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What is manifesting and why is it bollocks?

MANIFESTING – the practice of visualising the accomplishment of a goal to make it come true – has never been so popular, and never been so bollocks. This is why: 

You already know it doesn’t work

Remember waiting for a bus? Standing, cold and miserable, imagining so hard that you could hear its chugging engine coming around the corner that you believed it and stood up anticipating its warm, dry interior? Yet it still didn’t come for another 20 minutes? That’s manifesting. Yes, the bus arrived eventually. Not because of anything you did.

Positive thoughts don’t bring positive results

Manifesting holds that you believe yourself to be sexy, others will pick up on that belief. To be fair this did work for Prince, a sex symbol even though in four-inch heels he was still shorter than Rishi Sunak, but he’s the exception. Remember every other guy who strutted around thinking he was God’s gift but was a repellent arsehole? Did positive thinking work for him?

The methods are absurd

Don’t just imagine your dream husband, private island or newt collection, put in the work. Create a vision board, say goals aloud ‘with excitement’ or focus on the scent of your new man, the sand between your toes on the private island, the darting motion of the newts around your balls as you teabag their tank. Say ‘I’ve got this’ and ‘I’m worthy of my dreams’. Wait until your housemates are out.

What about wanking? 

Again, you’ve been manifesting for years. You manifested with half of One Direction, you manifested with your sister’s friend Lucy, you manifested with the Instagram account of the office temp. Visualising your personal goals got you no closer to a threesome with Sydney Sweeney and a second Sydney Sweeney with bigger boobs.

Noel Edmonds does it.

Exiled to New Zealand for sheer loathsomeness, Edmonds manifests all the time. He claims it’s what got him his TV comeback on Deal Or No Deal, he manifests vast personal wealth, he manifests being such a wanker that the mention of his name makes you shudder. Nonetheless he has lived a life of great wealth despite having zero talent. Maybe there’s something to manifesting after all.

Why my vile, abusive teenager shouldn't have been suspended from school because I don't want her at home either

YOU have suspended my daughter. You, who’s meant to be educating her for six hours a day but can’t cope with a bit of challenging behaviour. And now the vicious cow’s at home. 

It’s appalling you’ve shirked your responsibilities like this, which let me remind you I’ve paid for out of my taxes. What, have you never met a moody, foul-mouthed, hostile-to-authority teenager who lashes out before? Cowards.

She’s got to learn. She’s got to learn how to behave in situations antagonistic to her self-expression, as well as history and biology and all that shit. That’s why she needs to be in the classroom, not in my front room where I have to deal with it.

She tells me she was suspended for vaping during a lesson then throwing a chair at the teacher when he stopped her. Obviously not ideal, but perhaps the teacher could have handled it in a more tactful way by ignoring it?

If Elodie did need to be disciplined, it should have been done in school. It’s your duty, not mine. You’re the experts. You’ve got hundreds of kids, I’ve only got one.

But suspending her’s no punishment. You might not realise this, but she actually doesn’t like school. Not sending her’s like a reward. If you want to punish her you should keep her in later until after Pointless finishes.

You’ve let her down and now we’re in this mess, where she’s at home all day calling me a stupid old slag when she should be taking that aggression out on her peer group.

And I know you’ve said she can come back when she apologises to the teacher she supposedly wounded, but that’s actually very hard for her because she’s got her pride. So you need to be the bigger person and reverse this suspension.

Otherwise you’re jeopardising her future. And my present. With your help she can move on from this to bigger and better things, even if that is just more serious acts of grievous bodily harm.

I’m sending her in. Social services might arrest me if I don’t. And if she spends all day outside the gates, screaming abuse and throwing rocks, well, you created this situation. You reap the whirlwind.

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