I recently read the hot literary smash known as The Secret, which I’m aware has also been made into a film. The message this book has to impart is three-fold and goes as follows:
1. Think positive thoughts and good things will happen to you.
2. Think negative thoughts and bad things will happen to you.
3. You are what you think.
If this sounds like a worthy but repetitive message, I believe you’re right. I also believe I’ve saved you 190 pages reiterating the above, although you should read the book anyway because you may not be convinced by me just saying so that The Secret works.
As it always has. James Allen put this philosophy into words in the masterful As A Man Thinketh, published in 1902. Dale Carnegie developed an entire course of seminars based on the same principle. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale shouted it in The Power of Positive Thinking. And before all of them, Plato and Socrates may have been the first ones in the house. Sadly, The Secret’s now best-selling author paid only marginal tribute to these predecessors whose works were far more eloquent. But you can’t say she didn’t make her point.
I felt that point when I read her book and realized with horror that I was personally responsible for the destruction of Secret Weapon. Don’t roll your eyes, but Secret Weapon is a hair finishing crème by John Frieda that I’ve used every day for the past eight years. In case you didn’t know, women who wear their hair curly often use finishing crèmes so they don’t look like Little Orphan Annie. Even the most killer black dress loses its power if you have Bozo hair. So every morning, EVERY MORNING, as I scrunch my curls with Secret Weapon, I say a mantra in my head to the John Frieda company, “Please don’t ever stop making Secret Weapon.”
Of course, it turns out that this was a negative thought because it has the word ‘don’t’ in it. The word ‘don’t’, according to The Secret, invites failure because the Universe only hears that word so it doesn’t give you what you’re asking for. Apparently the Universe has attention deficit and can’t sit still long enough to hear the rest of your message. As a result of this ignorance on my part, the John Frieda company got a message from the Universe to put a pineapple fragrance into their Secret Weapon along with some other mystery ingredient which must be known by the chemists who created it as ‘fatal goo’.
So now the Universe, in conjunction with John Frieda, has turned me into that person in the drugstore you see secretly smelling beauty products. The one who turns away from the security camera as she flips the top on a tube and furtively takes a whiff. I know you always thought she was just off her meds as you steered your cart to a different aisle, one without her in it. I’m here to tell you she’s not a mental case. In fact, she’s very well read. She’s just looking for the pre-pineapple finishing cremes. And now you too know The Secret.
Daughter’s Fotos were taken at the annual New York Chocolate Show at Pier 94, and spotlight two of her favorite things: Superheroes and Chocolate.
the dark chocolate knight
sweet
superchocolatehero
web of cocoa