The "Law of Attraction" is a spiritual principle that argues that our thoughts have a direct influence on existence in relation to us. In other words, based on your "mental life", a.k.a., your positive or negative thoughts, different things will happen to you, based on said thoughts. In simple words, your thoughts are like a "magnet" for different occasions.
Wikipedia actually sees this concept as a pseudoscience, but if we may think about it, everything that is either mystical or part of the "new age movement" can be seen as a pseudoscience. Science, of course, is not perfect, far from it, and that is why it develops with time, as it seeks truths empirically through research and experimentation.
Things that scientists thought were true may turn out to be false in the distant future. Science, unlike religion, does not "pretend" to give you all the answers to everything. It's simply because it does not have all the answers yet. It is flawed simply due to the fact that it has more to advance towards, which is good. If it were omniscient, then scientific research wouldn't been necessary at all.
Things that were considered beyond the realm of possibility, for example, have become possible as time progresses. Such as flight, international communication for everyone, space tourism, and so on. Perhaps, based on this logic, the realm of thoughts will be more thoroughly researched, and new insights, not proven before, will be proven.
Nonetheless, although I'm not a scientist, I also tend to agree with the scientific method. That's because I can make up my own mind as to how positive thoughts won't necessarily attract good people or good situations. Let's say you're serving a life sentence in prison for committing murder. How can you attract good things to happen to you while in prison?
First, you are surrounded by other random people, so you have no privacy. You are prone to bullying and harassment by other fellow prisoners; you may be forced to join a gang just so they don't bully you.
That gang may give you orders that do not align with the rules of the jail you're locked in. Things such as beating up someone from a rival gang. These are not situations that optimism can necessarily help you overcome. Also, it's not likely that you'll get out of jail unless you're young. Finally, there is no evidence that good thoughts help decrease the time you were initially told to serve.
On the contrary, when I look at my personal life thus far, it seems that whenever I was more positive, energetic, and confident, more people were inclined, by their own will, to connect with me. I did not do anything in particular to attract them into my life other than being myself. Some have left, some have stayed to this day, and I'm not talking only about this site's regular visitors.
Perhaps the way I looked, behaved, or used my facial expressions, intrigued people to come to me. It was especially true when I was in high school. I attracted not only the one with whom I was in love but also audiences of younger students who, sometimes, gathered around me. I don't know how to explain it properly. Of course, this is no attempt at boasting but simply recollecting the past before my path to (physical) hermitage. An example that could drop some insight on the article's subject.
The only explanation I can give is the way I behaved. I have learned from those who have seen me as disposable, and thus I made up my mind to not dispose of anyone. After all, human beings are more than mere resources or tools that you throw away once you have no need for them. Who knows when they will be of use to you?
Who knows when other forms of potential might arise as a result of your communications? I know it may sound cliché, but friendships shouldn't be underestimated, even if they are not as close as other friendships. Even partnerships shouldn't be discarded when they are unnecessary for the time being. A large network is most beneficial.
As a child, I learned my initial outlook on life through a particular video game that I already wrote about. In that game, you need to recruit an army of individuals to help you defeat a common foe. This union of people whom you cannot get rid of normally is the thing that might've created within me, the desire to not see anyone as disposable, as long as they do not cause any trouble out of so-called "evil."
I guess that thanks to that game, I don't like refusing the arrival of potentially-trustworthy people into my life. And for that, I am most grateful. As you recruit more and more of them, your HQ becomes livelier, and your odds of beating the game increase as you have a more diverse selection of warriors to choose from as you see fit. Some are not even warriors and could help you otherwise or simply entertain you as a breather from the main game.
In other words, if you want to attract certain situations and people into your life, mere thoughts won't cut it. You need to build your confidence and charisma and give people a reason to appreciate you. It's not something that you can necessarily do by sitting in a dark room and just thinking. No friend, reader, or follower will come knocking on your door just because you have attractive thoughts and ideas in your head.
It works through your behavior. Your words, your posture, and your appearance. Some of it is within your control; some of it is not. It's based on the individuality of each person. People can't see your thoughts, only the behavior that may be a product of said thoughts, given that you'll let these thoughts translate into behavior. Be good enough at pretending, and people might not know your true thoughts.
Sometimes you can give yourself the "privilege" of being passive and just let people make contact with you. That has been my case in most situations because I don't want to bother anyone. However, there are other people, who may be passive, like yourself, and will not be attracted to your presence. It's simply because you yourself need to initiate the move. Again, it doesn't matter how joyful or optimistic you are. These are not substitutes for getting close to someone and making contact with them.
To be concise, putting yourself out there and increasing your chances of getting noticed is far preferable to staying passive in the hope that someone will come to you. Unfortunately, some people are more attractive than others in terms of physical appearance and thus might have the chance of attracting more people than you simply because they're prettier than you are.
I'm saying this as a man who used to be prettier. Nowadays, it matters less to me.
This isn't a guide for socializing. It is all to show that thoughts aren't necessarily as powerful as we may think they are. Sure, they may change our mood and even our mental health at times, but the sphere of their influence on the world at large should be heavily questioned. If anything, they do not create reality, but a vision of it.
