but it was clear that if I continued to acknowledge the work situation’s problems out loud, I would be headed straight toward the bigger problem of joblessness.

So I became more positive about the job in spite of all its problems. I kept my chin up, trying desperately for two months to get sales interviews and sell knives, pointing out the virtues of my job despite snide remarks from people all around me. Where did it get me? I spent countless stressful weeks using up most of my time, wracking my nerves with stress, coercing friends and relatives into buying knives (the “network” marketing approach), and all for less money than a welfare cheque. Being positive brought me nowhere but down.

I couldn’t help but be reminded then of the world’s situation. “Be happy with the job you have instead of complaining” is something, I’m sure, that unionizing workers were told all the time when they first started to protest 14-hour workdays, chicken-feed wages and hazardous sweatshop environments. The workers could certainly have thought more positively and happily about those conditions. If they had, chances are they would still be working under them now. Instead they realized just how negative their situation was, and worked to change it — and workers everywhere are better off. The same is true of the initiatives that led to our vaunted Canadian health-care system. People were negative enough about their situation to make it a positive one.

So it continues today. Environmental activists who fret about the dangers of global warming, ozone depletion, toxic waste, air pollution, deforestation, and the rest are written off as “alarmist”. When writers of my generation object to being the first generation in recent history that will be worse off than its parents, they are “whiners”. Rather than attempting to stop the system of debt that entrenches African countries in starvation and misery, we hear, we should just let the market do its work and everything will be all right. Don’t worry. Be happy!

For me, selling knives brought home the irresponsibility of that sort of wishful thinking. Why be positive about a negative situation? I no longer believe in seeing the glass as half-full in order to be content with it as it is. Rather, we must see it as half-empty, or nobody will feel a need to fill it to the brim.