I’ve tried, I’ve really tried.

I’ve tried to be removed from every mailing list that sends me emails which make me scream. I’ve even set up filters to automatically trash email that comes in with subject lines that make my blood turn into liquid nitrogen at room temperature (a.k.a. “boil”).

But, like messages that will allow me to get a mortgage that’s cheap enough so I can afford a house big enough to hold my gigantic new “manhood”, with a spare room for all the herbal V1agyra I’ll need to use it, somehow a few “You can have/manifest/attract anything you want” emails make it into my inbox every day.

Yes, every day.

There are so many people pitching this idea that, despite my best efforts, I get 3 or 4 emails assuring me that the universe is just a big Sears catalog waiting for my telepathic order, that “SCIENCE” has proven we are put on this planet to be abundant (if , instead of “so wealthy you would pick up that tab at a lunch with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet,” you’ve defined “abundant” as “obese”, then a trip to the mall actually supports this position), or that once you know the way rich people think differently than you, you too will become skinny and tanned and spend all your time posing next to your imported Italian sports car or laughing in the wind while steering your new yacht.

The problem with this message is that it’s so compelling, it plays so well into our 100,000 year-old “how do I get what I want” brain, that when we hear someone suggest that it’s true and that they can teach us how to do it, we turn off our rational thinking process faster than we’d turn off a movie that advertises “Starring Paris Hilton!”

We ignore that we’ve never met or even heard of one human being who has “gotten everything they wanted.” (And that the ones who have seemingly come closer than we have aren’t really much happier.)

We don’t notice that the teachers themselves seem to want more and more and more… and apparently include in their list of wants: divorces, bankruptcies, children they barely see, and critics who think they’re morons.

And then we reach for our wallets when the teacher tells us the price for this incredible (literally) knowledge of how to do what has never been done.

I have only one message to pass along to the “You can have everything you want” teachers:

Call me when you have cancer

That’s my provocative way of saying, “No, you can’t.”

There are times where we get what we want, and times where we get what we don’t want. There are times where we don’t get what we want, and times where we get things we never imagined.

I don’t care how much I want to be the richest man in the world, the way that occurs require the confluence of so many factors that are beyond my control, it ain’t gonna happen. Hell, I could win Powerball every week and STILL not crack the top 10 in the Forbes 100 Richest People list.

It doesn’t matter how much I want to be the greatest golfer in the universe, there’s only one Tiger Woods, and even the people who are #2 and #3 behind him, who practice all day long just to beat him… well, they aren’t Tiger Woods either.

But back to the cancer thing.

This whole effort to try to get what we want, to get what we think will make us happy, seems like it’s just a way to pretend we aren’t going to die… something that most people REALLY don’t want. And, I’m not sure if these teachers have noticed but, so far, everyone who has ever really wanted to live… has died. But only every one of them.

At some point, nature will be stronger than anything we to do bend it in our favor.

So, to the “you can have everything you want” teachers: call me when you realize that you’re on the losing side of that game… let me know how your visualizing, vibration raising, goal-focusing, universe-requesting, unproven treatment-taking — but HIGHLY PROFITABLE — magical thinking is working for you.

Personally, I now know too many people whose last days were made miserable by their continued efforts to get something they wanted — more days — when there wasn’t any one or any thing that cared about their wants.

I can only hope that in the end you can enjoy the truly magical thing about the universe, that it’s WAY beyond our ability to comprehend, let alone control.

And now, please excuse me while I Feng Shui my office in an attempt to repel these unwanted emails.

If I get one more email with information about how to Attract more money, more clients, the right relationship, a better job, a new car, or anything else for that matter, I think I’m going to scream (actually, I just got THREE of them, which made me scream, and then write this post).

Here’s another option, if there’s something you want, why not DO SOMETHING that will, with a high degree of confidence, increase the probability that you can GET IT.

I call this the “Shampoo School of Living.” Instead of lather, rinse, repeat, it’s Orient in the direction of what you want, Take a simple step that moves you in that direction, Re-Orient and repeat.

Do this and I GUARANTEE one of two results:

1. You’ll get what you want!
2. You won’t get what you want.

I can’t tell, in advance, which of those will happen — nor can anyone else — but, I assure you, it will only be one of those two possibilities.

You may have noticed something with my formula: There is no guarantee that you’ll get what you want. Or, just as true, there’s no guarantee that if you get what you want, you’ll be happy.

(There is, though, a guarantee that if you find a million people who’ve gotten what you want and were no happier for it, you’ll think you’re special and that you would be unlike all of them — “I’ve never heard of anyone becoming permanently happy as a result of becoming wealthy, but when I become rich, I’ll be different.”)

Want a guarantee of getting what you want and being happy? Well, to paraphrase the Buddha, move to a different universe.

They don’t sell those guarantees in this one.

Oh, wait, they do! It’s all the crap about “Attracting” what you want that clogs my inbox every day!

If it’s possible to “attract” new clients from the comfort of my own mind, that’s so much easier than writing a good advertisement, or giving free lectures to potential clients, or cold calling, or asking for referrals, or, well… anything!

And, hell, if you weren’t going to get what you wanted, wouldn’t you rather have not put out any real effort than busted your hump only to be thwarted by factors out of your control?

Personally, I’d rather do something tangible, something that you could see me doing on a video tape (okay, it’s 2008, a DVD or on YouTube). I don’t want to try to “attract” something to me. I want to move toward it! The odds are, I’m more mobile than whatever I think I want.

The joke, of course, is that if you want to control the universe, there’s an easy way: Get up off your attracting-something butt and do something. Guaranteed that when you do, the universe will change.

If you seem to be progressing, keep going. If you seem to be going in the wrong direction, or in circles, either do something different or, maybe, recognize that what you’re trying to do isn’t possible… like making some un-measurable inner change that will magically cause you to become a “magnet to” what you think you want.