Hey Tumbleweed. This reminds me of something from my own life.
When I was 20, I trained to teach yoga. I was somewhat of a new-ager at the time, not exactly buying all of the wacky philosphy, but entertaining it in my thoughts about life.
At the begining of the teacher training they had us set out a list of goals. The idea was that these were things that the training would lead us to be able to accomplish in life. But more than that, they suggested that simply by writing them down, we would find them happening for us. I thought, "well, this is sort of neat", and I wrote down a bunch of things. I don't remember all of them, but one of the things I wrote down was "I'd like to travel and teach yoga", another was "I'd like to have a chance to train in India".
Shortly before this a travelling teacher came to our yoga studio, and taught us some mantras, one of which he said was an invocation to Ganesha to bring you good fortune or something like that. I didn't really buy it exactly, but I started doing it from time to time because I thought it was neat, and what they hell.
Before I had even finished the training (which was only 1 month long), I had already been offered a very good paying job teaching yoga in Hong Kong. The offer was for a temporary position that would last three months, and I thought "Perfect, I can use the money I make there to fund my trip to india!". Well, I ended up staying for six months, and went back to Canada before I finally went to india, but it was the money I saved in HK that I used to fund my trip. It really seemed like there was something magical going on here - that they were right that just by writing down what I wanted, and believing that it would happen, the universe would somehow make it happen.
There were also some ways in which I was able to interpret all the other things I wrote down as being achieved by the end of the training.
"Wow!" I thought to myself, "There really is something to this!". I went on believing that just by wishing for things to happen to me, I could make them happen, and that if I went through these mantras, particularly at decisive moments (as I had when waiting to hear back from my future employers in hong kong), it would make it all the more likely. I believed that for quite a while.
And so, after that whenever I wanted something, I'd think to myself, "this is going to happen for you", and whenever an important opportunity came along, I'd chant this little mantra 108 times. ("Om Gom Ganepateyi Namaha" something like that). The only problem is that it never seemed to work again. Time and again I'd wish to myself that some course of events would unfold, and life would start throwing it's little uncertainties in the way, taking me in completely different (not necessarily worse) directions.
Time and again those opportunites wouldn't pan out, or I'd have to work very very hard to make them pan out. Things didn't just fall into place for me like they did that day when I sent out an email, did a phone interview, and was suddenly making up to CAN$100/hour.
Eventually I realised that maybe I had just gotten lucky. We all do sometimes. But while I'm still greatful for that luck - it got me started, gave me a chance to see a new part of the world, and gave me a lot of great experiences - I can't count on luck to see me through in the future.
The real world is a hard place to live in. I value my independence, though, and I'm proud to say that I've been able to get by on my own the past six years without anything higher than a high school education, and while I've been dirt poor at times, I'm doing pretty well for myself now. I don't think I'd have that same kind of pride if I still believed in some sort of mystical providence that made things happen just because I wanted them to.
So while the real world is a hard place to live in, I'm starting to realise that I think I like it better that way.
I don't know if any of this has much bearing on your OP, just some memories that you brought up, and I thought you might find interesting.
