Category: success

People have been asking me for ages what I think of The Secret. After putting it off for far too long, I recently acquired a copy and now have an opinion; actually, several opinions.

The thing that first grabbed my attention wasn’t the book itself but the way people asked about it — as if they feared expressing their own doubts; didn’t dare question such a successful phenomenon (‘success’ meaning huge sales). It’s a disconcerting fact that many people look over their shoulder to see what others think before voicing an opinion.

The book jumps quickly into the meat of the matter: you get what you wish for; if you don’t, you’re not wishing properly. Surely that’s no secret; it was exactly what I was taught as a child, though instead of ‘wishing,’ it was called ’prayer.’ It tortured me that my prayers weren’t answered. It was obviously my fault; you can’t blame God.

As I renounced the nonsense heaped on me in the name of religion, I got on with life and discovered that in fact one does tend to get what one truly wishes for. My childhood problem had been that I thought that I could just make up wishes as I went along, like ‘lots of money,’ or ‘an intimate relationship with my father,’ or simply, ‘staying out of trouble.’ What I learned is that wishes are never far from dreams; they’re to be discovered, not invented. You get to any destination you truly focus on; assuming you persist, where else would you end up?

Well that’s the meat of the matter, and there’s tons and tons of meat in The Secret. The basic tenet of wishing is repeated in every conceivable way, with quotes from notables like the two Alberts (Einstein and Schweizer). Who am I to contradict them? The trouble is, I know Einstein’s writings, and saw at once that his words were out of context, and considerably shallower than the man himself. In fact, that’s a good adjective for the book: shallow; or, if you insist, meaty — but in a very indigestible way.

If only that were the worst of it. The Secret, which is lauded as a work of spirituality, is founded upon, and never questions, the premise that getting what you want makes you happy. That, of course, is the prime tenet of consumerism. Watch a few TV ads this evening and you’ll see what I mean. Buy Tide and your clean laundry will make you beam just like the pretty lady. Don’t you want her smile, her joy?

The secret of The Secret is that it tells us exactly what we want to hear. Its author Rhonda Byrne is a TV writer and producer who’s tapped lucratively into New-Age positivity (positive thinking, the law of attraction, healing, life force, creative visualization, and personal power). These magical beliefs are thought to be spiritual simply because they’re intangible, but I beg to differ. I find nothing but worldliness in the notions that we don’t need to learn from our screw-ups, that we just have to wish harder, that there’s no need to question the wisdom of what we want and can assume it’s the gateway to joy, that money, power, prestige and success are what life is all about. Where’s the spirituality? Perhaps in recognizing mind as the root of all happiness and sorrow; on that one idea I agree. However, that’s just an idea. With the book, I disagree wholeheartedly. It’s condescending.

Ah! Now I understand why people hesitate to criticize. How could I possibly take issue with all the rest of it? Must be jealousy, or plain pig-headedness. The book’s sold four million copies, so how on earth could so many people be so wrong? How many books have I sold?

Sorry, I still beg to differ. I beg you to differ too, at least a bit. Read it and use it; there are some nuggets in there, but please please come to your own judgement; don’t swallow it hook, line and sinker.

Believers in The Secret might find me a fuddy-duddy in insisting that there’s work to be done in our search for happiness. Sorry, I just don’t have an aversion to hard work, or to hard knocks for that matter. The pursuit of life and its mysterious ups and downs is just what the human mind was made to figure out. Go figure.

Last weekend I was the fortunate recipient of some critical advice. I wasn’t expecting it, I didn’t ask for it and I really had no idea how to fit it into my life, but it was delivered with the assurance that it came from the heart and would benefit me greatly. It was rather like receiving a Christmas sweater that the giver knows is ‘you,’ but which in fact you wouldn’t be caught dead in. According to the rules of etiquette, however, thanks are in order. Who among us isn’t placed from time to time in this awkward position?

To advise someone effectively, a true benefactor will neither assume that he or she fully knows the recipient’s needs, nor pretend to thoroughly understand his or her predicament — if indeed there is one. This wasn’t the case last week, and I was mystified by the intrusion. Upon enquiring why I’d need such advice, I was accused of being ‘confrontational.’

Am I an ungrateful wretch? Convention insists that one shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but what of Trojan horses? Too often, they’re a convenient way to offload an intruder’s own unresolved issues in the guise of a free gift.

This particular benefactor isn’t a bad person; his helpful intentions, however, were certainly manipulative. In the reflective lifestyle, Step One of helping out is listening, and its helpmate, asking. Failing to listen means that one’s ‘help’ is little more than interference.

This failing is all too common; it affects not only individuals but also organizations. Look at the way the Catholic Church ‘saved’ heathens around the world, how the Canadian government ‘helped’ first nations peoples, and what the World Bank decides developing states ‘need.’ Today, at last, there is a greater tendency to listen before acting — but only because weaker peoples are finally finding their voice and demanding respect. Having more money or knowledge is no justification for making assumptions about others, let alone presuming to advise them, and yet it remains so common that few people think twice about it. In fact, donors who neither ask nor listen inevitably impinge upon the dignity of others.

As a teacher of mindful reflection, I’ve been asked how one reconciles kindness with discernment; after all, the truth isn’t always palatable. I can only talk from experience — I prefer to be kind, but I’ve learned that until I grasped self-respect, my attempts to respect others were a sham. Through learning to stand up for myself, I’ve discovered that there’s no helping anyone without first listening. This depends on scrutinizing one’s own intentions, which is where the great power of mindful reflection lies.

To understand (‘stand under’) someone’s situation means to put oneself in their shoes, to not simply jump in with one’s own opinions. The advice I received this last weekend came from someone who ‘knew better,’ who understood me so well that listening seemed to that person to be unnecessary. The result was not aid but alienation.

Like anyone I have my challenges, and if someone knows of useful shortcuts, I’m glad to take advantage — but to be useful it has to relate to my life as I experience it, not as they see it. Otherwise, how’s it going to work? Giving isn’t a one-way street; it’s a complex relationship in which two people interact for mutual gain. Generosity is one of the great human qualities, but simply handing out stuff is not generosity. The real thing requires mindful reflection.

Unlike most self-employed people, I’m quite content when things slow down. I have half a dozen projects on the go that, since they don’t produce any short-term income, usually take second place. Slow business enables me to work on my blog, my new book or my website makeover.

Sometimes, however, things are too slow. The recession that’s put millions out of work around the world seemed at first to not affect me, but last autumn I noticed that funds were not dribbling into my reserves any more; in fact, they were seeping out.

My first reaction was to assure myself that this was a blip on the radar, and that things would work out; I’d be a financial optimist. I recalled that I’ve always managed to land on my feet; that I don’t live in a war zone or a failed state; that I have resources.

Of course, that’s in the cold light of day. In the middle of the night, when panic sets in, I see money flowing out like a babbling brook down a steep mountainside. Worse, I slip one notch lower and see the universe holding me to account for my true nature: a failed human being, finally exposed for who I am.

Sometimes I have to actually get out of bed to shake off demons like this—I can’t do it in that half-conscious state that’s so susceptible to wild imaginings. It takes a few minutes, but I soon get a grip and realise that failure is just a way of seeing myself — a choice, though a subconscious and automated one.

I remember other times, when in a similar state of semi-slumber I saw the whole universe aligned with my hopes, sending bright rainbows to guide my way and pots of gold to reward me. In those times, I see another true self: this time a happy child of bounty!

It never ceases to amaze me how I get trapped by this nonsense—how on earth can I fall for such one-dimensional claptrap as my ‘true nature?’ My visions of total failure and utter success haven’t the least connection with reality; they’re just ways of seeing myself or, as Buddhists would say, seeing my self.

Notwithstanding the cute language, they’ve got a point. In this case, there’s clearly no such a person as ‘Stephen the total failure’ or ‘Stephen the bounteous boy.’ These aren’t just inaccuracies in need of correction; they’re complete fabrications with no bearing on reality.

Actually, that’s not true, and here lies the tragedy, I know from hard and embarrassing experience that I’ve at times fallen for them hook line and sinker, and they’ve guided my footsteps in very real ways. Visions of heaven and hell are interconnected. The harder I try to maintain the optimistic view, the sooner it collides with reality and leaves me with the pessimistic one. It’s a vicious, self-destructive cycle.

In these moments of lucidity I remember that those who present ‘spirituality’ as a wonderful world of positive thinking are off their rocker. I step into the spiritual life when I realise that the reality before me is workable, not a heaven- or hell-sent scenario; that the best perspective is one without projections of hope and fear. Then I can take stock of my situation, explore my resources and prosper.

Survival isn’t just a way of getting by; it’s a great teacher, a reminder that the spiritual life is material, and the material is spiritual. We can’t wrest one side of our nature from the other; we need both, and we need them integrated.

It was the end of a tiring, annoying day, and the overwhelming emotion was “bugger it!” Caroline would never employ such coarse language, of course, but she still expressed herself in a surprising way: “You can have all the purpose and meaning of life in the world,” she said, “or, you can just have a great glass of wine. It’s all the same in the end; I mean, we’re all going down — aren’t we?”

We looked at each other in shock for a moment before all the complicated emotions of the day exploded into laughter. The fact is, we both spend one day after another preoccupied with finding purpose and giving meaning to life — but there’s a point at which you just stop taking yourself seriously and let go. Sometimes short-term catharsis trumps profound universal truth.

The idea of Truth has driven ethical philosophers and spiritual seekers for thousands of years, and it’s not a bad thing, but it’s still just an idea. The reality of life is that no matter what we believe, we don’t know much, and probably never will. You might call ‘I don’t know’ the truth that underlies everything. It doesn’t mean we give up, or lose heart. It’s just that when it stands before you in all its irrefutable glory, words and ideas cease, not to mention pretentions of knowledge and righteousness. All that’s left is consciousness itself; it’s as if we’re tricked into pure mindfulness by the blatent bankrupcy of theorizing. It’s a good thing. There’s no harm in a glass of good wine, and there may be hidden splendors. In those moments of visceral mindfulness, it’s not what you do that matters; it’s how you do it.

Caroline and I were at our local drop-in clinic this morning. I carried a thick book to bide me through the wait while she swayed on her walking cane. She’s up and about, but not out of the woods. Like many medical waiting rooms, this one was packed and, it being February in Canada, everyone was bulky with coats, hats, scarves and boots; the heating was up high too. It would be enough to put anybody in a bad temper (well, me at least), but no—everyone looked on cheerily, eying Caroline as if they were just dying to jump to their feet for her. First, however, she had to hold down a form with her elbow while filling in her vitals and clutching her bag and cane in the other. Yes, I could have helped, but she’s thoroughly sick and tired of other people doing stuff for her that should be effortless; it takes considerable self-control sometimes to stand back and let her be.

She handed over the papers, someone offered a seat and down she sat. I was just heading outside to wait when two other people shifted themselves to free up a spot for me next to Caroline. Everyone exchanged chit-chat smilingly as they did so, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t find myself actually choking up at the innate kindness of human nature. Everyone was in there being nice to one another, unknowingly breaking down my cynicism, and thoroughly enjoying themselves.

People really are good, or at least they prefer to be when they have the opportunity and the mental space to pay attention to others. We’re so busy running around these days that we don’t really notice others unless our situation brings us together—in this case a clinic waiting room. How much easier it is to commiserate with others when we recall our own vulnerability.

Finally, I had the sort of relaxing Sunday morning I’ve been craving for months. I spent it doing laundry and ironing.

You think I’ve lost my marbles—right? Wrong. Actually, I was finding them.

I really feel these days that things aren’t the way they used to be. Our grandparents used to sit out on the back porch at night and chat with passing neighbours, but today we’re all rushing around multi-tasking. Those who lived before power saws, washing machines, dishwashers and electric irons had plenty to keep them busy, but their tasks also kept them focussed—they pondered while they worked. By default, that pondering might be no more than daydreaming or spacing out, but it can also be put to good use by bringing a mindful focus into the equation.

As I iron, I watch the flow of the iron over the shirt, slow down to adjust for every seam and avoid unnecessary creasing. I’m attentive to every detail, and aware of my attentiveness too. This sort of multi-layered attention is the essence of mindfulness. It sharpens your wits, improves concentration and keeps you in the present moment. It’s one of the most effortless forms of meditation, not just calming but also clarifying.

I learned years ago that the most mundane physical tasks are ideal ways to preoccupy the body and free up the mind in a healthy way. It’s a terrible waste to despise washing dishes, sweeping the floor and folding towels. It’s got to be done anyway. With mindfulness, putting your life in order puts your mind in order too. This is just practice; later on when I’m in a tough situation, that little bit of extra mental space makes all the difference between letting go of the stress and identifying with it.