I confess to being empathetic to Steve Olson’s views on the public school system in the US. I don’t profess to know the solution to the myriad problems related to public schooling–it’s just too far out of whack for me to consider. Here’s a cut from Steve:

When you read about the problems with American education, you usually read statistics about literacy and dropout rates. But those statistics don’t do the subject justice because the problem with American education is a human story. Every dropout is a human being, every illiterate teenager is an individual, every teen that commits suicide was somebody’s baby, and every kid that’s doing 20 to life is a real breathing person – full of potential.

People are too quick to criticize parents, teachers, administrators, and students. The failure of government education isn’t theirs alone. It’s every American’s fault because we continue to allow the unrestrained growth of government schooling. Haven’t we learned anything from our own experiences in government schools?

It’s very easy for people to bury their head in the sand and ‘let the administrators handle it’. I, for one, am of the opinion that the administrators are failing badly. Be that as it may, there are some places in the country where accountability is coming back in style.

The state of Texas is one of those. There, students have to pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills exam in order to get a diploma, in addition to the requisite credits.

In Fort Worth, 600+ students failed the test, and are being denied the opportunity to graduate with their classmates. But many are protesting that “it’s not fair”. You look at the picture above, read the sign, and tell me it’s not fair. “Let are kids walk”?

Ed Mills’ blog post, Perception Becomes Reality struck a chord with me. He says:

The more I explore the Law of Attraction the more I come to see that what I call reality is nothing more than my perception of what is happening around me.

The Wachowski brothers, in their movie The Matrix, have Morpheus answer Neo’s question, “Is this real?” in this way:

What is real? How do you define real? If you’re talking about your senses, what you feel, taste, smell, or see, then all you’re talking about are electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

Your reality is what you say it is, what you believe it to be. People use the phrase “get real” to goad you into accepting their version of reality–of what is possible and what isn’t. But we know that anything is possible.

Don’t we?

Those of us who know the basics of the Law of Attraction know that “thoughts become things”. So we embark on our life-changing journey, excited about the wonderful way life will be. Some people have more success at it than others. Those people keep building on what they’ve learned, attracting more of what they want, expanding the horizons of their imagination and belief, seemingly growing by leaps and bounds.

Then there are the rest of us.

‘The rest of us’ is, by most accounts, a rather large group. We’re not in the ‘non-believer’ group, but we just haven’t, for whatever reasons, been able to consciously create our lives as well as we would like to.

So the question is, “Why not?” Thankfully, we have kept the faith in the Law–we know it works. We haven’t become members of the group that say, “This stuff doesn’t work.” We haven’t given up. But what to do?

My answer? Study, examine what you’re doing, how you’re thinking, adjust, do it again. The basic Ultimate Success Formula. Realize that just because it’s not working like you think it should, you’re not a failure. You haven’t bombed the course. You get as many do-overs as you need.

For my part, here are the mistakes I’ve made in the wealth-attraction arena. Maybe you can learn from them to make your journey a little less curvy than mine.

So, like I have, do you make these mistakes in attracting wealth?

Mistake #1: Closing the door of your mind to money-making opportunities.

Open your eyes to the fact that wealth is all around you. There is an abundance of money. It’s everywhere you look, if you’ll only see it. When an opportunity to make money comes your way, don’t pooh-pooh it. It came your way for a reason–because you wanted it to. Recognize that and step into it. It may be an opportunity that you don’t think would suit you. “I don’t want to sell soap.” Maybe not, but could you learn from some people who’ve been successful at it? Can you apply their ideas and habits to something else? Keep your eyes–and your mind–open.

Mistake #2: Hanging on to the ‘poor’ mentality.

This, I think, is one of the hardest habits to kick. It shows up when you say to yourself, “I can’t afford that.” And you know what? Your thought becomes the thing. If you just can’t wrap your head around the idea that it’s yours if you want it, then at least practice reducing your resistance to the thought. Do the “wouldn’t it be nice” exercise from Ask and It Is Given. Get your thoughts away from the despair of not having, to the hopefulness and joy of maybe having. You might not think that is much of an improvement, but it is. It’s training your mind to question the permanence of your present situation.

Mistake #3: Practicing despair instead of gratitude.

This is what you are doing when your focus is on lack, when you’re thinking things like, “When is this going to get better?”, or “My life sucks.”

Begin to focus on, and be grateful for, what you do have. “Not much,” you say? I suggest you look around you again. If you’re reading this, you likely have something that only a small percentage of people in the world have: a computer and an internet connection. It follows from there that it’s likely that you have a roof over your head, and that you’re not starving. You probably don’t have to go to sleep listening to the sounds of mortar rounds and rifle fire, and you probably don’t have to worry about being the victim of a kidnapping or suicide bomber.

Do you have the faintest conception of how many people in the world don’t have what you have? Possibly, contemplating that will enable you to whisper a little “thank you”, eh?

There’re more common mistakes, but if you’re like me, rectifying these will keep you busy for a while.