The purveyors of "positive thinking" like to tell us that if we want something badly enough we can get it, no matter what it is. All we need is the desire, the hunger, the commitment, and if we have these three things, we can accomplish whatever we want. If we fail to achieve our goal, it is only because we didn’t want it badly enough.

Positive thinking has much to recommend it, but it has its limitations. One such limitation is this: we cannot always have what we want "just because we want it." All the girls in the Miss America contest want to be Miss America but only one gets to wear the crown. The crown becomes hers not because she wanted it more than anybody else there, but because somebody gave it to her; and who in the world knows (really) how they decide which girl to give it to? T…