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“Why aren’t I happier?” is a question I often ask myself, and now I have the answer: Evolution is to blame. That, at least, is what I learned from Jonathan Alpert’s new book “Be Fearless: Change Your Life in 28 Days.” “We’re programmed from thousands and thousands of years of evolution to think negatively because back then, we needed it as a matter of survival,” he explains. “We needed to be alert to danger lurking around the corner. If we didn’t, we could get killed.”
In psychotherapeutic parlance, this glass-half-full perspective is called our “negativity bias,” says Alpert, a psychotherapist in New York. The only problem is that today, most of us don’t face mortal threats like tigers or famine around every corner. In a land of plenty, our negativity bias isn’t so useful. It’s just a downer. It’s why certain people might think “I’ll never find a new job” when they’re unemployed, or “all men are jerks” if they’re seeking a romantic relationship. This “negativity bias” can even keep us from reaching our goals by convincing us to throw up our hands and stop trying.
But the good news is, there are ways to keep this negativity bias in check, says Alpert. For example, is a woman thinks “All men are jerks,” she should take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, write the negative thought on one side and then on the other side, do a reality check. “She’d reframe that thought by writing down ‘sure there are a lot of jerks out there but they’re not all jerks. My father’s not a jerk. My brother’s not a jerk.’” Over time, this exercise will train your brain to automatically reroute toward the more positive reality of your situation, and keep negative thoughts at bay.
It also helps just “knowing why we are prone to this,” he says. It’s part of our evolutionary wiring, and “It’s actually useful that we respond that way,” Alpert points out. “But we don’t have to.”
