In my youth, for a time, I believed in the Law of Attraction. Yes, that much-mocked worldview described in The Secret and lauded on stage by people like Louise Hay and Esther Hicks, wherein it is understood that “thoughts become things,” and “what you think about, you bring about.”
To be a bit more detailed (because oftentimes the actual nuts and bolts of this belief system are oversimplified when it’s being criticized), adherents of this view believe that your mood – both your current mood in the present moment, and the overall average of your moods from day to day – is an indicator of what you are currently attracting into your life. But your mood (often also referred to as your “vibration” in LoA lexicon) doesn’t just predict what’s to come – it creates what’s to come. Your job, therefore, is to make choices whenever possible that feel good, and avoid making choices that feel bad – in every area from “What career decision should I make next?” to “What should I eat for breakfast?” to “What should I think about right now?” Your mood is like a compass, pointing you toward choices that will lead you closer to the things you want, and you ignore that compass at your own risk.
Obviously, there are many problems with this worldview. I’ve never quite been able to reconcile it in my mind with problems like poverty, racial inequality, and chronic depression. There are many, many people left out of the picture when you view life through this frame, and so it is, at best, an incomplete way of looking at the world.
That said, I had reason to believe in such things (ask me about my experiences with serendipity if we ever have drinks together sometime, and I’ll tell you stories I’d be too embarrassed to share here), and more importantly, there are some crucial tools and techniques I took away from my time of LoA dogma. These include daily gratitude practices (which science has proven make you happier), actively steering my mind away from thoughts that pointlessly upset me (key word being pointlessly), and conjuring the feelings I want to feel.