OT: Law of Attraction

[djsynchro]

I fought the law, and the law lost.
I got legal representation at great cost.

[mikemc]

"the New (Dark) Age"

http://www.skepdic.com/lawofattraction.html

skeptic dictionary explains the "law" well.

I thought I was the one that came up with the phrase "New (Dark) Age" years ago, oh well.

I think it is true that you will attract like minded people if you happen to interact with random people and discuss ideas-- there will be a kind of 'resonance' that like minded people will find comfortable and want to repeat.

I do not necessarily think that like minded people will magically appear around you because there is some attractive resonance between your and their like minds that pervades the aether. For the attraction or interaction to occur there has to be some shared milieu that permits this resonance. The internet is one such milieu, but you are more likely to find people that are willing to call you a douchebag than to say 'that is a good idea' because people in general are loathe to say 'that is a good idea' to someone else. In fact, I would posit that one way to bring about overwhelming social change is to say 'that is a good idea' to someone else when you think they have a good idea, regardless of who they are.

[knotkranky]

Whatever is in your head the most, is what will manifest.



The law is always in motion.



Thoughts become things.

[innerstatejt]

Whatever you believe to be your reality becomes your reality. So if you don't believe in all this crap, you will find evidence that it's a load of crap. However, if you have a different belief system, you would be surprised what circumstances can open up for you.

The reason people find this law to be a load of crap is because they test it with goals that they don't really have a passion for. It's like being broke and deciding to sell amway to make money. You never wanted to truly become an amway salespeson, you just wanted to make money. Therefore your goal of making money, and your process to making that money are not in alignment... so 99% of these people "fail".

I've had some incredibly interesting results using this law. I'm not rich, but I realized that loads of money wasn't my real goal. Being able to not have a real job and instead getting paid to play music, teach music and make music were things that ultimately made me happy. Surprisingly, the money has followed and I'm doing better financially doing what I love then I ever did doing what I hated. Don't get me wrong, I have definitely struggled, but I swear to you, when I changed the way I thought about life, life itself seemed to change dramatically.

You ultimately dictate your life circumstances. Whether you want to call that the law of attraction, persistance or good fortune doesn't really matter to me. Call it whatever works with your belief system and start doing more of the things you love and less of the things you don't. If what you are doing can give you pleasure in the moment, the outcome becomes less important. Ironically, that is most often when the positive results DO come.

ok.. back to our regular program of critics

[Da hand]

Whether it is the Law of Attraction or whatever else, things will not change just because a person wants them to change. Any belief has to be backed by action. Action guided by a belief will lead to opportunities.

i.e. Sitting on the couch and believing you will be famous one day will get you absolutely nowhere. Believing you will be famous one day and working your butt off to achieve it will get you well on your way.

[Machinesworking]

Whatever you believe to be your reality becomes your reality. So if you don't believe in all this crap, you will find evidence that it's a load of crap. However, if you have a different belief system, you would be surprised what circumstances can open up for you.

Life is obviously determined by a big heaping helping of chance. There is no way a baby who is crushed to death by a collapsing building or a teenager who runs away from home because they're being raped or beaten by their relatives asked for these circumstances into their life. There is no way people hacked into small pieces with machetes by the LRA in Africa are asking for this. this list is endless, many people are born into circumstances that are beyond their control in many ways. It's owning class guilt at best to think otherwise.
In a first world industrial nation it's possible to achieve a lot if given the right circumstances, and it's best to go into any endeavor with the attitude that you deserve success. Any self help book written by successful people I've ever even glanced through talks about being able to learn from failure, and in every case it's a combination of these two bits of information: Is your goal realistically achievable? and, What do you think you need to do to change your methods the next time you try? Neither are geared towards some sort of odd new age determination that you really didn't want that restaurant to succeed, so you must not want to own a restaurant etc.

Seriously there are no comebacks to these questions that don't involve faith, and ignoring the truth. This is why even though positive affirmation is a good thing, I find The Secret and it's related pseudo spirituality to be in the end a big negative force on the planet that makes the other religions out there seem far less fascistic in ideology.