Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover

In our desire to achieve our goals, whether in business or employment, we often rely on books, videos and other references to increase our chances of success. However, while there are gazillion of available materials to read, it’s sometimes hard to sieve which among them are worthy of our attention. Too often, we buy a book because some talk show host found the book to be a good read without considering the insights of those who do  not like it. In my case, I find it very convenient to read the reviews first before I buy. Amazon.com makes a pretty good review of the latest book releases (including old ones) coming from readers. 

Anyway, it's such a good thing to have been blessed with so many friends more specially those who genuinely care about you and your interests in life. Friends can be at times sentimentally and intellectually surprising but often surprisingly funny as well. And it was like more than five or six years ago that I was introduced to the "The Secret" frenzy by a friend of mine. And of course, I loathed it down to my last DNA strand. The reason being is that I am no fan of "serial optimists" who prey or make suckers out those who are sick, broke, jobless, sick and unlettered. They usually bombard their readers with anecdotal accounts of those who have made it big by thinking big and the rewards of thinking like Peter Pan.

It never crossed my mind to buy that book nor even want to waste my time reading even its cover page. But guess what? I recently got a complete set of the film version of The Secret sent by a friend which came with a post-it saying, "Enjoy, hahahahahah..." Hahaha, indeed!

Lest I be accused of being unreasonably against the book or its followers, but I did watch the video from start to finish without stops. If you ask me if I ever at least enjoyed some parts of it, I have to admit that the video was, and is still undoubtedly engaging. What makes it so deviously persuasive is the way they inoculate science into their “repackaged version” of positive thinking with interviews of physicists and some know-it-all guys that I don’t know who. It insinuates that “Hey, this stuff works because there is science to it.” The allusions to The Secret’s scientific backing are so well-stitched in the film enough to mesmerize even the sophisticated viewer. But of course, not everyone falls for this New Age baloney.  

Yes, positive thinking is good. And yes, positive thinking has benefits from a scientific standpoint. And I fully agree, that it is better to be positive-minded than to be a mega-nega. It is just that positive thinking as presented in The Secret tries to intimate that it cures all your worries in life from your annoying hemorrhoids to your insurmountable debts. The reader or the viewer is also led to the realm of the mystic and into believing the Law of Attraction – a law which according to its authors is inherent in the universe which favors those who think positive or “likes attract likes.” 

The theory on “likes attract likes” is not a universal law. It is a theory in sociology (more on social psychology) on human interaction on how people make connection with the people around them. People are drawn to each other not by just common interests alone or physical attraction. The theory even covers why opposites attract and that there are really many factors that comes into play in interpersonal relations -- from perspectives, to culture, and socio-economic background, and a whole lot of other things. The theory does not even mention about people getting attracted to positive thinkers.

From my personal experience with the film, I never regretted to have made an opinion against it even if I did not see it at first. Now that I have already seen it, I still loathe it the first time I heard of it. The only positive side to this film is that it invites people to be positive at all times.

But we cannot rest our fate in positive thinking alone. The wisdom of ages has taught us that the world is not always nice to us. We are endowed with the power to think in order to make a sense out of the unfortunate realities we face every day. hnd History tells us we are at our best when we are challenged by the adversities around us. That is why we see all these great inventions of the human mind. Thus, I do not think that the advancement of civilization was driven by just merely thinking or feeling good. These advances were mostly driven by the necessity or our desire to change for the better. And that’s how it actually goes. That’s how life goes. The wonders of the birds and the trees, and the things we see thrive not by their being positive thinkers but by their instinct to survive – ours, our human mind.

As I have said it’s good to be a positive thinker. It is a mistaken notion that positive thinking is synonymous to “hope” as most people tend to believe and as what the film tries to suggest. To think positive is not the same thing as hope. Positive thinking is choosing to see the bright side of life. While hope, in the words of Aristotle, is the dream of a waking man. And I choose hope.

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