You Get What You Are
It’s not a magic lamp
Why the Law of Attraction isn’t working for you.
I received an interesting call from my mother the other day. My sister had just gifted her the audiobook version of Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not giving a F*ck, and she was already filled with questions.
“I had always believed in the power of the Law of Attraction, and that if there is something you want in life, you must ask for it, visualize it, think positively, then the universe will bring it you. This idea of not giving a fuck goes against that, no? Don’t we have to care about the things we want in order to get them?”
Great question, Mom.
I have been interested in the Why and How of things from as early as I can remember. My mother, who had a fairly religious upbringing, also happens to be the person who taught me to be inquisitive and open to new ideas about the world. She exposed my siblings and I to different religious and philosophical teachings, mostly because she was also in the process of learning them herself. She had also been fascinated with the New Age Movement, naturopathic medicine, and many of the concepts covered in self-help literature. This made for fun conversation at the dinner table.
Mom, does God have chakras, and if so, am I one of them?
One such concept is the Law of Attraction. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the Law of Attraction focuses around the belief that your thoughts project outward into the Universe and bring to you what you think of most. It is also a fairly unbiased and binary process that does not differentiate between “positive” or “negative” thoughts, meaning that you will get what you focus on, whether it is something you want vs something you don’t want. AKA “like attracts like.”
Now, I won’t dive into why this works here. There are many explanations and languages used in an attempt to describe the underlying mechanism at work. If you go the New Age-y route, you will be told about:
If you go the psychology route, you will be told about:
I am not here to dispute your language of choice. I, for one, tend to cherry pick what works best for my own story and understanding. Just know that each route you take will have bumps in it.
The big problem I’ve found with Law of Attraction is that it is taught out of context. We are handed a copy of The Secret and told “YOU CAN HAVE EVERYTHING YOU WANT! WISH FOR IT! BELIEVE YOU CAN HAVE IT! VISUALIZE IT! BE POSITIVE!” Then, we expect to have our dream car drive itself to us. The Law of Attraction is not a magic lamp that simply grants our wishes. In fact, it can sometimes be closer to a Devil that does give us that dream car, but then curses us with not being able to put gas in it.
It’s already driving itself to me, because I visualized it.
Technically, by following the Law of Attraction to the letter of the law, we are actually further reinforcing the deficiency of that thing we want in our lives. For example, I want a sandwich right now. I am sitting and wishing for the best sandwich the Universe can cook up for me. I visualize it. I can already smell it and taste it. However, the only thing I have done here is further highlight the fact that I don’t have the sandwich. This makes me hungrier. This makes me want it even more. This makes me not have it even more.
It’s a vicious cycle that leaves me with no sandwich, and a larger void that only a magical sandwich that is not coming can fill. This is not a way to live. The only way to get what I want is to align what compels me with the actions that will get me there. This is where the Universe will show me the road to sandwich heaven.
Make me a sandwich, Universe
While I know that most people are probably not trying to manifest a sandwich into existence (plus if this actually worked, we would have solved world hunger already), this tends to hold true with the many who try to use the Law of Attraction like a vending machine.
Whether it’s wanting a new career or seeking true love, by spending all of our thoughts and energy on attempts to will something into existence and fully believe that it’s coming, we end up spending less time actually putting in the effort and making the changes needed in our own lives to achieve our goals. In fact, it’s likely pushing us further away from ever acquiring the things we want.
Plus, it makes us lazy and complacent.
With all this being said, my question is this: Do we reallyknow and understand what it is we want to begin with?
The things we think we want are usually not specific things at all. More times than not, we just want the happiness that we have convinced ourselves those things will give us. We pray and wish for a thing. We get that thing. Then a strange thing happens: we find that there is no happiness in the thing itself. Now we have this thing that we don’t really know what to do with, which makes us even unhappier. We end up feeding the want we started with, and no closer to the happiness we didn’t know we were going after.
Enter The Subtle Art of Not giving a F*ck, which didn’t bring any foreign concepts to the table, but presented them in a language that is more noticeable and relatable. It shifts the focus away from the misguided fulfillment of material wants and towards finding meaning in the life we already have. This isn’t about not giving a fuck about everything, but about being selective about the fucks we give and creating things of importance in our lives to care about.
My fuck farm is bare. I have none to give.
This requires us to reframe our value system a bit. Rather than putting our energy towards acquiring the things we think we want, we would put it towards strengthening our personal values and principles. From there, we will naturally gravitate towards the things and people that best resonate with our mission. We will care more for the things that best assist us in caring for ourselves.
We don’t get what we want, we get what we are.
This isn’t about changing the things we want, but changing how we want things. By defining and redefining who and what we are, we open ourselves up to see and do the things that will put us in a position to further reaffirm who and what we are. We end up with what we need to be what we need.
Like attracts like. It’s turning the vicious cycle into a delicious cycle.