The Secret
Last week I attended a lecture/discussion about networking, presented by a local graphic design/advertising magazine publisher. During the chat, the subject of creative visualization popped up. Creative visualization is simple: imagine yourself being successful at something and eventually success will begin to happen. It’s not new age hocus pocus, the universe has nothing to do with it (as far as I’m concerned), it’s just a confidence-building thing. And it does actually work, within reason. Who’s ever successful when they go into a situation imagining their failure? If anyone has any doubts, read Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Blink.” That’ll clear things up.
At one point during the chat, a DVD called “The Secret” was mentioned. Not by the presenter, but by one of the students. It DID sound like new age hocus pocus, so I decided to read up on it. I went to Amazon.com and checked out some reviews and read some of the discussions.
Holy crap… Holy HOLY crap… Have people lost their minds? You can’t just picture getting something and then get it, that doesn’t actually work. Some of these idiots, though, are convinced this is the case. One wingnut had the gall to state that people in poor countries earning less than $2/day CHOSE to be born into that life and CHOOSE to remain.
Oh, rilly?
Luckily a person who has a firm grasp of reality pointed out how these people who supposedly CHOOSE to stay die fighting their tyrannical governments, are shot when crossing borders, are publicly executed when they rebel, etc. No amount of “The Secret” would help these people because they don’t have the resources (weapons, planes, cars, etc.) to gain freedom.
Sounds like classic Manifest Destiny to me. I mean, why not look at the entire planet in an America-centric manner? If it can work here, it can work anywhere, right? Folks that aren’t rich us MUST be lazy or something.
Pfft… Secret of the universe, my ass.
My opinion? While there is confidence-building merit to simple creative visualization, “The Secret” is BS. Without the resources to get what you want, good luck creating your future through visualization.
