Once there were two friends. They were really close. Sam and Jane.
Sam used to wallow in his misfortunes and kind of romanticized it. Jane would stop Sam from being so hard on himself, but most of the time, in vain. Sam liked to think of himself “practical,” and “pragmatist,” for thinking like this. He believes seeing the negative coming helps. He is afraid of a slap in the face so he thinks negative whenever he can. Eventually, negative happens. And being myopic of the silver lining, he believes wholeheartedly that he is misfortunate, and somehow, eventually he attracts misfortune.
He gets surer day by day that thinking the negative through will prepare him for the upcoming heartbreak. It was his way to cope with the vital few disappointment fate has brought onto him. He thinks negative. Negative happens to him.
Jane asked him, “Did you hear about something called the law of attraction?”
“Yeah. Newton came up with that. The idea is, every living object attracts each other.”
“Good. Do you believe in it?”
“Sure. Why not?” Sam said with a shrug.
“Why do I sense some antagonism on your part, buddy?” Jane asks being not so sure if Sam has opposing ideas.
“I mean, even if I did not believe in it, I would not dare question the status quo unless I have a serious logic or theory to back up my disbelief.”
“You really like to have people think you are on their side when you don’t actually believe it yourself, don’t you?”
“‘Have them think’ is a strong term?” Sam confided in Jane.
And added “Not sure about that. But I do have a healthy respect toward people’s sentiment. beliefs that I can clearly see are really important for them. I don’t have to agree, but also don’t have to point out that I don’t believe in it.”
“That’s really good to hear you know. One day you are gonna be really good with people. So good that maybe you can be a politician, run for the presidency.”
“Hehe. That’s a good one.”
“What? You don’t believe you can do this one day?”
“Hell no.”
“Why?”
“You know who runs for the president?”
“I like to think I have the general idea? But humor me anyway.”
“They have to be a big, big person. You have to have influence to get on the top.”
“Yeah which starts with being good to people, wouldn’t you say?”
“You just have to have influence. Period.”
“Do you think they are gifted or just born with influence?”
“They must be.”
“You know Sam. They have done studies and found that a job post for $10,000 salary a year receives 50 times more applications than for the posts that pay $50,000 a year.”
“Are you sure the numbers are accurate?
“Does it really matter?”
“Of course it does. Otherwise all I am looking at is a bogus and made-up study.”
“Did you happen to hear the story of a guy who was sitting under an apple tree and all of a sudden an apple fell on his head . And that hit in the head made him wonder “about a thing called ‘gravity’?
“What are you. in love with Newton today? I have heard the story. The guy is Issac Newton.”
“Yeah right. What if I told you the truth is he was actually sitting under another different tree, not an apple tree. An apple tree was in front of him and he just saw an apple from the tree falling on the ground?”
“Why would you tell me that? That’s not true.”
“It is true. The story of the apple hitting his head was just a ‘sales pitch story’ made up by people.”
“Then I will say all my life was a lie.”
“It isn’t like that. The made-up story doesn’t diminish the efficacy of the idea of gravity any less. It is just an necessary attractive story so the idea stays in people’s head. The numbers in the study is just that. And even if the numbers were exact or close even, it would still not be the absolute considering all the relativity.”
“I am starting to see your point,” Sam said to Jane in more of a submissive voice.
“So what does that study tell you?”
“That people don’t apply for the high paying jobs as much as for low paying jobs?”
“Yes, but what does it tell you about human tendency?”
“I have no idea.”
” The study shows two vital tendencies of us, humans. A) We don’t think we deserve something big in the first place and we end up not applying or trying at all.
“Okay? What’s the other thing?”
“And B) Since so big pool of people end up applying for mediocre positions, there is much more competition for the low-paying jobs than the high-paying ones.”
Jane also added “Which means 50 times more number of people applying for low-paying jobs go back home with rejection than those applying for high-paying ones.”
“I see your point. So you are trying to say most people don’t get what they go for because they settle for mediocre things?”
Jane glared at Sam and giving a proud-parent look, he said to Sam “You are starting to catch on, my friend!”
“Will just setting higher goals get me there? Just because I dreamt big and went for something big?”
Jane, understanding Sam’s skeptic questions, assured him saying “No, just dreaming big is not enough. You though have to wholeheartedly believe that you are already there. You have to truly believe it. Only then can your subconscious mind be welcoming ideas that will eventually make that dream turn true.”
” You can never welcome or even think of the ideas that will make your dream come true if you don’t truly believe in your dream.”
Know Your Instincts 