The Secret—“It Totally Works,” Proclaims The Dalai Dog

There’s been a lot of buzz this year about The Secret, the best-selling New-Agey book and movie that assert that just by thinking about something you can create it.

The Secret, or the Law of Attraction, is simultaneously appealing and appalling. How cool if I could just think of something fabulous (winning the lottery, squeezing into a size two, having the dishwasher unload itself) and have it happen, as if by magic. But it’s also scary—how many of the random thoughts and fears that parade through my mind on a daily basis would be not so great if they actually happened?

The writers of The Secret claim that everything that comes into our lives, both good and bad, is all our own responsibility--magnetized by our thoughts and feelings. I’ll admit I have my doubts.

I have plenty of examples in my own life when this has worked: When I decide that I would meet Oprah before I turned 40 and landed on her bookclub show the next month; Getting my book published; Even getting Dog.

But there are also plenty of times when it hasn’t worked: I still haven’t make the NY Times Bestseller List; The house still hasn’t figured out how to clean itself; And there’s the matter of all those losing lottery tickets.

But according to The Secret, dwelling on those things not happening will only cause them to not happen even more in the future. So, I’ll keep imagining and visualizing and hoping for the best.

In the meantime, Dog has got it all figured out.

Last night when I was rushing around trying to get dinner on the table, he sat in the kitchen looking up at me with those big brown, begging eyes. I was pan-frying chicken-apple sausages and the aroma was just too much for him. But he didn’t jump up on me or whine. He just sat calmly in the middle of the kitchen floor with a Zen-like look of concentration.

In that moment in time, the whole focus of his existence—all of his thoughts and dreams and desires and ambitions were of one thing and one thing only—getting his paws on that sausage.

There was no hesitation on his part. No doubts or fears or questioning of the practicality of that sausage. He didn’t wonder “Should I want that sausage? Would that sausage really make me happy? Maybe if I got that sausage I would be miserable. Maybe I’d have to give up a lot of other great stuff for that sausage. Maybe I should wait and see she what she cooks next.”

Nor did he wonder if he was deserving of that sausage. He didn’t fear that he wasn’t smart enough or hadn’t worked hard enough for it. He didn’t worry about what his friends would think if he got the sausage. Would they be jealous? It never crossed his mind.

No interference. Instead, he sat perfectly still, desiring, imagining, believing that he would get that sausage.

And do you know what happened?

As I was cutting the sausage up for my son’s dinner, the knife slipped. And a great big hunk of sausage flipped off the plate and landed on the floor right at Dog’s feet.

It was just like the book said, “Like Aladdin’s Genie, the law of attraction grants our every command.”

The Dalai Dog wins again.