COINCIDENCE AND THE THOUGHT PATH

We’ve all heard of fate, but what is it? To some it is a force in the universe that influences you, driving you towards a life preordained. Whilst to others, it is a superstition, a fallacy – something that doesn’t exist.
I don’t like the former – it suggests that you have no free will, and without this, what is the point of choice? But on saying this, I don’t like the latter either. It is too reductionist, ignoring the experiences of many of us.

Is there a coming together of the two extremes?

Some people believe that luck has a lot to do with it. Some people are just born lucky, and their life seems to be one success after another.
Research into luck has provided a clue. Those who are lucky tend to be good at calculating odds. In such a way, they can unconsciously assess a situation as it arises, and usually take the right decision.

This gives a clue to those who are unlucky.

In calculating odds correctly, the person learns optimism, and this seems to go into the world ahead of you – whilst the unlucky seem to project pessimism onto everything – a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Carl Jung would point out synchronicity. Here, coincidences seem to happen that seem to have meaning above the coincidence itself. It is almost as if the person has made the coincidence happen.

Is this possible?

Can the mind have a direct affect on the events of the world? Events that, for all intents and purposes, are out of your control? One possibility is to look at another attribute in the lucky.
They are not ‘lucky’ at all. Rather, they have a form of selective attention. They simply remember the good times more than the bad; whilst the unlucky tend to remember the bad times more than the good.

This is simple psychology.

But I don’t think psychology is ever simple. At present the mind is thought to be personal to the individual. I think it is much more interactive than that.
I work with what I call psycho-sociology. Basically, what happens in the personal mind is simply a reflection of a wider world, and vice versa. Hence, if selective attention affects the person, it also affects the world at large.

Let us change it to ‘selective observation’.

The lucky person only sees in the world those things that are useful to his success. Hence, he convinces himself that the world is acting in his interest.
This is, of course, a belief. But to what extent can a belief become a reality? If we take religion, a belief in a God-form leads to action that changes the world in such a way that the world is how it would be if the God-form was real.
And the same can happen with the person, I’m sure. An absolute belief in his destiny creates only those observations that confirm his reality. And as he goes through life, his actions make that ‘reality’ real.
The world has been ‘tuned’ to his mind. And this simple mind-state means coincidences will happen more and more, as it directs his life to the correct choices he needs to make. Mind and world have become one.

© Anthony North, May 2008

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