Patience Kanda
Raising Your Voice

The tsunami of news, reviews, and controversies over the “Secret” washed over the world about three years ago. It was all over best-selling booklists and even Oprah shed some of her attention onto this motivational book and DVD. It was not until recently that I actually picked up the book, hoping for some kind of inspiration.
According to the “Secret,” all of our thoughts are submitted to the Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction being the simple energy that like attracts like. If a person thinks that they are poor and that life is a struggle, then they will attract poor and difficult circumstances.
Now, I was pretty skeptical about this whole process at first. How can someone become rich simply by thinking rich thoughts?
Despite my reservations though, I kept reading with an open mind. The book told me to be thankful for everything I had in my life, for my friends, my family, even the eyes which allowed me to read those very words.
It said that everything we emit, everything we are, every thought, is energy, or bodies are fundamentally just energy. If you think of things that way, we will have higher energies when we are happier, when we are grateful. So according to the “Secret,” we must be thankful always, so that we put out a higher frequency into the universe, and then ultimately we will get what we want.
I actually began to start liking this stuff. I applied it to my everyday life although I do admit there were times when I doubted the “Secret.” I would sit back and think you are absolutely unrealistic if you believe in this stuff. It was not however, the benefits and the materialistic promises that the “Secret” expressed that kept me believing.
Instead, it was the actual feelings that practicing the secret brought me. I was happier. I was probably ten times more positive than I had been a week ago, and I started living a brighter and happier life altogether.
Perhaps it was waking up and instantly being thankful for everything I already had. Perhaps it was constantly forcing myself to think of what I wanted in the future. Or perhaps it was the little things that seemingly came out of nowhere.
Suddenly, I actually started receiving the tiniest of things. A freeProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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ottle of Skintimate shaving cream that they were giving out at my job, just in the nick of time because I had run out the night before! I was charged for a tall cup of coffee at Starbucks but received a grande size instead because they had run out of tall sized cups. Lastly, I had the sudden craving for a chocolate bunny one night and posted it on my Facebook status. Within a couple of seconds a friend who lived down the hall from me said he’d gladly give me his chocolate bunny!
Now these may all be very little things. Just here and there instances but they all occurred within a week of each other. Whether it actually was the Secret and the Law of Attraction at woProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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, I cannot say. I can say this though: I would have never noticed any of these tiny pleasures if I had not learned about the “Secret” or how to be thankful.
I do not know if the “Secret” really works, and I can’t say that I’ve suddenly been turned into a millionaire. I am however, happier, more organized, a lot more grateful, and I see things from a different viewpoint. Every day I wake up and I am thankful for the day that is ahead, I smile because I know that good things are about to happen to me, and I am genuinely happy.
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pkanda@mesastate.edu