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Just a note: I’ve shifted the “rules” for post­ing com­ments on this blog. You will now see your com­ment appear directly, with­out a delay for approval. I really want to hear from all of you, so click on the post title, above, and leave a comment!

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Well, I got the idea for today’s blog because yet another Ponzi Scheme seems to have come undone in Canada this week.

You may know that this scam is named after Charles Ponzi, (1882–1949,) who started out try­ing to make money in arbi­trage. (Def: to buy a com­mod­ity at a low price in one mar­ket, and sell it for a profit in another.) Ponzi promised that he would dou­ble investors’ invest­ments in 90 days.

The scheme got off the ground by Ponzi mak­ing a bit on the arbi­trage, but basi­cally, he paid his early investors with the pro­ceeds from newer investors. The scheme works, so long as new investors are will­ing to throw money into it.

“Ponzi was bring­ing in cash at a fan­tas­tic rate, but the sim­plest finan­cial analy­sis would have shown that the oper­a­tion was run­ning at a large loss. As long as money kept flow­ing in, exist­ing investors could be paid with the new money. In fact, new money was the only way Ponzi had to pay off those investors, as he made no effort to gen­er­ate legit­i­mate prof­its.” link to Wikipedia article

Any­way, the best way to describe such a scheme is: “If it looks too good to be true, it is.”

So, if we all know that Ponzi Schemes are the ulti­mate con game, why are they still being dis­cov­ered at such an alarm­ing rate? (Think Bernie Mad­off.) Most peo­ple would rush in and say “Greed! If only peo­ple weren’t greedy!” I think it’s sim­pler, and dates back to our childhood.

It’s what I call mag­i­cal think­ing.

Here’s my favourite story: I once had a female client who was mar­ried to “Peter Pan.” He didn’t come for ther­apy that often, as he thought of me as “buzz kill.” The guy had a Ph.D. and was a professor.

Here’s his mag­i­cal belief, and his story: “My wife (my client) is not my soul mate. I have been in many, many rela­tion­ships, but never with my soul mate. Even though I am now mar­ried, I am still look­ing for her.”(Hint to Peter Pan: She’s in Never-Never Land!)

Scratch­ing my head, I asked, “How will you know your soul mate when you meet her?”

He replied, “There will never be any con­flict, dis­agree­ment, or prob­lems. We will live a life of com­plete per­sonal, rela­tional, and sex­ual bliss.”

I was glad I was not drink­ing cof­fee, or it would have shot out of my nose.

The kicker? He went off for a hol­i­day (alone) and thought he met his soul mate. He came home and asked my client for per­mis­sion to go back to the island in the sun (no, really!) and see if she was really his soul mate. My client agreed, and off he went.

His “soul mate” ended up being a dom­i­na­trix, and he came home whipped (lit­er­ally) and hair­less (another story altogether.)

My client divorced him. At last report, 5 years later, he’s still look­ing.

Peter Pan, in spades.

The flaw of Mag­i­cal Think­ing actu­ally explains a lot of our silly beliefs.

The main themes of Mag­i­cal Think­ing are con­tained in Nurs­ery Sto­ries and Rhymes, and include:

• res­cue by a Fairy God­mother (or some other mag­i­cal being, like God)
• liv­ing ‘hap­pily ever after.’
• Prince Charm­ing and his horse, rid­ing to the rescue.
• Magic (spells, affir­ma­tions, ‘The Secret,’ etc.)
• If you search long and hard, you will find your “Sleep­ing Beauty or Prince.”

These themes reoc­cur in most pop­u­lar media, typ­i­cally fol­low­ing the plot line of: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy defeats the bad guys / evil mon­ster / the ‘other man,’ boy re-captures girl, AND they live hap­pily ever after.

We live and breathe this stuff.

Dar­bella and I were watch­ing “Nights in Rodan­the,” and the end­ing doesn’t fol­low this for­mula, as the guy dies before the last step. Both of us looked at each other and said, “Hey! What gives? That’s not fair!” And then we laughed.

Because we have a cul­tural bias that this is how life should be—that life should be fair, and that “I” should “win,” we have trou­ble with any­thing that goes “wrong.” We then get caught up in the drama of blam­ing oth­ers, our par­ents, or God—we blame them that our fan­tasy isn’t mag­i­cally made real!

Because we know things are sup­posed to go the way we want them to.

Like Peter Pan, above, we expect that, if the plan­ets are aligned and the gods are smil­ing, every­thing will work out, with­out effort, or with min­i­mal effort. We feel cheated when it doesn’t.

And yet, the world, in real­ity, seems to be oper­at­ing another way altogether.

That way is this:

• what hap­pens, happens.
• What is, is.
• If you do not like it now, wait a minute, have a breath, do some­thing dif­fer­ent, and you’ll likely see some­thing else.
• And most impor­tantly, the cos­mos does not have you (ego-you) in mind, does not care one way or another what hap­pens to you, and will tick along mer­rily long after you are dead and gone.

The cos­mos is not a vend­ing machine, into which you pop your wishes and desires, and out of which pops what you want. Sorry.

So, if mag­i­cal think­ing is use­less, what works?

+ Being present for the ride.

+ Being accept­ing of the fact that what is, is.

+ Being fully and com­pletely respon­si­ble for your walk, your path, and your way.

You find this path by becom­ing mind­ful of the real­ity of real­ity, and drop­ping the illu­sion that things ought to change because you want them to.

In the end, the way off of the stu­pid path is to walk another path, empha­sis on walk. If all you are doing is mak­ing up affir­ma­tions, pray­ing, going to for­tune tellers, pay­ing bribes at the “church” of your choice, good luck. You’ll need it.

Sit down, become mind­ful through med­i­ta­tion, find peo­ple to talk to who know how to live life as opposed to pitch­ing you some­thing, and lis­ten. Take it in, and then actu­ally do some­thing different.

Life is not fair, “bad stuff” does hap­pen to “good peo­ple,” and magic is for movies. Suck it up. Have a breath. And open your eyes to the mys­tery and ele­gance of real liv­ing. It’s the only show in town.

And remem­ber, when some bozo shows up and offers you some­thing for noth­ing, or a deal that is too good to be true, walk rapidly the other way.

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Make Con­tact!

So, how does this week’s arti­cle sit with you? What ques­tions do you have? Go to the top of this arti­cle, click on the title, and leave a com­ment or question!

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Work­shops, Retreats!

Dar­bella and I can help you to find a new, vibrant, rich path. We offer day-long and week­end events —just you and us—and we will work with you, to be the change you want to see.

Read about it here:

Day-long Inten­sives
Week­end Residentials

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Related posts:

1. Mag­i­cal Thinking
2. Mag­i­cal Blues

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Tagged with: blaming • conflict • luck • magical thinking • ponzi

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