I'm glad you're doing better. Remember that the only reason for that is you. If you found that article useful, you might be interested to know where most of it is cribbed from in case you felt like digging deeper: Level 1 – Find food; find a bed to sleep in at night Level 2 – Know you’re not going to die Level 3 – Find your people Level 4 – Do something that’s important and valuable to both yourself and others Level 5 – Create a legacy This is Maszlow's Hierarchy of Needs which is pretty controversial if you bring it up amongst psychologists and pretty settled if you bring it up as an aspect of pop science. Suffice it to say that if it gets you out of a rut, it's useful and if strikes you as wrong, you're not the only one. This entire section pretty much belongs to Jane McGonigal, in particular Reality is Broken. Really, the "cheat codes" thing is entirely hers. I recommend that book. This is pretty much karma. Journaling can be traced to the psychoanalysts, and in particular, Ira Progoff. This one... well, I would call it controversial but from a modern perspective, the godfather is Dale Carnegie. This one... well you'll be interested to know it's the polar opposite of The Secret. That's pretty much religion on just about every level.There are five levels in life:
Life is a big and complex game. It’s the largest open world game known to date.
CHEAT #1: I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS
CHEAT #2: WRITE THIS SHIT DOWN
CHEAT #3: STOP FUCKING COMPLAINING
CHEAT #4: STOP FANTASIZING
CHEAT #5: SHARE YOUR SHAME
While there's absolutely no way I can answer authoritatively, I would argue it's because primates have a fundamental sense of justice and we believe that if we do good things, good things will be done to us. It's not an incorrect assumption, assuming you don't go batshit with it. People help out their friends. People with more friends get more help. Where The Secret runs aground, in my opinion, is in ascribing the benefits of the basic subconscious bonds of human society to a higher power.