El secreto...

Hace tiempo no posteo nada por estos lares. Nuevamente una gran combinación de excusas me vienen a la mente; pero el caso es que no quiero dejar vació este lugar ni un minuto más. Sin embargo, me encuentro un tanto ocupado, de forma que no tengo el tiempo ni la inspiración para crear un post decente. Pero no teman; al menos el día de hoy tendrán algo que leer.

El siguiente artículo lo escribí hace tiempo, cuando el “grandioso” libro del Secreto estaba “pegando con todo”. Para los que me conocen, saben que pocas cosas me molestan más que la charlatanería pura, por ello escribí lo siguiente. El texto está en inglés porque en su momento lo redacté para una página/blog en dicho idioma.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s been a while since the bestselling book The Secret took the world by “surprise” with its all powerful law of attraction. But what it’s still surprising for me is how many people have actually adapted their lives and beliefs to work around the fantastic (as in fantasy) premise. All in all, the book is yet another self help publication that has taken itself way too seriously.

Now, I don’t want people getting all cranky at this article, I’m all in favor of positive thinking and improving one self. And you can choose to do so by working on you strengths and weakness, getting the most of your life and actually trying to be happy; or, reading pseudo-scientific books on the matter.

Most fans of the law of attraction will argument that it indeed works, some will even claim that it has changed their life forever, just as the book wants us to think. But in the end, it is no more than a handful of carefully picked stories that reflect the good sided part of all the chaos that this universe is.

The book tries to justify the outrageous claims of the law of attraction in a “scientific” form, stating that this thing is as real as the law of gravity. They throw in some made up stuff about the magnetic properties of thoughts and stir them with some overgeneralizations about universe energies and misinterpreted quantum physics statements.

The average reader, confused by the apparent scientific and serious tone of the publication and dazed by this nonsense mix of concepts, feels overwhelmed to believe that this “law” is in fact the way the universe works. Hundreds of years dedicated to science and the only thing that we needed to know on how the totality of the universe works were the wise and insightful words of Rhonda Byrne.

Now, let’s get a reality check here. Do you really think that you can get anything you desire just by attuning yourself to the universe and thinking positively about it? Are you telling me that to generate wealth I don’t have to go out there to educate myself, work, save money, plan my expenses, generate short and long term goals and overcome the difficulties of today’s economy? No, I just have to think that I will receive wealth and envision myself with all those bars of gold.

Don’t get me wrong, this book helps motivate people; and motivation is one of the keys to success. My problem here is that this “Secret” misleads people into thinking they can get everything the easy way. Just wanting and focusing on their goals and desires.

So war, famine, recession, sickness and disaster were all brought upon us because we are a bunch of negative persons angry at the universe. I bet those dinosaurs would have truly benefited from this “secret”, avoiding that Earth shattering catastrophic event that terminated their existence.

The book tries to explain this kind of events with the same level of disregard of logic and sense that plagues the rest of the book. “The Secret” tries to sell me the idea that the holocaust took place because all these jews somehow attuned the frequency of their thoughts to the frequency of this terrible event. So this tells me that all the people at Hiroshima and Nagasaki somehow envisioned themselves in the catastrophe that was the atomic bomb launch? Or that all the innocent people that lost their lives on September 11 somehow brought their fate upon them?

Now, let’s say that both person A and person B desire the most recent job opening. Both put in practice the law of attraction to its fullest potential. Who gets the job? Well, probably the person who attunes better with the universe’s energies right? Now, what if a random C person also wants B to get the job? C uses the all so powerful law of attraction as well, in which case B nails the deal.

So here we are, with our sad little A, wondering why on earth he couldn’t get the job. He used the law of attraction after all, the incredibly powerful handle of the universe. C was just a random occurrence right, something out of A’s control. Well, I got news. There is an infinite number of occurrences out of our control, and envisioning ourselves on top of the world will not stop C from hiring B because, you know what? C hates A with a raging passion.

It is perfectly healthy to try to improve ourselves so we can have a shot at attaining happiness, but you will require more than just positive thinking and a good attitude if you want to succeed. There isn’t really a secret to it. If you want something, go out there and work for it; don’t sit down and try to “attune” yourself with the all powerful energy of the universe.