After I mentioned appreciative thinking in a recent post, my friend Carl Willat wrote me:
Part of Buddhism I think is that gratitude is the secret to happiness. Â It’s always possible to want more, so you won’t be happy by trying to get all the things you want. Instead, being grateful for what you have is where happiness lies.
That’s a good way to put it. Not matter what article you read, no matter what study you do, there are always ways it could be better (what others call flaws). Be grateful for what the article or study tells you. That’s how to learn something from it.
Dennis Prager, a Jewish commentator, has also been preaching “gratitude is the secret to happiness” for years: https://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0060987359
This reminds me of a rule for book reviews: Don’t criticize the author for not accomplishing something that he/she did not set out to accomplish.
The new field of positive psychology emphasizes the beneficial effects of gratitude:
https://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2002-12-08-happy-main_x.htm
Not matter what article you read, no matter what study you do, there are always ways it could be better
That’s not the problem I most often see, the problem I most often see is fluff, one 5 lines worthwhile paragraph in the middle of an 8 pages paper.