Do You Suffer from Magical Thinking or Other Strange Illusions?

Sometimes I wonder what goes on inside people's heads. I mean that most sincerely, and not in a judgmental fashion. I just wonder.

Specifically, I wonder about certain brands of what I can only label as "magical thinking."

This will bring you good fortune!

Like those advertisements you no doubt get served because you're involved with cryptocurrencies... that promise "This and that investment will earn you 5% returns PER DAY for life!"

On what planet does that have any bearing on reality?

Have you ever thought of using a compounding calculator? If you had, you'd know that 5% returns daily for even one year amounts to taking a $100 bill and turning it into $5.4 billion, in a year. How likely do you think that is?

"Yeah, but the ad says...!"

Whatever happened to critical thinking, and to doing your homework, for yourself? 

What I find both interesting and baffling is that the person who believes they are going to turn $100 into millions, or believes they are going to win the big prize in the lottery will openly laugh at those who believe they can heal an illness through meditation or positive thinking.

"They're nuts! You can't heal an illness just by THINKING about it!" they'll say.

I see. And yet you somehow believe something essentially IMpossible is possible?

In some of my recent posts I have explored the edges of where simple optimism and hope turns the corner and becomes outright magical thinking and fantasy.

To me, the distinction is pretty clear:

Let's use Steemit as an example: I am authentically hopeful that I can diligently blog and interact on Steemit for ten years and perhaps build a 100,000SP stake in the course of doing so.

That's a very different statement from "I'm gonna post some memes and pictures of my dog and they'll pay me $200 for each one!"

The latter just makes me want to ask "Are you HIGH? Or did someone drop you on your head when you were a baby?"

What's Between Heaven and Earth?

Mrs. Denmarkguy is a life coach, counselor and psychic intuitive. She deals with hundreds of clients who come to her with all manners of issues and questions.

Even though she represents the "woo-woo" side of the family, while I am the "rational" side she often admits that most of the world seems to think that there is a "Magic FedEx truck" coming to their driveway soon... with their dreams, their perfect job, the love of their life, or something else.

There's a huge self-development industry out there... a significant slice of which revolves around what you can accomplish purely through "intention."

Or is that really true?

Not exactly. "Magical Thinking" comes to the surface, once again. Even as people seek answers, they often have a sort of cognitive blindness that focuses only on the part of the program they WANT to be true, not the totality of what IS true.

The Power of Focused Intention

Few — if any — things happen simply because you want them to.

To use the clichéd "power of positive thinking" approach, simply thinking positively isn't the solution, you still have to take action in support of your thinking. 

THAT tends to be the part people either negatively hallucinate, or try to pretend isn't necessary.

Getting back to my Steemit example, I "believe" I can create 100,000SP of value. That's square one. But it is supported by the action of "creating daily content for ten years."

Magical thinking is what we end up with when people have the idea, but don't want to partake in the action end of the equation.

It's just like Mrs. Denmarkguy and I want to create an English garden on some of our land. That isn't going to happen because we sit on the back porch daily and visualize an English garden. It's going to happen because we grab a shovel and a pick and start working the land. 

Maybe This Seems Patently Obvious...

"Well, when you put it like THAT...."

Magical thinking infuses our lives in many "sneaky" ways we don't generally admit to. In some cases, we're not even aware of them. 

The diet and fitness industry is one such example. Much as they may hate to admit it, a lot of people buy gym memberships that "didn't work" because, guess what? You actually have to show up and do the work!

Similarly, eating boxed diet food "for a bit" isn't going to work if you're basically a quivering sloth that lives on the couch 90% of the time.

That's not to suggest that I outright reject that there may be things between Heaven and Earth that we have to capacity to understand, nor the tools to scientifically measure.

Last, but not least, I am not knocking the idea of "hope." Hope is beautiful, and often helps drive us towards our goals. Just be aware of when genuine hope becomes something outside the bounds of known reality!

How about YOU? Every caught yourself engaged in "magical thinking?" Know anyone who regularly does? How do these things work out? Why do you think we want to believe that something that isn't possible... is actually possible? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

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(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 180515 15:32 PDT