I’ve just been talking with someone who uses the word ‘manifest’ a lot. She says and she believes that if you do this thing, you will manifest what you want.

I stuck my hand out and said “And I just want a million dollars”. (It’s a Friends quote.) Still waiting.

But this is real to her. Think of something and you will manifest it. Don’t think of something and you won’t. This works for her every time, she says, without fail. It’s very important that you think of this thing you want and then you put it out of your mind and don’t think of it again.

Now, I offered that there might just be a touch of confirmation bias there: if you do what she says, then the only time you think again of something you wanted is when you get it. So you only remember the successes.

That kills the every-time-without-fail point for me. And you can tell that I’m not sold on this concept. But I agree with the thinking of it and it will come lark: if you don’t think of something, you can’t do anything toward getting it or being it or achieving it.

But I see that as having the idea and then working to achieve it. I see it as work. I reduce that whole chain to the one word. Whereas she reduces it to metaphor.

It is bollocks that if you think of it, it will manifest. (Still waiting.) But it is true that you can’t do anything without thinking of it first. I like that. I’m happy with that. I don’t need and really I don’t want magic. She doesn’t have magic, she just has the label, the term manifest.

It’s a shorthand, it’s a metaphor, and that’s fine. Metaphor compares and contrasts, it helps us grasp, it comments on reality, it is a connector. But it definitely sits in that area between us and what we don’t yet understand or maybe don’t yet have. If you treat the metaphor as the reality, then the metaphor becomes your aim. You’re no longer thinking of things to do or what you want to improve at, you’re thinking of the word manifest.

I think that’s like ignoring the bottle of pills and instead believing that the bit that says “Read directions carefully” is what you need.

Sorry, is that a metaphor?