“MEN ATTRACT NOT WHAT THEY WANT, BUT WHAT THEY ARE.”
10/14/07
I was cleaning off my desk recently filing and getting rid of a hundred collected phone numbers, web sites, book titles, articles, bank receipts and grocery receipts, etc.etc.. While sensing a brief relief of a semblence of organization, I suddenly came across a statement I copied down on a yellow “Sticky Note”, I found attached to the back side of a scribbled on, old paycheck envelope.
The note was a quote from an essay I had read on the air several months ago. “As A Man Thinkth” The note is the title of this essay. “Men attract not what they want , but what they are.” After reading this quote , I remembered the book , and why I wrote down this statement. I looked around my office at all the stuff I had collected over many years. Files, tapes,equipment, music, instruments, paintings, furniture, clothing, computer, shoes,books, etc., and I tried to understand from all of these things who I was. If the statement is true, that who we are attracts what we have; then I felt it was imperitive to consider what I was attracting..
I realized very quickly that who I was was a very disorganized person, with many interests. I realized without too much consideration; that if what I have collected, (or was attracted to me) was of interest to me at one time or another and still is, I must be as ecclectic and eccentric as a Madhatter. ( I do have several seasonal hats that I like to wear, that are hanging in my office closet.)
As I thought about what I’ve collected over the years, I noticed some were featured prominently on my walls and on my desk. Some were tucked away in files or a closet, and others were thrown away because they were irrepairably broken. I’m not really a collector of valuable antics or sentimental memorablia, I am more of an immediist, ( I just made up that word). An immediist is someone who collects things to be immediately used, and possibly be used again. Once these things have served their purpose, and I feel I will never used them again, I throw them away, or give it away to someone who might want it .
“Men attract not what they want, but what they are.” Maybe this statement doesn’t make as much sense as I thought it did , when I first read it. I want a lot of things. But many of them I know I can’t have , or shouldn’t have. I’d like a 22 carot gold Royles Royce, but I can’t for the life of me think of when I’d use it, or what I would want it for. Maybe likes are not wants. I know that wants are not needs. I’d like to be invited to the Oscar ceremony, but I know I’d feel uncomfortable; even if I was receiving an award. I would prefer to do a video presentation acceptence, instead of a live acceptence speech. I don’t think I really have to worry about that . What I do worry about is, why I don’t have all I really want, and feel that I need. If I am attracting what I am, instead of what I want, then how can I change who I am to attract what I really want ? I think that is a fair question to ask. Unfortunately the book “As a Man Thinkth” was written in 1620, by a man who no one knows if he ever got all he ever wanted, or if he was like most people , and was just thinking about what he wanted ? It’s a valid question, however not one that can ever be adequately answered. Many great thinkers have died in poverty, or were never accepted in their own times, and their works were discovered posthumously. Regardless of the validity of the statement,”Men attract not what they want , but what they are.” I obviously attracted that statement to myself, and have used it for this essay. What it reveals of my character I do not know, and I do not know why I really wanted the statement attached to an old paycheck envelope . Now that it is attracted to me,I must decide to discard it, along with old grocery receipts, and useless scribbles, or file it away to use at another time.
L.A. STEEL
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