I found The Secret

Media Credit: Grace Bentley [Click to enlarge]

In case you did not know, there is a secret to the universe. Lucky for our generation, it has been condensed into an hour-and-a-half long DVD aptly titled, "The Secret" - it has cool graphics. I know, I know: "I don't have 90 minutes to spare in this fast-paced world" you say. Well just for you, I'll condense it down to a 600-word column. The secret of life is the law of attraction. By using this natural rule, one is said to be able to receive anything and everything he or she desires. The video used the story of Aladdin and his magic lamp to explain.

The original story goes that Aladdin finds a magic lamp, rubs it and a genie appears who grants him infinite wishes. Anything he wanted, he received. The Secret states that any human has the power to get everything, like Aladdin, by simply asking the Universe through the vehicle of brain impulses. Every thought is a wave, a frequency that, The Secret says, a human projects outward into the Universe. Thus, if one wants to be a success and have a beautiful home to come to him, he needs to visualize that success coming to him (project the thought of success) and success will come. To simplify, "thoughts produce things."

It's a superb philosophy to life but its comes with baggage. In this case, you can have your cake and eat it too, but first the cake must be thrown in your face. (For the record, I don't eat cake.) To put your stock into The Secret, you must accept the notion that every bad thing that happens in your life is your fault. Our society focuses so much energy on what they don't want to happen - "I don't want to be late"; "I don't want to work" - that bad things often happen. Eliminate negative thoughts, the Secret says, eliminate bad things in your life.

According to The Secret, you brought on that car crash your self. Get dumped? Your fault. A group of douchebags gets pummeled in an alley. Their fault. New Orleans gets hit by Hurricane Katrina ... Hmmm. Well all this got me to thinking about how the University is a cesspool of whiners, criers and Negative Nancys. (The worst part is I'm one of them.)

By stating over and over again that the core of the University is that of gun-slinging, racist Ku Klux Klan members, the University community attracts discord to itself and progress is slowed. Lack of educational funding runs the same course. Departments are under-funded right now and educational funding is low because people must complain and play the blame game when anything goes wrong. The educational community needs to admit that it is to blame for its misfortunes, not the Athletic Department, and everything it wants will come.

At least, that's what The Secret says. When I was 13 and on the first hole of a playoff for the Oregon Junior Golf Association Match Play Championship's final match, my opponent had a simple two foot putt for the win. He hadn't missed one all day and it looked bad for me. I thought at that moment, "Wait, he's not going to win this; I'm am going to win and that's that." He missed the putt and I won on the next playoff hole with a sweet sandy par. Was it a coincidence or The Secret in action? This column is exactly six-hundred words long, like I thought. Interesting.

pbladine@dailyemerald.com

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