The self-help industry provides incontrovertible evidence that the world is full of an alarming number of people who will believe anything you tell them. How else to explain the success of something like The Secret? The Secret (although it appears not to be much of a secret anymore) is the weird bastard offspring of an unholy union between trippy New Age philosophy and infomercial marketing. Its pitch is essentially this: wishes do come true. Whatever it is want in life–money, success, that hottie in the cubicle across from yours–will be given to you by the universe if you want it badly enough. Those who don’t get their heart’s desires are simply not fervent enough in their wishing. But the fact that I do not yet have a supremely competent nurse named Kandi who has the measurements of a porn starlet, a talent for giving great back rubs, and a deep inability to respect boundaries is reason enough to suspect this theory’s validity.
And then there’s the Thank God I…[insert your personal tragedy or crisis here] series of books. These books are meant to be inspirational and with titles like Thank God I Was Physically Abused and Thank God I Was Raped, it’s hard not to feel that Someone Up There loves you. Future titles include Thank God I Had That Female Circumcision and Thank God I Discovered Heroin.
I understand the seduction of anything that promises to make sense of a chaotic and indifferent world, but it’s a little troubling that so many people are compelled to ascribe reasons to life’s tragedies and disappointments. And they’re willing to hand over their hard-earned money to purveyors of cheap bromides and empty promises.
Love the glass 1/2 empty attitude.