Wichita Falls, Texas. Spring 1971 — A bright idea pays off.

Havingness, noun, Your willingness, often automatic, to experience something in your life; how much you are ‘having’ of something, such as: love-life, money, nice apartment, etc.

From puberty to age 26, I had been incompetent in learning about women, and then one day it dawned upon me that this was something I could systematically learn. I’d learned other things; why not learn this?

So I did. I studied carefully, and then discovered that the Havingness Concept provides a key that makes it easy …

The easiest time to get a job is when you got a job. The easiest time to get a girlfriend is, ulp, when you got a girlfriend. The easiest time to find an apartment is when you got an apartment. It takes money to make money.

These are metaphysical statements. I can’t prove them. But go find any human, and have him experiment, and he will report it seems to work that way.

You have an inner gauge we’ll call ‘havingness’, how much of something you can experience. Maybe you can experience money easily, but girlfriends not so well. It’s running on automatic, so just your wanting it to be different doesn’t make it so. In fact, the more desparately you desire the thing, the more sharply you are focussing your lack, and this self-fullfilling target perpetuates itself, in accordance with your inner vision.

For example, let’s say you’re male and there’s an acute lack of girlfriend. It seems like you don’t meet anyone; and the ones you do meet, well, there’s something wrong with them.

If you keep on doing what you been doing, you’ll keep on having what you been having. So if you make no change, you’ll suffer lack of girlfriend for far longer than need be. This is an easy thing to change, when you’re willing to change your focus.

Hard to find a girlfriend? OK, it’s an illusion, but when you are inside that illusion, it sure looks like that. Therefore, let’s just set it aside and look at something else.

Instead of trying to change the girlfriend shortage (which appears very difficult), let’s just look at changing your internal level of ‘Havingness’. (Which will appear surprisingly easy.)

Here’s what you do: First, stop saying no. Start going out with anybody at all. Go out with people you’re not interested in. Any female at all, go out for any reason whatsoever. And go out five times a week! Don’t be “reasonable” and scale it down. Five times a week.

Remember, just now, you’re not trying to find a girlfriend. These folks aren’t girlfriend material for you at this time. (Don’t sleep with them. That will just snarl you up.) Just go out five times a week, and enjoy it as best you can. Without expectation and target-seeking, you’ll generally find yourself having fun, you wild guy you.

Remember, again, that you are engaging in this activity — five times a week — in order to increase your internal, automatic ‘havingness’ level. It’s a fair amount of work, so don’t do big productions. Go out for coffee. Go to the library with someone. Go to the laundromat. Keep it simple. Do this for a few weeks and watch what happens.

It’s quite surprising. Suddenly, mysteriously, attractive and interesting women will begin to fall out of the sky. You can’t go to the parking lot without bumping into several. At least, it will seem that way. And, they’ll start giggling and smiling at you.

Now, start asking them out. You’ll discover that much of your normal clumsiness will have vanished! You’ll now find it surprisingly easy. You have changed something internally; the world looks different. Without trying, you have stepped outside of the former illusion.

But don’t make the blunder of stopping your program. For now, continue going out five times a week. You’re not done yet. This simple and pleasant exercise is what’s building your internal, automatic havingness level. Keep that going for a while, because even more attractive women will show up the next week! Further, the longer you run this program, the more “permanent” it becomes.

You see, without even worrying about the cause of your internal programming, you have changed it. The old program, the old restricted-havingness level, cannot stand against the evidence of your eyes, your ears, and your other senses. When you actually see yourself going out frequently, your internal program will change immediately and automatically. No psychotherapy required. Call it magic. Call it human nature. But call it; and it will come.

Havingness — how to Have what you want — a concept that opens any area of your life where you’d like to have more. You’re now seeing more of what you’d like to see. Why? Because, knowing how to look, you begin to see. Learning to see, there’s a lot to like! This is a workable map.

Do you want things different? Follow this map.

You will see.