Are you feeling lucky?
If the Lucky Girl Syndrome happened to pass you by let me explain - two white American women in their late teens sat in a car eating noodles and explained that since they started saying "I’m so lucky, everything just works out for me" good things have happened. They both passed their exams, and got the bedrooms they wanted at university.
The trend really took off in early Jan 2023 and the #Luckygirlsyndrome hashtag has been viewed 182 million times. The mantras used include "Everything works out for me," "The universe is conspiring in my favor," and "I’m so lucky."
It’s a manifestation tool. It you say it, or write it down, and then work really hard and notice all the lucky things around you - more lucky and good things will come.
If you are open to noticing the good things in your life, you will attract more good things - the law of attraction.
You can remove any limiting belief you can easily go after things you really want. If you believe you already have it, you will eventually get it - the law of assumption.
And there IS some science backing this - this involved the reticular activating system in your brain (RAS). The RAS is a network of neurons in the brain stem that creates a filtering system in your mind. It filters and seeks information that validates your preexisting beliefs. The RAS helps you see what you WANT to. Your brain is noticing things that confirm your belief.
So, with all of these natural laws, and neuroscience backing it - it HAS to work, right? Or, is this simply confirmation bias?
Confirmation bias is the tendency to intemperate new evidence as confirmation of your existing beliefs. We use confimation bias ALL. THE. TIME.
”I am so glad we chose the smaller car - it fits into spaces much easier!”
”I am so glad we could afford the bigger car - we fit so much more into it!” We tell ourselves things to fit the narrative we have.
So, let’s say we try the Lucky Girl thing - what happens in life, when we are handed a set of shitty things. We could start to believe that we don’t deserve good things. We could blame ourselves for the bad things happening to us. Maybe we aren’t thinking positively enough?
Positive thinking cannot cure serious illness. Good vibes won’t be better for cancer treatment than chemotherapy.
Toxic positivity is a huge issue - ignoring the mundane, boring, painful and focusing on the positive only means we ignore a lot of the world and our life. It’s dysfunctional.
Of course looking on the positive side has benefits - it does help with self-control, socialising, and decreasing stress. But when we use it to cope with unpleasant emotions it can become toxic. We need the whole life picture to be balanced, to have good self awareness, and to understand ourselves and those around us.
Thinking good thoughts can help, until you have an illness, a mental health problem, a physical disability. And now we’re seeing that Lucky Girl Syndrome is ableist. Also, you can’t positive think you way out of racism, classism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, or any other prejudice.
From what I can see, the Lucky Girls using the manifestation trick are middle class, white, privileged people - and their “luck” is a solution to a first world problem - passing an exam, getting Taylor Swift tickets, getting a flight to somewhere last minute.
How I see it, we’re attributing the power of positive thinking, to the power of privilege. And we’re telling those without the same privilege to just “think positive” and the good things will come.
NOTE - I am not in any way saying thinking positively is a terrible thing. It isn’t. It’s helpful, it feels good and it improves wellbeing! But we experience a whole range of emotions, situations and events, and to live them all, instead of focusing on one part of it, is the human experience.
