#SoCS: What am I attracting?

This post is part of the Stream of Consciousness Saturday blog hop. Linda Hill posts a prompt every Friday; this week’s prompt is, “magnet.

I pondered over this week’s prompt for a bit, thinking about magnets, like the big rolling one in our carport that my husband uses to pick up nails in the gravel around our new-to-us house. The house isn’t actually new. It was built in 1946, and my husband has made a hobby out of rolling the magnet around, gathering nails and screws and other objects that might puncture our tires. He keeps all of them in an old wastebasket in the carport next to the magnet. They are an oddly fascinating time capsule–74 years of building hardware, excavated from our driveway.

Here’s his collection:

But I didn’t start this post with the intention of writing about historic hardware (isn’t stream of consciousness great?) I started this post with the intention of writing about what we attract. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go all law-of-attraction on you, though if that’s your thing, that’s fine. I don’t think there’s some cosmic force in the universe that gives us whatever we decide we want (I don’t believe in Santa Claus). I do believe, though, that when we decide to strive for something, the tools to achieve that something are a lot more likely to come our way. Why? Because we have primed ourselves to a) work for it, and b) notice opportunities. I also believe that we usually attract what we put out in the world, because attitudes and emotions are contagious, because we are social primates who mimic and respond to the actions of our fellows. None of this is magic, but it sure can feel like it.

Want to attract something wonderful in your life? The first steps, in my experience, are awareness, closely followed by intention. What do I actually want? What are my most important goals? And what am I actually doing? What’s my attitude? How am I behaving? How am I treating others? That’s the awareness part. And then: What am I going to do to make success more likely? What steps am I going to take? What attitude am I going to have (because attitude is a choice)? That’s the intention part.

If you want to attract old screws, buy a big magnet and roll it around your driveway (and buy an old house). If you want to attract success or happiness, be just as intentional. Be your own magnet.

Happy holidays, y’all! May they be restful and joyous even in these tough times.