There is some truth to this. We tend to notice the things we are at least subconsciously looking for. It doesn’t however pencil out that we create our reality thusly however. The reality exists and we are just experiencing it.
Let us say that you are looking for a yellow car but are on the moon. If you see a yellow car you’re probably hallucinating. Reality hasn’t changed. You can’t see what isn’t there if you are still connected to reality. Likewise, if you’re looking for opportunity in the jungle but not looking for jungle cats… the fact that you don’t see them doesn’t mean they won’t eat you. To the contrary it likely makes you more likely to be harmed. Thusly we can choose to not look for things like discrimination or things that will upset us- but that doesn’t mean they stop existing and can’t harm us, or aren’t more likely to harm us because we don’t see what is going on.
Now, let us say you are in a war and you decide to look for opportunity. What opportunity might you see?
Perhaps you see the opportunity to loot valuables from peoples abandoned homes, or to sell supplies at a mark up to refugees? Asides being amoral, these things are war crimes. If we ignore the reasons those opportunities should make us mad or why we shouldn’t do them- we may lose out on quite a bit of money, but we also don’t commit war crimes. In the every day world, there are lots of opportunities but many of them may not be war crimes, but may be destructive or exploitive despite being legal or socially accepted. So to the point of this meme- we do largely determine who we want to be, but do we want to be someone who judges our time in this world by what we are able to get out of it, or by what we are able to add?
Do we want to view the world through tunnel vision ignoring what we don’t want to see, or do we want to strive to see the world as it is and not just focus on the aspects that suit us in a moment?
This also leads to some rather uncomfortable and sometimes problematic issues. A liar thinks everyone lies. A thief thinks everyone steals. A cheater that everyone cheats etc.... They "think" that way because that's the way they would act or interact with the world. This does not mean that a liar can more easily spot a lie or a thief a thief. Just that that's the way they view the world. Observations should not be limited to just what you think about and is not always easier to spot something just because you're "thinking" about it. Observation is a skill you need to work at and what you observe is entirely dependent on what "you" can actually observe.
Let us say that you are looking for a yellow car but are on the moon. If you see a yellow car you’re probably hallucinating. Reality hasn’t changed. You can’t see what isn’t there if you are still connected to reality. Likewise, if you’re looking for opportunity in the jungle but not looking for jungle cats… the fact that you don’t see them doesn’t mean they won’t eat you. To the contrary it likely makes you more likely to be harmed. Thusly we can choose to not look for things like discrimination or things that will upset us- but that doesn’t mean they stop existing and can’t harm us, or aren’t more likely to harm us because we don’t see what is going on.
Now, let us say you are in a war and you decide to look for opportunity. What opportunity might you see?