A fellow golfer sat on a gold mine. Trouble is, he didn't know it.
He told me one day, long ago, about the mental aspect of the game, and how, with proper thinking, a duffer like me could shave strokes merely by picturing success each time I swung a club.
When you end up driving the water and putting the ball within 10 feet of the cup, you of course credit this positive mind-set. When you find yourself ankle-deep in the ooze with your ball-retriever in hand, you blame yourself for not thinking hard enough about hitting the right shot.
So goes "The Secret", the latest self-help phenomenon. It's a book, it's a DVD, it's an all-consuming media firestorm that got a nudge from Ellen DeGeneres before Oprah Winfrey worked the masses into a lather with not one but TWO entire shows about it. Her O-ness says she's been a devotee all her life. Here I thought her success was the result of talent and a "can do" attitude used to battle extraordinary odds at a time when minority women in the media were there only to fill EOE requirements. Using this theory, I should've been anchoring the CBS Evening News after Walter Cronkite stepped aside 25 years go--Lord knows, I sure thought about it.
We brought "The Secret" up with listeners who'd bought it, and most said the same thing: think, and it shall happen. If it doesn't, you obviously aren't thinking hard enough.
Some pan "The Secret", saying it focuses too much on material things while poo-pooing the virtues of hard work/sacrifice. Others say it's a thin concept fattened up by marketing genius.
I like the idea of a positive mind set, but I know a sink of dishes won't get done by me merely sitting on my sofa imagining the plates back in the cupboard, no matter how hard I furrow my brow.
Then again, "The Secret" sounds a lot about what my Lutheran catechism teachers told us about prayer--if you want something , ask God. He, with the capital "H", answers all prayers, they said. Don't expect a flaming "NO" written in the clouds--sometimes the Almighty answers with a resounding silence. And, if you don't get it, well, those are the cards the Lord is dealing you in the great sheepshead game of life.
"Newsweek" kicks "The Secret" around this week. Read it at:
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