Imagine being able to control everything in your life. You can be rich, healthy and in love. You can be living in your dream house, driving your dream car and going home to your dream wife/husband. According to the idea of laws of attraction, you can. The book and documentary entitled "The Secret by Australian author Rhonda Byrne explains how the power of the mind can control your future. Many successful figures in history believed in this viewpoint, like Einstein, Lincoln and Emerson. "The Secret that has traveled through generations tells you simply that the universe is a catalogue and you can have whatever you desire. Following the three simple steps, you will get what you want: Ask, believe and receive. The film (and book) is created based on interviews with people from different fields that believe in the secret like spiritual messengers, moneymaking experts, feng shui masters and more. It is filled with dramatized examples and interviews to make it easier to understand. So basically, even if you are not aware of it, everything that comes to you, you are attracting by images you see in your mind. People usually think of what they don't want, thus attracting it. An example they give is a gay employee who gets harassed at work, on the streets and when he tries to perform in a stand-up comedy show. The reason this is happening, according to "The Secret, is because in his head he is thinking: "I will be harassed because I am gay, so this is what he attracts. Once he discovered the secret, he changed his thoughts and his life follows. Luckily a positive thought is stronger than a negative thought, so don't worry too much about monitoring your thoughts. For example, a person who believes that money is hard to make, will probably never make money. On the other hand, if someone believes money comes easy, then it will. The point is happy attracts happy. If you ask for love, the universe will respond. If you feel like you deserve to be loved, and love yourself first, this is what you will attract. An example of the secret in the context of relationships is a painter who had no luck with women and ideally wants to date three women a week. He was told by "The Secret advocator that because he paints women giving him their back they will not come to him. She recommended that he starts painting himself with three women in each painting, and soon after he became a serial dater. Later the painter went to her and said he was bored, and wanted to fall in love and settle down. She told him to draw himself in a romantic relationship, and within a year he fell in love and got married. When it comes to health, there's an example of a breast cancer patient who believed from day one that she will recover. Everyday she said, "Thank you for my healing, even before she started the healing process. Three months later, she beat the cancer without any chemotherapy or other medical interventions. Similar optimistic stories are told throughout the book and documentary. It is no wonder it has become such a hit around the world being the subject of chatrooms, and the topic of conversation between friends and colleagues. But from a skeptical point of view, is it onto something or is this just a wonderfully marketed self-help book? "'The Secret' was good and informative, yet a bit unrealistic and too 'Americanized' for my taste, but it certainly shed some light on my life and opened my eyes to a lot of things that just made sense to me, says Shaden Fawaz, a public relations executive who watched the documentary recently. Maha El Sherif, a teacher who has read the book says, "I do believe you should think positive, but that's no secret. Whether or not everything in "The Secret is true, it's only logical that thinking positive is more beneficial than thinking negative. Still, one should be a little skeptical about this theory and only take it as a guideline to a better life as opposed to a sacred ideology, she said. It may be a bit naïve to believe that "The Secret holds the key to everything we want in our lives, but it is definitely worth a try. After all, what have we got to lose?
