The Secret: Yep, That’s My Book №7
Were you tagged in the 7-Day Book Challenge? If so, what were the 7 books you chose to share?
Every year, my sister sets herself a challenge to read a minimum of 52 books. To date, she’s already read 102 books. Bookworm? For sure. As a matter of fact, she joined The Bookworm Club as a kid. Overachiever? Most definitely. Not human? I’ve always had my suspicions.
Anyway, she tagged me in that Facebook challenge where, if you got tagged, you’ll have to share 7 books, 1 per day, and you have to tag a friend in each one.
My first 6 books were:
1. Neil Gaiman’s Marvel 1602
2. Neil Gaiman’s American Gods
3. Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit
4. Alice Hoffman’s The Museum of Extraordinary Things
5. Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink
6. Helene Wecker’s The Golem and the Djinni
For Book №7, I was wondering if I should reveal my secret obsession with Rick Riordan’s YA novels on Greek gods and mythologies, affirm how awesome Madeline Miller’s Circe is, or remind everyone how addictive I found Ken Liu’s Dandelion Dynasty series.
In the end, I decided on this:
It’s somewhat of an embarrassing choice considering how so many people view The Secret as some kind of new-age feel-good hocus-pocus. Mark Manson considers The Secret “bullshit”. When it came out in 2006, I was on the side of the haters.
But 10 years after I dissed it, I decided to give The Secret a shot.
I don’t want to dwell on the situations that led me to consider reading The Secret. The best way to describe its effect on me was that the fog in my life had finally lifted and I was able to see what was in front of me again.
1. Negativity is self-perpetuating
A large part of the book talks about the Law of Attraction. If you keep obsessing over your money problems, you’re never going to be able to extricate yourself from them. Similarly, if you think about attracting money into your life, you’ll ultimately be able to grow your wealth.
So, if you keep thinking negatively about something, you’re always going to focus on what’s bad about it and you’ll never be able to see its good. I’ve become acutely aware that whenever I find myself looking at something or someone in a bad way, it is extremely difficult to remove the prejudice. It takes a conscious effort to STOP that negativity in its track. So, if you ever find yourself thinking negative thoughts, break the cycle.
2. Visualisation matters
When all hope seems lost, it’s challenging to visualise yourself in a better position. But if you keep seeing yourself as disadvantaged, you are always going behave like you’ve got something to prove. On the other hand, if you can visualise yourself in a good place, your behaviour is going to be markedly different, and this affects the way people behave around you.
3. Be specific
The book instructs that when we ask the Universe for something, we need to be specific. “Vague questions get vague answers”, it tells us. If you look at it from a broader perspective, being specific is a skill. Especially for women.
We are often too afraid to be specific with our requests because we don’t want to be seen as demanding and entitled.
“I guess it would be kinda great if we can review my salary?” No. We should be saying, “I would like a pay increment of no less than $500.” Instead of, “Maybe clean up the flat a bit?”, say, “Please clean the house while I’m away for the weekend”.
At the very core of it, The Secret is really about helping people get out of their funk. It got me out of mine (trust me, I experienced more than my fair share of eye-rolling when I told friends about this book) because I couldn’t see beyond the misery, disappointment, and helplessness I was experiencing then.
It’s not a book for everyone, but it was a book that made a difference to my life at a time when I’d believed my life could not change for the better.
8 down, 55 to go.
