This could get ugly

Listening to: Breathe, Télépopmusik

Sorry but I have to vent my spleen.

Some people close to me have been preaching the much hyped book The Secret to me lately and it's really getting on my tit.

I say preaching because to me that is exactly what it seems. Praising and pushing something you believe onto another person is the same as a Seventh Day Adventist standing at your door step preaching their beliefs... and just as annoying. Except it's easier to tell a stranger to buzz off than someone who is near and dear to me.

And I personally believe that the connection to religion does not stop at preaching. Believers of The Laws of Attraction, as laid out in the book, seem to have found a new religion - Interesting that the word Sect can be found in Secret. Those who are currently preaching to me are Catholic educated but not necessarily practising to the full extent of the faith. Maybe they've lost some of their faith in god or their church, to which the author of The Secret, Rhonda Byrne (a fellow Melbournian I'm sorry to say) has managed to tap into that hole left by the exit of one omnipotent being and replaced it with another omnipotent being they call The Universe.

But hang on a minute! Isn't The Universe something physical? The result of the Big Bang 13 Billion+ years ago? Wikipedia describes The Universe as: Everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and constants that govern them.

The way I see it - admittedly as an atheist - asking The Universe to fulfil your wishes is exactly the same as praying (to god or gods, saints, idols, deities, etc.). You are voicing your wishes and by doing so projecting a feeling of hope and positiveness.

And it is more likely that being of a positive attitude opens the mind to positive outcomes and tunes the mind to identify situations that would benefit your desires.

The opposite is also possible, where being of a negative frame of mind brings to focus more of the undesirable things in life. How many times have you heard someone explain a series of unfortunate events? "I had an awful day. I had a fight with my partner over breakfast. Missed my bus. Eventually got to work and the boss screamed at me for being late. Everything and everyone at work drove me nuts. And to top it all off I lost my wallet on the way home". Now, ask yourself, would all these things have gone wrong if the complainant had made mad passionate love to their partner instead of arguing with them? Sure they may still have been late to work but would they have been annoyed about being yelled at when the reason for being late was a nice bit of rumpy-pumpy? I doubt it. More likely they would continue smiling right throughout the day regardless of how many obstacles were put in front of them.

A Google search finds possibly thousands of staunch followers of The Secret willing to defend their new found answer to all their problems to anyone who dares to question it. And plenty of others who are more than willing to criticise the concept. Much like any two opposing groups - Mac vs Windows is a fine example - rarely will the two agree.

Before my recent encounters at the altar of the New Believers of The Secret, I had heard of the book but thought it's not for me but good luck to anyone who finds what they're looking for in its pages. But now I despise the thing and its author for corrupting the minds of people who are dear to me and now think that what they have learned is perfect for everyone. I am then forced to impart on them my beliefs: "I have come this far without believing in divine intervention I'm not about to start believing in any other kind of non-physical intervention."

I have no problem with people believing in something that they feel provides them with answers to their well-being. I DO have a problem with people telling me what I should believe.

Whilst Googling The Secret (to better my understanding of what all the hype is about) I stumbled across a book called The Luck Factor by British psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman (a wise man indeed). Prof. Wiseman studied two types of people; those who consider themselves exceptionally lucky and those who consider themselves exceptionally unlucky. His research (that's right, good old fashioned scientific research) identified four characteristics of lucky people: 1. Maximise Chance Opportunities, 2. Listen to Lucky Hunches, 3. Expect Good Fortune, and 4. Turn Bad Luck into Good Luck.

Thus, Prof. Wiseman's studies found that lucky people aren't born lucky as such but have instead unknowingly developed the above four principles through life experiences (Another, humourous, possibility is offered in one of my all time favourite TV shows, Red Dwarf. In the episode, Quarantine from series VIII, Lister, Kryten and The Cat have been confined to quarantine by Rimmer who has gone insane after being infected with a virus and has shut off oxygen to the room they're locked in. To escape, Kryten injects Lister with another virus, one that gives him immense luck, so he can correctly "guess" the PIN on a security keypad. See this video - skip through to 2 minutes, 50 seconds to view the scene I just described - makes me laugh every time I see it).

As a person who believes destiny is created by individuals, rather than appearing like magic out of thin air, I find this concept of creating one's own fortune easier to grapple with than "asking" for fortune from an omnipotent being. I'm sorry, but if you receive a pay rise or a bonus after asking The Universe for more money, you're selling yourself short (and The Universe didn't provide the job for you either. Your CV, cover letter and actions during the interview(s) are what made your employer decide to take you on). Please consider why your employer would offer this to you. Surely your manager wouldn't ask his superiors to go to their superiors to go to the board and ask for more money for poor old you even though you're completely useless at your job. You worked for it, you deserve to be rewarded. Don't distance yourself from what you have achieved.

Logic tells me that if I am optimistic and convey that optimism then people I meet will pick up on that. And the more people I meet maximises the chance that I will find someone who can be of some benefit to help me achieve my desires. Whether it be a new job, a relationship or publishing my book.

On the other hand. If I go around telling everyone I meet that I'm asking The Universe to help me out of a pickle then the majority of the people I meet will think I'm a fruitcake.

And if you seriously believe that you got that new house for the price you wanted because you asked The Universe, you're crazy. It's actually because the price you offered was suitable to the seller. If you offered $50 and the seller accepted (and the place wasn't built on top of an old toxic waste dump, or on the edge of a badly eroded cliff face, or riddled with termites, or some such seriously devaluing scenario) I'd still be inclined to believe it was more to do with luck than intervention by an omnipotent being... especially one that's 93 Billion Light Years across.

End of discussion.


Actually, my rant has been beneficial to Coma City. The main character needs a lot of good fortune to get him out of mess he finds himself in. I can probably build some of the arguments I used tonight into the story.

On a personal level, the four principles of luck would benefit me greatly at the moment. I shall look further into The Luck Factor.