Positively encouraging

Posted on July 27, 2009 by Dave Feucht

Here in the U.S., we don’t do a whole lot of positive encouragement of anything. It seems that most of the time, we prefer to make what we don’t want people to do sound bad, scary, dangerous, etc rather than trying to make whatever we want people to do sound really attractive.

This gets really wearing on me, personally, as I’m of the temperament that I don’t enjoy living in fear of things, I don’t enjoy tearing other people down, and I don’t enjoy the feeling of danger and oppression that all the negative advertisement throws over things.

I would much rather encourage positively. Anyone else join me?

New Lease
This entry was posted in portland and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.
  • didrik

    Count me in!
    I actually started reading your blog because I liked your approach and perspective. It's generally positive, well-informed and down to earth. That and your views are in alignment with mine on a lot of things. I'm glad you take the time to put these perspectives out there.

    I had to stop reading another particularly popular Portland bike blog because after a year of reading that blog, I got the impression that Portland was dangerous, helmet evangelical place with "horrific" bike crashes every week and mean, angry cyclists. I just got sick of hearing the negativity since this was not my actual experience when I was there. My impression of Portland was "what a safe and easy place to pedal around". The drivers didn't get on my case or pressure me. It was great. My hotel even gave me a bike.

    I think many a bike blog focuses too much on crashes, hazards, and altercations with non-cyclists. Suddenly a pot hole becomes a symbol of oppression by the corporate fat cats instead of something you just steer around. You can actually watch a crash story propagate across blogs on your blog page as the day goes on. I think this has the effect of making things like crashes much bigger in our minds than they really are. Not that they don't happen but they just don't happen as often as many other things that never make the news. The effect I think is that the American Cyclist then gets the mindset that they are going into battle every time them mount their bike.

    More positivity!!!

  • She Rides a Bike

    I agree. Quite often I feel like lip service is paid to the very things we say we support and encourage but the tools to make the desired behavior possible are withheld.

  • Christa

    I agree. I try really hard to stay postive.

    Does this count as positive: "voices, not horns"