"The Secret" Book Review

        I would give the book, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne a three-star rating. This book aims to reveal the secret to life in a small coffee table book form. It addresses the basic points to life: money, relationships, health, the world, your self, and life in general. This book explains how we can achieve/gain the secret to life in each of these areas by basically positive thinking. If we think that it should be ours then it will be ours. If we think we are worthy of love, we shall receive love; if we think about money positively and the inflow of money, then the money will flow in instead of out. Ms. Byrne states, with the use of quotes provided for her book by an array of contributors, that it is essentially about the energy you give out in life. Positive energy will bring positive reactions, situations, outcomes, and people; while negative energy breeds negative thoughts that breed negative outcomes in life. That these come from the “laws of attraction”, basically stating that what you give to the world in terms of energy is what you will receive back. People attract the kind of energy that they exude. It is all about what we think in our minds if we think happy thoughts and treat people well and give our time and money without regard then we will reap the rewards of a fulfilled happy life, as smiles are contagious. However, the opposite is just as true with anger breeding anger. People cannot walk around feeling and acting like an Eeyore and expect to get all the breaks in the world, negative energy attracts negative energy which is why misery loves company, or so it thinks it does. The book says that if we simply ask for what we truly want and believe that we deserve to get it then we will receive it in its best form.

        While I would like to say this book is a load of horse crap I actually cannot say the whole thing is. I am a firm believer in what it is essentially saying. In no way do I think that when I personally come off abrasive and blunt that I am not going to get those reactions back, I know this, and I except this because to me it is me being true to myself. I do not for one minute think that when I constantly bitch about how bad my job sucks that one day it will miraculously change and be the dream job. It will not, nor do I want it to be, if I were to exude an energy that I loved my job, despite its great pay, then I wouldn’t strive so hard to leave it. While it takes horrible amounts of negative energy (that is more taxing on me than happy energy) to hate my job, if I let myself love it I will not leave it and therefore I will be settling for something that I feel very strongly is not a place that allows me to grow as a person. When it comes to my relationships, I am not blind to the fact that I am in love with projects, men and women/ friends and lovers, and by bitching about them I keep myself at a safe distance from them so that I help them with what I can but don’t get too attached to them because if I should succeed then they will be a bird and fly away. I shield my heart from hurt. I know this about myself and I know exactly what energy to exude in what situation to breed the results I want. I know what it means to look someone in the eye when I talk to them and what it means when they don’t look me in the eye back and it takes every piece of who I am to give everything I can of myself to help a person understand what makes their life so unhappy. For this is get tired, for this I get few places fast, for this I learned patients, for this is what it is to feel alive. For most people energy makes no sense because ignorance is bliss but for some, like myself, conscious awareness is so exhausting that everything takes a lot longer to achieve but the pain assures life and the rewards are much greater, however, the price is sheltered self-induced loneliness. We give to get.

        My three-star rating, however, comes from the presentation of the book. It is ridiculously cliché. Though I understand for the audience she is trying to reach many will respond well to her choice, as apparently they have since it was funded into a movie. Personally, it just doesn’t appeal to me and makes reading something like it seem like a joke. Along with the fact that what she is saying is no “secret” but again that’s a societal misconception. The truth is always the secret and the lie is always perceived true. The secret, to me, is that way too many people have way to much free time they think isn’t free time to turn dirty laundry into gold and throw out common sense.