ar81 - I agree that they are separate issues but for years I was surrounded by happy (positive) people who lived in a bubble of denial, who denied the painful reality of my life and so I saw "positive" and "denial" as synonyms.
About 10 years ago, aware of the dark slide of negativism, I began a pursuit of positive thinking. I have learned in this interim that while there is a distinct difference the two are often conflated and that many people prefer to live in the fantasy world of denial.
"Leave it to them," you might say but the down side is that people living in that bubble also live in an empathy free world cut off by the incisor of denial. There is a great danger in living in an empathy free world - enter the kingdom of Narcissism.
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