It’s No Longer a Secret

The Secret is a short book. It’s fewer than 200 pages, and you don’t have to read all of the pages to get the basic gist. In fact, the entire book can probably be summed up like this:

If you want something, imagine that you already have it. Then your wish will come true.

In other words, if you wish to marry George Clooney, you should imagine that you have already done so. Keep yourself on one side of your bed, because George is already over there sleeping on the other side. Wear earplugs to drown out his snoring. Make sure there’s a parking space for his car in your garage. Clean out a closet for him in your bedroom. Set a place for him at the dinner table. Cook him his favorite foods. Thank the universe for sending George to you. Imagine George in your life during every minute of every day.

Before you know it? All of your thoughts about George will travel through the universe. They will eventually reach George and, like a worm on a hook, draw him to your front door step. He will knock on your door and ask you to marry him.

This all works based on something called The Law of Attraction, which is based on quantum physics.

No lie. That’s what the book says. According to The Secret, you can attract anything you want just by thinking about it and drawing it into your life.

It works with George Clooney. It works with money. It even works with dieting. If you want to be thin? Imagine yourself that way. Poof. You’ll wake up thin.

Do I sound a little sarcastic? I can’t help it. I really can’t. I tried really hard not to sound that way. I tried very hard to believe.

But what can I say? I’m a doubter.

But you know what? I sort of believe in it, too. Like, last week, I mentioned to a friend that I needed a contact at Philadelphia Magazine because I’d like that magazine to do a profile of me when my book is released in 2011. Well, don’t you know, the very next day I walked into the coffee shop that my husband and I own and I bumped into a former colleague that I had not seen in years. Do you want to guess what magazine he writes for? Come on, just a tiny little guess?

Yes, it was Philadelphia Magazine.

Here’s another Secret-dence. Just a couple days ago a friend left a status update on Facebook saying that she’d just come from a second interview for a job.  I replied something to the effect of, “Congratulations! You deserve that job. The job is yours. I’m manifesting it for you, right now!”

A few other people wrote similar things. Well you know what? She got the job, and she thanked all of us for helping her to get it.

At the same time? I really don’t believe in this crap. After all, if my thoughts are strong enough to attract anything I want to myself, why can’t my thoughts bend spoons, too? And I’m a catastrophic thinker. I see catastrophes 24-7. For instance, last week, I noticed a little scratch on the tip of my nose. I thought it might be skin cancer. Within a nanosecond, I vividly envisioned the surgery that would be needed to cut the cancer out of my nose. I would have to lose the tip of my nose. A surgeon would have to sew something else onto my nose to make it look normal again—maybe my thumb or my big toe. I’d have to wear a Band-aid on my face for weeks. I might look disfigured for the rest of my life.

I visualized this horrendous scenario with each and every once of my senses—because that is what we catastrophic thinkers do.

Did that visualization attract cancer cells to the tip of my nose? I don’t think so. Two days later, the little scratch was gone. It had completely healed up.

I know that bad thoughts do not lead to bad events because I think bad thoughts nearly constantly. If bad thoughts came true, nearly every plane I’ve ever ridden on would have crashed. Nearly every bank that I’ve ever stepped foot inside would have been robbed by masked men with big honking machine guns. My house would have burned down. New York would be under water. The Earth would have blown up. Everyone I know would have Ebola and the people I don’t know would have flesh-eating disease.

And the doctors treating all of us would have swine flu.

I would have died many times over by now.

See? It just can’t be true.

But perhaps I should have the tip of my nose biopsied, just to be sure. After all, I just wrote about it in this blog post. If that’s not tempting bad fate, I don’t know what is.

And see? That’s the conundrum. Aren’t we all drawn to magical thinking every now and then? For instance, I’d like to know:

1. When you blow out a birthday candle, do you make a wish?
2. When you have a very important letter—one that could either be an acceptance letter or a rejection letter–do you make a wish and try to put some sort of positive magic spell on that letter before you open it?

I do these things. I wish on stars. I wish on rainbows. I wish on wishbones.

I make wishes. The universe is filled with my wishes.

Because, even though I don’t believe in good luck charms and hocus pocus, I have to wonder. What if Rhonda Byrne is onto something? What if wishes really could come true?

Then I’d better play it safe and make a few—just in case.

Part 3: Is positive thinking dead?

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