shhh....

Maybe it’s because of the book, “The Secret” that’s all the rage right now, but I’ve been hearing and reading a lot recently about abundance and manifesting what you want. In particular, statements such as, “the universe is a kind and loving place”, or “the universe wants you to have all that you need”. Really? I’m not sure I believe the universe is a sentient entity capable of knowing my desires or proclaiming what is kind vs. unkind...and anyway, I’m pretty sure that if it were I’d be a mere spec in it’s consciousness.

So does that mean everything that happens to us is just a series of random events; is the way the universe operates really just chaos beyond anyone's control?

I think you can attract various circumstances in terms of the logical predictability of cause & effect, but I think things can just as easily come out of left field. If you participate in risky behaviors, you might die -- cause and effect. If you always date the same type of person you will continually have similar relationships -- cause and effect. If you eat like crap, you will be more prone to disease. But carrying this thinking too far can become a slippery slope...what about the person who gets blindsided by a cancer diagnosis who has no family history, no behaviors that put them at risk -- did they "attract" cancer into their lives? We can easily fall into blaming the victim with ideas like that. I think we invite some things into our lives, either intentionally or not, but I think a certain amount is purely random. And yes, I do think it can be both.

Lucky things happen, so do terrible things. The point is how we transcend the difficulties life throws at us. What matters is how we interpret events and endow them with personal meaning, and then how we weave them into the fabric of our lives.

I don’t believe the law of attraction is a law in terms of physics, but I do know what you focus on expands, if only by allowing it to fill up your awareness and leave room for fewer other things to think about. What we dwell on becomes the central adjective describing our lives. If we practice gratitude, we feel grateful and live with abundance, if we practice peace, we feel peaceful and live with more tranquility. I think it's a bit too strong to say that thoughts create our reality, but I do believe they shape it -- and certainly they shape our attitude & experience of life.Pretty simple stuff when you get down to it. But to quote the Indigo Girls, “The hardest to learn was the least complicated”.

Of course that's no secret.