My Secret

Several years ago an Australian woman named Rhonda Byrne wrote a book which spawned a movie, and together the two made $300 million. More than 19 million copies of the book had been sold by the spring of 2007, earning $12 million, not counting the profits from 2 million DVDs. Today Rhonda is likely lolling on a South Seas island counting her lucre from the sale of her great idea. The book was called The Secret, and anyone who knows anything about anything knows that it's just a rehash of The Power of Positive Thinking, written 50 years ago by Norman Vincent Peale, with a dash of How to Win Friends and Influence People, written in 1936 by Dale Carnegie. The secret was that there really is a sucker born every minute, among them my old friend Nancy who bought the whole package and started attending weekly "Secret meetings," and talk-show diva Oprah Winfrey who helped popularize The Secret by giving it her blessing on TV and in her monthly magazine.

The "secret" was that if you think good things, good things will happen to you and if you think bad things, bad things will happen to you. I believe this to be a crock, however I would be all but penniless were it not for the generosity of my husband combined with the marital laws in this country, so what do I know? Who can think very good thoughts these days, what with all the horrors of everyday life and death and insane fanatics holed up in shopping malls for four days shooting random strangers, but hey, maybe it's time to turn it all around. Perhaps everyone should start thinking good things, and even write books that spawn movies that sell a lot of DVDs and end up lolling on some beach somewhere too. Yes, that's it, that is exactly what we should do.