When I was young there was an Irish family in my neighborhood. I distinctly remember one amazing thing about this family, they had the luck of the Irish.
They would talk about it a lot, and what was truly stunning is, they were right. They were without question the luckiest people I've ever met. I don't remember if a month went by that some manner of good fortune didn't befall them. It bordered on being annoying.
Over the years I've come to believe that they were lucky because they believed they were lucky. Down to the core of their beings, they knew they were lucky, they expected to be lucky, and lo and behold, they were lucky.
I don't pretend to understand the mechanism at work here, but I'm sure not the first one to notice it. Books such as "Wishcraft" or "The Secret" are simply rehashing ideas that go back for eons. To at least some extent the world is what we expect it to be. Clearly there are limitations or we'd all be lottery winners, but at the same time there is also compelling examples of people who seem to get most everything they want by either luck or shear force of will.
You probably know someone like this, I think most of us do.
I am certainly no expert on this phenomenon or how to control it, but I have had some luck in life and I also believe I've been able to spread some around. I have found time and time again that if you surround someone with a positive idea, positive things tend to happen. Also, if you believe something positive will happen to you, there is a better than average chance something will.
In fact one of the reasons I jumped on the "Be nice to..." weeks over on SA was because I believe this kind of positive reinforcement can actually help people. Or put simply: "Sometimes it works".
Sometimes it does.
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