304 | Toxic Positivity
The Minimalists
Joshua Fields Millburn
4.7 • 11.5K Ratings
🗓️ 7 September 2021
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Joshua and Ryan talk about the folly of the self-help industry’s focus on exhausting positivity—on trying to convince us that we can out-eat, out-learn, and out-perform our humanness—with author, podcaster, and professor Kate Bowler, and they answer the following questions:
What is the “gospel of hustle”? (00:00)
What are the signs that positivity has become toxic for us as individuals, and what are the signs that our well-intentioned positive vibes are becoming toxic to others? (06:58)
Where did the ‘good vibes only’ orthodoxy originate? (07:21)
Why does complaining seem to encourage camaraderie? (10:03)
What is the problem with the language of positivity? (10:43)
What is “horizon work”? (12:23)
What is “choice poor”? (12:38)
How do we address those that weaponize perspectives, such as toxic positivity, to bully us into accepting and adopting their way of thinking as our own; for example, when people that disapprove of minimalism call minimalists “privileged”? (17:11)
How do you define “elitism”? (21:45)
What is “prudential wisdom”? (23:39)
Where did the notion come from that being positive is the cure for everything, the path for everyone, the solution to whatever life throws at you—what is wrong with embracing sadness, contemplation, grief, anxiety? (31:35)
What is “limited agency”? (33:13)
Detailed show notes: minimalists.com/podcast
Support The Minimalists: minimalists.com/support
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's focused on backwards. |
| 0:31.0 | Hello Minimizers, welcome to the Minimals Podcast. |
| 0:34.0 | We discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less. |
| 0:37.0 | My name is Joshua Philz-Milburn. |
| 0:39.0 | And I'm Ryan and Kadimus, and together we are the Minimals. |
| 0:41.0 | It's hard to give up on the feeling that the life you really want is out of reach. |
| 0:46.0 | A new, I.G. worthy home, a promotion on the horizon, all the right possessions. |
| 0:53.0 | Everyone wants to believe that they are headed toward good, better, best. |
| 0:58.0 | Today's self-help industry insists on exhausting positivity and on trying to convince us, |
| 1:06.0 | convince us that we can out-eat, out-learn, and out-perform our humaneness. |
| 1:13.0 | After trying to improve everything in our lives, we often discover we are as fragile as the day we were born. |
| 1:21.0 | Today we're talking about toxic positivity with Kate Boller. |
| 1:26.0 | Kate, thank you so much for being here. |
| 1:28.0 | I'm so glad to be here, and just the support of commentary already. |
| 1:31.0 | I'm just what a warm environment. |
| 1:34.0 | You got a new book out. It's called No Cure for Being Human. |
| 1:38.0 | And much of the intro I just read there was an excerpt from the back of the book. |
| 1:43.0 | And I want to talk about the book. |
| 1:45.0 | We're going to dive into it. |
| 1:47.0 | But I really want to talk about we're so obsessed with improving ourselves. |
| 1:54.0 | And I think it's making us miserable. Can we talk about that? |
| 1:59.0 | Oh, yeah. Gospel of hustle. |
... |
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