"The Law of Attraction" ... or Confirmation Bias.

It must have happened to you. Something annoying, unfortunate or even downright disastrous happens and there will be whispers from a well-meaning spiritual corner asserting that you just need to 'be positive!'.  You may be told something like -

 "That's your subconscious trying to drag you down to an unpleasant place ... because that's what you're comfortable with," and that when you are "in alignment with the correct vibrations" you'll start seeing great results.
There is just enough truth in some of these sayings to make you keep cracking the whip of positive intentions, maybe only associating with happy or rich people, doing your affirmations, and writing in your gratitude journal. Yet funnily enough, bad things still happen. People have diseases, floods occur, you get a ticket for not paying your car rego in time, a friend commits suicide, your friends are not always happy, and you're still not rich. Or you're rich, but you have little time to relax, you worry that you're not spending enough time with people you love. Maybe it's less first world in nature and you happen to be a refugee, a starving baby, a young woman with mutilated genitals due to the belief systems of her people?

I do get that what we think, the words we use and the things we choose to magnify in our lives do matter. Victor Frankl wrote 'Man's Search for Meaning', a small book containing a simple truth. He was in a concentration camp during the second world war and yet found ways to focus on what made life worth while. He noticed that those without a vision or hope died relatively quickly compared to those who were determined to get out and see people they loved again or to make a difference.

The focus here was on having a vision to live into, and preserving his humanity. If someone told him 'well I guess the Jews subconsciously wanted to be put in their place"  I don't imagine it would have helped his spiritual journey. It's easy to imagine we have more control over our lives if we are not standing in line waiting to be murdered.

There's a brand of self help that blends meritocracy and teleological thinking and it's become quite pervasive. I learned the word 'meritocracy' from that sexy beast Alain De Botton. The way that we view 'success' is often equated with merit. You know how you always hear about working hard and rising to the top? That's the whole jizz fest so many people bought into despite the fact that closing the gap between poverty and wealth is becoming even more difficult.

It's not impossible. It's fine to dream - but someone who has every advantage in life is standing in a very different place than someone who grew up in poverty. Someone raped as a child has a different outlook to someone who wasn't. I get that 'it's not what happens but how you deal with it' is completely valid. It has to be - but it can't be used as a way to dismiss people for not pulling themselves up by the bootstraps and 'just getting on with it'.

Set goals, have a vision, know what makes life worth living, but the fact is that those who have the odds stacked against them find it very hard to ever catch up. There are the success stories we can use as self help porn; look at Oprah, check out Anthony Robbins! They are self help porn stories for a reason; they are quite rare. A friend of mine also made a great point - Oprah has the kind of personality that made her lovable. She was also attractive - she won "Miss Black Tennessee" when she was 17 and offered a job in radio on those grounds.

I love Oprah and I quite like a bit of Anthony Robbins, but it's clear that the idea of success got a bit carried away with itself anyway. Not all of us want a McMansion and a private jet.

The other word I do love to suck on at the moment is 'teleological'. I read an article in the Independent by Josh Gabbatis. He explained why people are into conspiracy theories. The basic gist is a need to understand the world, to feel a sense of control and to ascribe a sense of destiny/meaning to anything that happens. Therefore, if you get hit by a car, you don't just say 'bad luck duck' you would say 'shit, it's my underlying sense of guilt causing me to create accidents'.

The Flower of Kindness.

Now you have not only been hit by a car, but you can take responsibility for it. Remember, you can't say that this was conscious. You have to blather on about your subconscious and how it made it happen, and that when you get all your vibrations in alignment with the greatest good, it's unlikely you'll ever be hit by a car again. This means that you are entering into some pretty magical thinking here, and it's not the kind of magic that is necessarily helpful.

If you have a great attitude, go into the day with a positive mindset, are kind to people and expect good things to happen, you are far more likely to have a better day. Whatever you focus on or magnify is going to be more central to your life, that's how it works. You buy a car and it's blue; wow, you now notice all the other blue cars! Is it magic? No, it's just that your filter has adjusted according to personal experience. You now give a shit about blue cars because you're driving one. There are not suddenly more blue cars in the world.

So be kind and magnify that! Create small, consistent habits that affect your health. The 'Law of Attraction' is true in the sense that you can shape your life and make things happen; it just doesn't pay to blame yourself for accidents or earthquakes. I know I'm going against the grain here, but dare I suggest that you don't have that much control over the Universe?
It also doesn't allow much room for the shadow side of who we are - and that side is pretty rich and interesting. Have you ever spent time with someone relentlessly happy, someone who has NO problems AT ALL? Is such a person ever vulnerable?

We value things because we have something to contrast with them. Spring is all the sweeter for having lived through Winter.

"You mean I don't have control over the Universe?"

So let's not blame ourselves for all the shit we cannot control. Let's get a bit AA on it and know the difference between what we cannot change, and what we can. As for me, I'm going to be kinder to myself. Sing it. Stroke the cat. Do the washing. Notice the good.