Does the Law of Attraction really work?

More than a decade ago, this movie titled The Secret came out. One of the speakers there was Esther Hicks who has this other persona she introduced to the public as Abraham Hicks. The movie and the seminars where Abraham speaks through Esther have a central theme: the law of attraction.

The message of the law simply put is this: you get what you predominantly think about. Think thoughts that make you happy, you feel happy. Then your life draws more and more circumstances that make you happy. Then the law states that the opposite is also true: predominant thoughts of what does not make you happy brings you more of that too.

It sounded so simple the devil’s advocate in me just had to ask if it really works. Does focusing on the positive really work or is it just blind optimism that will disappoint naive believers in the end?

I tested it for the last few months and what I realized is this: the law of attraction is not a quick fix. You will be disappointed if you practice the law with the expectation that miracles will happen overnight.

Here’s another realization: years of negative thinking won’t change overnight. The essence of Abraham Hicks’ seminars is taking control of what you think and guiding it in the direction where you feel good. Admittedly, I struggled to grasp this one. It was so difficult to catch a negative thought when it arises that it was difficult to also stop it in its tracks – that’s how natural negative thinking had become. For some, it has become part of our system that you can’t distinguish a negative thought from any other thought.

So going back to the question: does the law of attraction really work? Well, I didn’t lose anything for focusing on the positive. I was in a better mood and I got along better with people.

…and is negative thinking really responsible for all the bad things that happen to people? One thing is for sure: it does nothing to improve situation.

In the end, we need to decide: would you rather think positive thoughts which may or may not improve your situation, or think negative thoughts which definitely will not help in any way? Yeah, tough call.

References:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(2006_film)