Self-Help

There was a time when I’d quit a job every year. It wasn’t a planned renewal, but it sure helped me freshen up my career when it felt stale. Of course, one can do that sort of thing for a while, but the longer you jump around the less chance you have of really building career (and think of how often you have to update your resume).

So before you get overwhelmed by all the things that feel insurmountable, try getting your mind and machine in shape to deal with all the tasks on your plate. You’re not on your own: There are countless books, essays and Web sites devoted to your success. And if your job still sucks after all your self-improvement, you can always quit—just do it with class.

 

Obsessive blog-reading: Much more effective than banging your head on your deskIncrease your productivity by reading blogs (yes, blogs)
You’re going to do it anyway, so why not have your procrastinating Web surfing time work for you? No, not by joining a pyramid scheme. Web sites like 43 Folders and Lifehacker are full of pointers and freeware to make your work life more efficient. Folder’s Inbox Zero helps you get your e-mail stream squeaky clean in under 20 minutes, and devise strategies for keeping it that way. (Hint: “delete, delete, delete.”) Lifehacker points you to haiku productivity, and if that Zen path doesn’t prove fruitful, there’s always a crude Microsoft timer to get your ass in gear. Lastly, don’t underestimate how having the perfect iTunes equalizer setting can help your projects practically finish themselves.

 

Join the cult of David Allen
If the blogs don’t make you a super-employee, David Allen will. Twenty pages into Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, you might be inspired to put down the book and make all those calls you’ve been putting off. If it only takes a couple minutes, then it falls under his Two-Minute Rule: If it takes less than 120 seconds to handle (phone call, e-mail, bill paying), do it now so your brain can be freed to deal with more important tasks later on. Might was well just buy the book now. It only takes two minutes.

 

Rule the cube farm: All workers are equal, but some are more equal than othersCharm the jorts off your office’s IT team
The IT guys claim they’re busy, but when you walk into their office, they’re playing World of Warcraft and inhaling Cool Ranch Doritos. Lazy bastards? Yes. Permission to throw a fit? No. Making enemies in the IT department will only get you grief. Fortunately, IT guys are usually pretty easy to please. First, read this article in the Wall Street Journal, which gives tons of tips about how to improve your relations with the office geek. Next, print it out and tape it to your cubicle—not just so that you can follow all the instructions, but also so they know you’re trying. Third, if you really want to charm them, learn their language; the Family Guy Wikiquote page is an excellent place to start.

 

Throw your Blackberry in the fountain, Devil-Wears-Prada–style
Sometimes it’s not your bad attitude, or your passive-aggressive asides, or your impatience with the IT department that’s ruining your life. Sometimes you’re in the wrong job. It’s happened to all of us, and when it does, it’s OK to move on. Make your search for a new job less grueling with a meta-search engine—Indeed and PageBites are two of the best—that will trawl the job boards for you, bringing together the best listings from Monster, CareerBuilder, and a gazillion other sites. And when you do leave, make sure you do it with class. WetFeet.com has lots of advice for finding yourself a brand-spanking new job this year without making an office full of enemies in the process.

Spend less, save more. If it were as easy as it is simple, we all wouldn’t all constantly pay the cable bill with out credit cards. As it stands, I have exactly $1,008.37 in my “emergency fund”—which almost covers half a month’s rent (Whaddaya want? I live in NYC.) But I know that personal monetary renewal can be accomplished with a dash of self-denial and a pinch of common sense, just like getting over a gambling problem, a meth addiction, or a penchant for Craigslist men's room trysts. Having kicked all those habits weeks ago, I’m working on my financial situation. It all starts with spend less, save more, but since that’s kind of vague, here are four unlikely tips.

 

Home, sweet home: If you're just renting, you won't have to thatch the roof yourselfRent until you die
The three biggest lies you’ll hear this week: “the surge is working,” “just the tip, just for a second,” and “renting is throwing away your money.” Somewhere along the line, buying a house became the most important purchase you’ll ever make and damn those of you who are too busy enjoying their limited cash to see the forest for the manicured lawn. But is home still where your heart is when it turns out to be the "worst investment ever”? Sure, the housing market is slumping, but that doesn’t mean renting is a waste. This New York Times calculator allows you to plug in your current rent, the cost of your dream home, down payment, mortgage, and taxes, and work out for yourself whether renting is better than buying,

 

Quit driving like a jackass to save a couple hundred bucks
According to the Department of Energy, your gas mileage can drop as much as 33% from aggressive highway driving. Stick to the speed limit and that’s a few hundred ducats a year. This list of ten ways to prevent road rage will save you money and possibly keep you from misguided attempts to show that jerkoff in the Hummer a lesson. (If you’re feeling extra generous, take a page from the Yom Kippur book and keep a “sorry” sign in your car at all times to help everyone else save, too.)

 

The interest rate isn't great, but it's very stable: The coffee fundChock Full o’Nuts your way to the Caribbean
Come back from the strip club with nothing but a pocket full of crumpled ones? Your significant other probably appreciates your honesty about where you were, but what she’d prefer is a romantic battery-charging getaway to make everything better. The solution? An empty coffee can. Stuffing the money left over from the night before into a grown-up piggy bank ensures it won’t be spent on a hangover breakfast or an ironic tee shirt. Mock the geriatric simplicity if you want, but my wife and I did this in the year-and-change before our wedding and socked away over $1,000 for the Grecian honeymoon. Granted, it takes more than singles, and you need the discipline to leave it be, but you’d be surprised how those random bills add up. I recommend going with a Chock full o’Nuts can for that robust coffee scent.

 

Make money just by being patriotic
You may feel like less of American for not joining the Armed Forces, but collecting all of the commemorative quarters of these here United States will at least make you feel like you’re supporting the troops somehow. 2008 wraps up with Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii, the last five states admitted to the Union and to our lovely custom coin folder. (Not to be a homer, but my native Montana’s the quarter to beat.) As any seasoned numismatic will tell you, once coins are out of circulation, they become more valuable, so get in before the price of these rises to .38 or so. As an investor, you’ll want to keep your completed quarter set in a safety deposit box to pass down to your great-grandchildren, or until you decide to take $12.50 on a nostalgic trip to the arcade.

Two years ago this week, my little sister announced she was pregnant. I responded with Giuliani-like grace: “You’ve got to be joking—no way can you afford a baby. I mean, come on, you can barely afford your dog’s food.” Needless to say, this was not the joyful reaction my sister expected, and we didn’t speak for two months.

Apologies are all well and good, but even better was turning my guilt (did I really have to bring up dog food?) into action. As soon as my sister started speaking to me again, I became the most supportive aunt-to-be in the history of auntdom. I read pregnancy books. I helped her think up names. I even bought a Bugaboo stroller, just to make sure my nephew rode the mean streets of Hoboken in style. And now that he’s here, an absolutely gorgeous one-year old, I am, of course, the kid’s biggest fan.

It’s so easy to screw up your relationship with your family—an accidental insult, a skipped holiday—but luckily, it’s almost as easy to make things right. The river of love that connects most families runs deep: an honest apology and some heartfelt reparations, and soon enough that river is once again flowing smooth.

 

Stop fighting over shared duties: A kid in handStop battling the stepkid’s other parent over breakfasts, bedtimes, and everything in between.
Come up with a job description that you, your partner, and the other parent agree on. This way, all the adults will know what is expected and not expected of you—and you will understand what your role and goals are vis a vis the child(ren). (The clearinghouse Stepfamily inFormation offers a good example.) In the beginning of the relationship, try not to be the sole party responsible for the kid for long periods of time. Finally, accept what you can’t change: If the custody battle was acrimonious, do not try to make anything better, and do your honest best not to take sides.

 

Start visiting a family member suffering from dementia
This won’t be easy, but keep in mind that the visit will be harder on you than on your loved one, and that it can do no harm. Try to learn all you can about the disease so that you understand what your loved one is going through—the National Institute on Aging has some good information. During the visit, look for quiet, simple, repetitive activities to do together: fold the laundry, water the plants, or take a short walk together. Remember, the person might only be able to concentrate on one activity for twenty minutes or so, so stop if he or she becomes unsettled. And remember that even though your relative might not remember who you are, your kind attention and support will be an incredible comfort.

 

Breaking up is hard to do: Sometimes you need to step out of rankBreak up with your family—gently
You’re a grown-up, even if you don’t always feel like one, so it’s time to stop schlepping to Scarsdale every Sunday for family day and start building your own social network. The simplest and most effective thing you can do to cut the cord is to turn off the phone. It’s easy to forget that the phone is an intrusion into your life — one that you are under no obligation to respond to. So, if your family calls every night at dinnertime, turn off the phone during dinner. (Those of us who still use landlines can benefit from a sophisticated call-screener.) Set limits on how often you will call them back. If you currently talk every day, cut down communication to twice a week. If your family gives you static about your sudden unavailability, just explain that you’ve been surprisingly busy. Soon, the more measured level of communication will become a habit—and begin filtering through the rest of your relationship with them.

 

Pay back your parents for paying off your Visa
Even if you think you’re broke, you can afford twenty-five bucks a month; set up a monthly autopayment into your parents’ account immediately. Next, get a copy of The Complete Tightwad Gazette, which offers literally hundreds of tips for ways to start saving right now—not at your next raise, not when you finally make that big sale. As your income increases, increase repayment incrementally.

On the other hand, if your parents want to turn their loan into gift— but it’s important for your own self-esteem to pay them back— first, explain to them that it’s a sign of your respect for them that you repay them. If they refuse to take your money, give it to a cause that’s important to them (find a good non-profit here) and have the charity send them a letter notifying them of the gift.

This summer I was reunited with a friend I hadn’t seen in seven years, and it was like being given an amazing present. Though we’ve always kept in touch, months sometimes passed between conversations, and I never totally knew what was going on in her life. But suddenly this summer we were in the same city, and slowly but surely we became those annoying BFF girls who constantly quote each other and say shit like, “Oh my god, I love you so much it’s CRAZY!” Maybe you don’t want to be quite that close with anyone this year, but you probably have someone you’d like to hang out with more, or someone who you always mean to have plans with, but never do. Here are some tips for restarting your stalled and/or jammed friendships in the new year.

 

Lift a glass: It's important to make time in your schedule for regular drinkingMake Every Other Tuesday Cocktail and Cake Night
You and your college roommate/high school bff/work friend from your last job have been e-mailing for months with the same subject line: “Let’s hang out soon.” Yet somehow it never happens. To put an end to the empty promises, try making a regular get-together. Use Time to Meet—a free online scheduling tool—to find times when you’re both free. Then set up a regular date: Watching Heroes together every Monday, or getting dollar margaritas at the dive bar around the corner every other Wednesday. Once you build it into your schedule you’re less likely to skip it, and even if you do have to beg off every once in a while, you won’t have to worry that you’ll end up going six months without seeing your Primetime Partner.

 

Use Up All Your Forever Stamps
Want to reconnect with a friend who’s been out of touch for years? Buy a bunch of postcards, stamp them, and address them all to your friend. Keep one or two in your purse/laptop bag/briefcase to whip out the next time you get stuck in line at Starbucks or in gridlocked traffic. You don’t need a fancy message, just a “hey! What’s up? Thinking of you…” Drop the card in the mail the next time you pass a mailbox. After receiving a few cute cards, your friend is sure to respond with a sweet email at the very least. Find awesome sassy postcards here and here

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Whip Cream. Whip It Good.
Having some communication issues with your friend? Check out My Fresh Start, a website with a plan that’ll get things flowing more smoothly between the two of you, and will sharpen your cooking skills at the same time. Each friend receives a recipe with a different half covered. Using cell phones and IM in their kitchens, each friend talks the other through their half of the recipe. At the end of cooking, the friends remove the sticker to reveal the complete recipe. The service is really designed to teach you and your friends to cook healthier meals, but it can also be great at getting you to talk to each other in a helpful, fun way. And since you aren’t actually in the same kitchen, you won’t have to suffer through any backseat cooking—one of my major pet peeves. (Thrifty types, take note: You could really improvise the whole program without signing up or paying for anything.)

 

Human interaction is healthy: Tom should not be your only friendSign off MySpace
If your best friend acknowledged your birthday this year by posting something on your Facebook wall, the two of you are relying too much on technology. As Kathy Sierra points out on her metacognition blog Creating Passionate users, neuroscientists have found that the brain needs and expects body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice during communication. When they don't come, the brain suffers (and so does the communication). For a few weeks cut out IM, Gchat, Facebook, Skype, MySpace and text messaging—even phone calls if possible. It will force you to actually pay attention to each other in a non multi-tasking way, and that will help get things going again.

 

Get yourself a nemesis.
If things are going sour with a friend, consider the possibility that he’s your nemesis. In one of my all-time favorite essays, Chuck Klosterman argues that the key to being great is having a nemesis and an archenemy. “We measure ourselves against our nemeses, and we long to destroy our archenemies. Nemeses and archenemies are the catalysts for everything.” Nemeses can only nudge you toward glory, albeit in an obnoxiously competitive way.

In the realms of sex, love and dating, we all need the occasional do-over. Not only are all three arenas fraught with the potential for miscommunication, mistakes, and regret, but they also lead to a lot of self-flagellation—we’re always beating ourselves up about our bedroom faux pas. Mistakenly assumed he was the prototypical Nice Jewish Guy? Pretended condoms were optional? Gotten wasted out of nervousness? Check, check, and check. Rosh Hashanah presents a chance to stop pressing repeat on your inner bad-lay movie reel. Here’s how.

 

Break out the virtual g-string: Online, you can be a burlesque starUnleash Your Inner Pervert Persona
Often people are reluctant to share their kinkiest fantasies, even to their lovers—the risk of rejection is too high. Not so online, where anonymity reduces the sting and makes it more likely that you’ll find someone into the same things you are. By creating a new temporary persona, you can try on genders, behaviors and kinks that in real life might freak you out. Find a chat room or use Second Life. Slap on a username, channel your sluttiest self, and go wild. You can be the bitch goddess you’ve always dreamed about, attend an orgy, or have sex in public…all from the safety and comfort of your laptop screen. It’s a chance to see how the other half lives and discover hidden desires within you.

 

Spend money on sex
When it comes to sex, we’re notoriously cheap. Somehow, there’s the idea still floating around that good sex is “natural” and that paying for it can only mean prostitution. But by investing, literally, in sex—taking a class, buying a sex toy or a hot outfit, or some lube (guys, it’s way, way better than lotion or Vaseline or whatever else you may be using)— you’re saying that your sexual pleasure is worth a little cash. Check out Babeland, Blowfish, or Good Vibrations for a New Year’s shopping spree.

 

Arm yourself with knowledge: Yes, we'll be repenting that pun next SaturdayGet tested now
Now that it only takes 20 minutes to find out your HIV status, there’s no excuse not to know. Worrying about whether or not you might be positive is not only bad for your health, it’s sure to impede your libido. If you’ve had unprotected sex, finding out will either ease your mind or allow you to start getting treatment. (The FDA has even approved a home test HIV kit.) Take it from me, having to tell a new partner it’s been a while and hearing them reply with a huffy “Great” makes you feel like the slut to end all sluts. Talk about a buzz kill.

 

Say “Yep, I’m kinky”
The yes/no/maybe list is a staple of the BDSM community, but it’s just as useful for the most vanilla among us. Basically, you make a list of things you like or would like to do, things you’d never want to do, and things you might be into. For me, spanking would be a yes, fire play a no, and bondage a maybe. Writing them down will help you next time you’re in one of those iffy situations; I’ve sworn I won’t have sex on the first date, but actually following through is trickier. The list helps remind you of your values, and stick with what you know is a no.

I used to make the same New Year’s resolutions every year:

1. Do yoga (I’m a runner)
2. Eat more vegetables (I’m a carnivore)
3. Take a daily multi-vitamin (See #2)
4. Eat less cheese (I’m lactose intolerant)
5. Be nicer to my sister (I’m insufferable)
6. Stop taking myself so seriously (I’m going to be a rabbi.)

But when I got to rabbinical school, my list of resolutions started to seem a bit too superficial for Rosh Hashanah. Instead of pious spiritual aspirations, I was trying to frequent the produce section. I tried to make my Rosh Hashanah resolutions more metaphysical, but I missed my seasonal yoga classes and greens. I missed them a lot.

So I was thrilled when I discovered that Rav Kook, a hero of most contemporary rabbis, once wrote that the beginning of any attempt at Teshuva (repentance) is eating well. Kook claimed that human beings are born naturally good and only become corrupted over time. Repenting, he said, means getting back to who we really are, which starts on a physical level. So in the spirit of Rav Kook, here are a few ways to get your Teshuva on.

 

The more you cook them, the better they get: Organic carrotsMake Rosh Hashanah dinner a part of your day-to-day life by eating more tzimmes and cholent.
Cooked carrots are 34% higher in antioxidants than raw carrots and the antioxidants continue to increase if the carrots are kept at high temperature for a long time—up to a week. (Published in The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry by Luke Howard PhD, Professor of Food Science at the University of Arkansas). Check out this tzimmes recipe, or try Pickled’s less-sweet version. For an extra health boost, vegetarian cholent packs a hearty punch. And thank your grandma—she knew what was good for you.

 

Spend more time at Congregation Beth Elohim and live three years longer
In studies published by The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, researchers found that the social interaction and community provided by regular attendance at shul (or church) may add an extra two to three years to your life. Don’t belong to a synagogue? The Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist movements all have search engines that allow you to research local options. Just attending on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur doesn’t count, though; it’s hard to find community in a group of people you only see twice a year. Instead, start by regularly attending an adult ed class or doing volunteer work. Then, when you come back for Shabbat, you’ll find enough friendly faces to feel instantly at home.

 

Who needs Lipitor when you can just accept your sister’s apology?
Forgive yourself. Forgive your parents. Forgive Joey Hershberger for not inviting you to his Bar Mitzvah in 7th grade. In the spirit of the season, and as your rabbi has been telling you for years, get over it. Frederick Luskin, a psychologist who works at Stanford University’s Forgiveness Project —the largest research project in the country exploring the physical effects of forgiveness—has proven that persistent unresolved anger can lead to higher blood pressure, cholesterol and stress levels, so letting go is good for your health. It’s also mitzvah, of course, and it only takes nine easy steps.

 

Hebrew: It's good for your brainWard off Alzheimer’s with the Aleph-Bet
Dementia occurs later in bilingual folks: a study in the Journal of Neuropsychologia found that Alzheimer’s and other dementias set in four years later in patients who spoke more than one language. No other factor—culture, gender, immigration, education, employment—made nearly as much of a difference, so get your Hebrew on by enrolling in an ulpan or taking adult education classes. (The National Center for the Hebrew Language has a marketplace selling all the tools you need to keep your brain sharp.)

 

Swap white rice for brown rice in your stir-fry.
Brown rice is lower in carbs and higher in fiber than white rice. It also has more vitamin E, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin and over a dozen other nutrients. And it’s better for the environment—brown rice is less processed than white rice, so it takes less energy to produce. So go ahead. Buy a rice cooker (you can find a variety here.) Dump in two cups of rice, water, and a pinch of salt. Press the button. Wait 45 minutes. Eat. Feel self-righteous. You’ve now done a mitzvah for your body. And if you’re Sephardic, you’ve just doubled what you can eat on Passover.

The high holidays are a time for new beginnings—a kind of reset button on whatever you’ve gotten wrong in the past year. Services take care of your spiritual crimes, allowing you to wash all the grime off your metaphysical windows and start over fresh. But what about the more literal, practical, day-to-day mistakes you’d like to erase? Kol Nidre can release you from any number of vows, but not the one you made to your credit card company to pay back that $1500.

Hence Jewcy’s guide to starting over. We’ll tell you how to clean up past messes and prep for future successes in six categories:

Sex, love and dating | Health | Friendships | Family | Money | Work

Consulting myriad websites, books, and experts, we've pulled together 26 separate ways to start the year squeaky clean. Click the links above to get to each section, and remember: If Madonna can reinvent herself every few years, so can you.

For three weeks, Rebecca DiLiberto has been faithfully following the rules of The Secret, the Oprah-approved self-help phenomenon that's spent the last three months on the New York Times bestseller list. The Secret’s central idea is the "law of attraction," which teaches that your thoughts are magnets, pulling in your fortune. Dream for a Ferrari and your fantasies will deliver the latest model; fret about your dwindling bank account and it will shrink.

DiLiberto has thrown herself into a three-week regime of listless fantasizing. For the sake of this experiment, she has pretended to drive an imaginary car, affixed inspirational post-its to her bathroom furniture, and concentrated extremely hard on her empty mailbox. In return, the Law of Attraction has brought her a healthy tax refund and a table at New York’s most popular burger joint—on a Friday night, no less.

So does the Secret work? Can it change your life? Below, DiLiberto wraps up her three-week exercise in positive thinking. If you haven’t been following her on her adventures, check out the posts from previous weeks at the bottom of the page.

So many headlines to cut and paste: The ancient, subtle art of collageThe Secret is no secret.

Everyone—including my most intellectual, pop-culture-deprived friends submerged in academia—has heard of it. I think it's safe to say The Secret has reached its saturation point. Which makes me think, if the whole planet knows about it, it can't possibly work anymore. There isn't enough room in the world for everyone to build their dream house.

The Secret is exhausting.

There are gratitude lists to write, vision boards to collage, imaginary checks to forge—not to mention the constant exertion of active self-delusion. Investing this much time and energy, The Secreter convinces herself that it works in order to preserve any remaining dignity. (My paycheck is here A DAY EARLY? Must be The Secret.)

Not everyone thinks The Secret is dumb.

I spend my days consulting for an Internet company. When I told our CEO—a boy wunderkind Faith Popcorn-y sales genius—that I was blogging about The Secret, he said, "That's a great movie." Ironic smile? Not so much. In fact, an informal survey I've conducted has shown that most extremely successful people I know personally think living The Secret is a given—the way they've always conducted their lives (the ever-humble Oprah said this on her show). This leaves me wondering about the difference between me and them. Will I concede that certain tenets of The Secret can lead to success? Absolutely. Will I ever be able to practice the Law of Attraction sans irony or self-deprecation? Nope. It doesn't look like I'll be facilitating any Fortune 500 team-building retreats anytime soon.

No, duh: Oprah knew the secret all alongThe Secret gets boring.

It's been three weeks since The Secret came into my life, and while I was giddy from all the positive self-talk in Week One, my enthusiasm dropped off soon after. I stopped looking at the Vision Boards on the back of my front door, I ripped the 125 Post-It off the scale, I decided pretending my bills were checks was too stupid even for an experiment. I tried visualizing the opposite of what I wanted just to test the theory. And I got it. What does that prove again?

The Secret doesn't go deep enough. Just ask Oprah.

The other day, Russell Simmons was on her show promoting his new self-help book, which is all about seeing yourself as connected to a higher power. His is the god of yoga, but yours can be whatever. It's a personal choice. Anyway Oprah really liked this metaphor he used—we are all cups drawn from the river that is God, I think ("Which means we are made of God!" she gleefully explained to the studio audience). Then she sort of dissed The Secret. (I know, how Benedict Arnold.) The problem with it, she said, is that it doesn't connect us to any higher power.

Oprah and I agree on a lot of things and it just so happens that I also have this problem with The Secret. In fact, looking for books to expand my understanding of the philosophy a few weeks ago, I came upon a book called The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham. Eureka! I thought. Finally, a way to connect this Secret stuff to something concrete, sacred. I tried to guess the connection while I waited for the book to arrive. Abraham uses the Law of Attraction to father the people of Israel! He believes he's going to help God populate the world… and so he DOES! Abraham totally lived The Secret!

When the book came I put down the X-Acto knife I was using to cut the head off a naked picture of Heidi Klum (I was going to replace it with my own—Vision Board) and tore into it. Well, um—it turns out this Abraham is not that Abraham. The Abraham husband and wife authors Esther and Jerry Hicks are talking about is a group of otherwordly beings, who collectively call themselves "Abraham" and speak through Esther. When she channels him, Esther / Abraham addresses skeptics with phrases such as ""We are not so much interested in that you believe in our existence, as we are interested in that you come to adore your own." So yeah, not the same Abraham as the one in the bible.

The dream job: Close your eyes and visualize writing for Ugly BettyThe Secret assumes you know what you want.

And there, my friends, lies the rub. I have a goal-setting problem, not a goal-getting problem. I’m complicated. I’m ambivalent. Some days I want to be a novelist, other days I want to be on staff at Ugly Betty. Sometimes I think, if money were not concern, I would like to specialize in bridal hairdressing. Fussing around with all that hairspray could be fun! And think of all the complicated braids I would learn!

I feel guilty when I set ridiculous goals and meet them, because then I feel sorry for everyone who isn’t as successful as I am. I feel awful when I set ridiculous goals and fail to meet them, because then I feel sorry for myself.

The Secret is brilliant.

OK, let me clarify: deciding to film a bunch of life coaches blathering in front of a green screen and packaging the result as the key to the meaning of life is brilliant. Creating a philosophy that places all responsibility for happiness on the unhappy person is brilliant. Printing the transcript of this video and binding it and calling it a book is really brilliant. Come to think of it, why hasn’t anyone ever printed transcripts of other awesome videos and sold them as books? Like, those Red Asphalt movies they showed in Driver’s Ed in the eighties? They would be totally more effective than a DMV manual. Or the Alexey Vayner resume video? With full-color screenshots? What recent college grad wouldn't buy that manual of what not to do?

Rhonda Byrne, creator of The Secret, would probably think I am jealous. And I am, sure—of her money and power. But when I ask myself, “Would I really want my name to be on that video?” the answer is no. The philosophy is too simplistic. Those espousing it seem delusional, not to mention uneducated.

Most of all, though, it would be really embarrassing. And it could totally keep me from getting a job on Ugly Betty. Or a book contract.

I’m not even sure it could be of much help in the bridal hair department.

* * *

Rebecca DiLiberto's previous Secret posts:

I’ve Got The Secret: Is our desire to be cool impeding our ability to be happy?

Vision Quest: The Secret brings satisfaction — at least when it comes to dinner reservations.

Meet Secret Rebecca: There’s a better version of you out there somewhere.

The Check is in the Mail: Visualizing money can fill your bank account.

What's Your Secret Weight? To get thin, just ditch all your fat friends and relatives.

Shrinking the Secret: The popular form of therapy that sounds a lot like the Secret.

The Plate of Your Dreams: In San Francisco, a raw-food restaurant uses positive thinking as a recipe.

The Dark Side: After the tragedies of last week, can we really embrace a philosophy that blames the victims?

 

The self-help program The Secret promises to unlock the door to lifelong happiness and prosperity. Rebecca DiLiberto plays test chump--er, chimp--to find out if it actually works. She'll chronicle her progress on Faithhacker as she undergoes her Secret transformation. Below: her first four entries. Check Faithhacker regularly for updates.

It's Kind of Like ScientologyHe's also got The Secret: Bob Proctor is one of many "philosophers" to appear on The Secret DVD.

By now you’ve read about the self-help phenomenon that is The Secret. You’ve probably heard that the book is number one in its category on the New York Times bestseller list, and that the DVD is number one on Amazon (with the book second only to the new Harry Potter). The Secret's cadre of experts has been featured on every major talk show, from Oprah, to Larry King, to NPR’s Talk of the Nation. Unsurprisingly, the media is fascinated by our country’s infatuation with a philosophy that insists you can get everything you’ve always wanted…simply by pretending you already have it.

That’s right, The Secret is, above all, about the power of positive thinking. Its central tenet is the law of attraction. According to Bob Proctor, one of the gurus on the DVD and in the book, “Everything that’s coming into your life you are attracting into your life…Whatever is going on in your mind you are attracting to you.” Okay, so this is nothing new. This is what self-helpers through the ages have always believed, it’s why they go around smiling their gooey smiles and inviting random strangers to meditation meet-ups and community kitchens—in order to attract other self-helpers to meditate and cook and join in self-congratulations. You are what you seek: This is what Scientologists believe, what people take home from the Landmark Forum, what they learned from EST--the precursor to Scientology--back in the day.

So what makes The Secret so different from all these “self-actualization” groups, which many of us think of as cults? It requires nothing of you. You need not spend anything beyond the cost of materials to reach your full potential--$34.95 for the DVD, $23.95 for the book—even less on Amazon. You don’t have to go to classes with people who annoy you, or fear being seduced into a pyramid scheme, or believe in Xenu, or force your bladder into submission during an overlong revival at some airport Hilton. The Secret fits perfectly into the lazy, thrifty hole in the soul of America.

It also plays into Americans’ faith in omnipotence and our magical thinking. Who among us hasn’t believed they might be discovered while walking down Hollywood Boulevard, or made a billionaire by purchasing a Powerball ticket? Who doesn’t fantasize about instant success without effort? Transformation without perspiration—a total life makeover in one thirty-minute segment—that is the real American dream.

I am no different from most Americans in my desire for change and my lack of motivation to affect it. But I am not the sort of person who usually consults self-help books. As a rule I find them obvious, poorly written, cheesy, and, most important, uncool. The lameness factor doesn’t necessarily come from the way these books are executed, but from the general sentiment behind them: I don’t want to admit that I want to be the best I can be.

I don’t think I am alone in this. We in our twenties and thirties, who grew up listening to Nirvana and encouraging our hair to cover our faces, are used to playing down our accomplishments. We want to be gifted, not driven. We want our successes to happen to us—so we don’t feel guilty, so we don’t have to try too hard, so we feel special.

Recently, though, I thought: What if my desire to be cool is impeding my capacity to be happy? What if my snobbishness is robbing me of the wisdom I need to self-actualize? Maybe people with correspondence degrees and life-coaching businesses really do have a lot to teach! Maybe I am surrounded by mopey complainers because I am a mopey complainer!

So, I have decided to try The Secret. I will watch the DVD and read the book and for three weeks I will do what they tell me to. I will practice the law of attraction. I will think happy thoughts. I will close my eyes and pretend to drive an imaginary Ferrari.

While 99 percent of me thinks this is a silly idea, 1 percent of me really hopes—okay, believes—that it will work. That at the end of three weeks I will have a book contract, a perfect husband, and a 26-inch waist. So stay tuned and I’ll let you know what happens. At this point, I’ll settle for one out of three.

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The Secret: Strong Enough for a Man, Made for a Woman?

The Dianetics Picture Book: Grab your crayons and self-actualize!Years ago I interviewed an actress for a beauty story—an actress who happened to be a Scientologist. She was delightful: warm, funny, smart, and, of course, gorgeous. And she looked preternaturally young for her age. When I asked her what her anti-aging secret was, she brought her teacup down from her lips and, gazing deep into my eyes, she said, “I believe I am going to stay young, and so I do. It’s part of my religion.”

I don’t know if she performed some Jedi mind trick on me or what, but at that moment, I wanted to be a Scientologist. In fact, I let her tell me about it for the next 45 minutes. She managed to convince me—temporarily—that L. Ron had discovered the way to self-actualization (“There are Jewish Scientologists, you know…”). At the end of our conversation, she ran into the back wing of her Brentwood mansion and came back with two huge adult-size coloring books—one on Dianetics, and one on Scientology. A surge of power pulsed through my arms as I accepted the books—I felt like Harrison Ford at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I zoomed out of her driveway toward my hotel so I could lock my door and read—okay, color—the books.

Of course I didn’t believe that what was inside them could make me look like a movie star—even if I became a believer, that would require years of auditing and some trips to the Celebrity Centre. I was freaking out because I had top-secret information! In my possession were books that usually cost serious cash, books that were carefully kept out of naysayers’ hands. The information in these books had convinced some of the world’s richest, most successful people to believe in aliens.

So now you want to know what those coloring books said. Admit it: You’re feeling a little bit of nervous anticipation. (Go to Amazon if you really want to know; they’re available there for $13.95, much to my chagrin.) Now you may be able to relate to how I felt when a brown box appeared at my door, holding a copy of The Secret.

Yes, I had ordered it. But still, my pulse sped up, just as it had when the starlet handed me the Scientology books. Like everyone else, I had experienced the hype surrounding The Secret, but no one I knew had actually seen the DVD. While the PR campaign for the “movement” had been extensive, only snippets of the video had been shown on television. It seemed that none of the TV or radio hosts who interviewed The Secret People had actually seen the video—they relied on their interviewees to refer mystically to the concepts in it, while nodding with the requisite broadcast mix of excitement and hesitation.

Opening the DVD, I half expected it to ignite or grab my hand or talk to me or something. The faux-wax seal on its cover made me feel like a character in my own personal Da Vinci Code. Instead of PLAY, the DVD menu encouraged me to REVEAL THE SECRET. The opening sequence of the video played directly into my mood, featuring singing monks and the breathless whispering of a mysterious woman who was later revealed to be the Australian television producer behind The Secret, Rhonda Byrne.

Turns out Rhonda “discovered” The Secret when she hit rock bottom (thus brilliantly allying herself with millions of other downtrodden folks, i.e. customers), in a hundred-year-old book given to her by her daughter, called The Science of Getting Rich. Even though my brain had already called bullsh*t, a little voice inside it whispered, “This is my discovery! I am Rhonda, Rhonda is me.”

The Secret’s marketing works because it makes us feel we’ve found something other people don’t know about, but that’s always been there. It appeals especially to women, I think, not only because Byrne is female, and women love that whole you-are-not-alone thing, but also because magical transformation is a particularly feminine motif (think fairy tales, like Pretty Woman). And because we like the idea of discovering something dormant inside us, waiting to bloom.

Being a woman, and a particularly suggestible one at that, I wanted to reveal The Secret enough to sit through 92 minutes of materialistic philosophizing (tape a one-hundred-dollar bill to the ceiling above your bed so it’s the first thing you see when you wake up) and clunky scenes illustrating The Secret’s principles (stubbing her toe upon waking, a young woman is convinced her day is going to go crappily, and so it does). Like the Scientology coloring books, The Secret’s revelation was disappointing, but I was still determined to find my takeaway, just to be sure I hadn’t passed on the key to the universe.

Watch some of The Secret below and see if you get sucked in. I am going to make a Vision Board now.

 

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The Secret: Vision Quest

The Car of Your Dreams: Dr. Joe Vitale with Francine, a 2005 Panoz Esperante GTLM, described on his site as "a rare exotic luxury sports car."The Secret is big on visualization. Visualization is one of its more logical concepts, actually, considering the role it’s played for years in managing pain and chronic disease. Visualization is certainly a better proven pathway towards success than the Aladdin’s-genie-lives-within-you tenet, or the your-feelings-tell-you-what-you-are-really-thinking belief.

A guy named Mike Dooley, described as an “author and international speaker,” introduces the concept of visualization in the video:

Look at the back of your hands, right now. Really look at the back of your hands: the color of your skin, the freckles, the blood vessels, the rings, the fingernails. Take in all those details. Right before you close your eyes, see those hands, your fingers, wrapping around the steering wheel of your brand new car.

(This is perhaps a good time to note that The Secret People don’t make any judgments about what you want to use The Secret for. It’s perfectly fine to ask the universe to give you a Maserati, for example, rather than the job that would earn you the money to buy said Maserati. I find The Secret’s unabashedly materialistic bent simultaneously refreshing and sinister.)

After Dooley, a guy called Dr. Joe Vitale—who is a “metaphysician, marketing specialist, and author”—chimes in:

This is such a holographic experience—so real in this moment—that you don’t even feel as if you need the car, because it feels like you have it already.

Yeah, right, I thought, as I leaned back on my couch to try it. But, as this assignment to write about The Secret allows me to embrace exercises I would normally consider too embarrassing, I held my hands out in front of me. I looked at their chubby snowman structure, their week-old chippy manicure, the way that, gripping an imaginary steering wheel, they resembled bear claws. Gosh, I think it’s time to start waxing my arms. Eeew. I have really hairy arms. No! I have hairless arms. I believe I have hairless arms. I am sending out a hairless-arm vibration. Genie!

I closed my eyes. I saw my hands in front of me and felt my body start to shake in anticipation of nervous laughter. I gripped my imaginary steering wheel. It was wrapped in leather like the ones in Merchant Ivory movies. My right toes moved toward the floor instinctually to engage the gas pedal. Whoa. Does my body think it is driving? A brief moment of sincere consideration, and then, an uncontrollable wave of goofiness takes over my face. This is ridiculous. Am I really doing this? Keep your eyes on the road, says some inner voice. I am overwhelmed with a smiley feeling reminiscent of a high school nitrous buzz. As silly as I think this is, I feel better—happier—than I did five minutes ago. Maybe The Secret People are smarter than we think; like shrinks, maybe they have a hidden agenda. Maybe they have us do the car thing to solicit a sense of true, deep hilarity, which, in turn, improves our mood and thus makes us more open to the “truths” that come later in the DVD? In seventh grade, my friend Barry told me that if you force a smile, even if you’re feeling rotten, endorphins will show up to the party and make you happy.

I opened my eyes. “Wesley!” I yelped to my friend who was getting dressed in the other room, “I was driving! Really driving! Is it possible this works?”

“Rebecca,” he said, his tone and countenance that of a 1950s sitcom dad teaching a lesson, “You are in your living room. You are not driving.”

“Yes, obviously now I’m not, but I was—I mean, I guess I’m just surprised to be so suggestible.” If Wesley couldn’t accept the new-and-improved Secret Rebecca, surely none of my other friends could either. Should I visualize all my friends embracing the me-with-hairless-arms, in front of my Maserati? No time…

“Hey, visualize no traffic and an instant table at BLT Burger.”

So, I did. I don’t mean to freak you out, but, on a Friday night at 8 p.m., it took us 13 minutes to get from 96th St. to 11th St., and there was virtually no waiting until we were seated at the only six-person table at NYC’s most popular burger joint.

No, smartass, we didn’t take the Maserati.

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The Mirror Has Two Faces: I'm not the only one with two selves.

Meet Secret Rebecca

For the last week, I have been asking myself the same question countless times per day: What would Secret Rebecca do?

Secret Rebecca was born out of my inability to see myself on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, or waking up in a $10 million house in Malibu, or leading my 10-child brood—half birthed, half acquired—through the more complicated harmonies in the Sound of Music score.

The Secret requires constant positive visualization, but when I’m sitting on my couch watching Sex and the City on demand with an empty bag of baked Cheetos (come on, they’re baked!), it’s hard to pretend I’m a skinny person who has eschewed TV for the meditative, life-affirming power of a saltwater fish tank.

Secret Rebecca is that person.

Secret Rebecca looks like me, except she’s thin and her hair is less frizzy. She loves waking up at 6 a.m. for yoga and she thinks that if fruit and ice cream had equal nutritional values, everyone would choose fruit because it really does taste better. Secret Rebecca is not creatively paralyzed—neither by fear of failure, or success—and so she manages to churn out one excellent book a year. She’s not delusional—she knows she’s no Phillipa Roth—but she sees no reason she shouldn’t be able to earn a living by writing quality trade paperbacks. (So many dumb people do!) But Secret Rebecca doesn’t think of them as dumb people. Why waste time and energy harboring negative emotions? Secret Rebecca thinks, Good for them!They’re following their bliss! They’re doing the best with what they’ve got! Unlike Rebecca, who thinks, if I had just a little less obsessive self-awareness I could have published ten books by now and bought myself a nice little pad overlooking the Barnes and Noble on Astor Place from which I could drop water balloons on all the entitled double-stroller-pushers attending chick lit signings with their nannies. Waterballoon: Secret Rebecca would not fantasize about dropping these on Manhattan stroller-pushers.Secret Rebecca moonlights as a chick-lit writer under a pen name, just for fun. She donates all the proceeds to an anonymous send-a-nanny-to-college fund.

Don’t think that Rebecca and Secret Rebecca are always at odds. Secret Rebecca is a touchstone for Rebecca, a beacon of hope: Above her, written in the clouds, is a message: Your very same DNA could have gone this way. The fantasy is oddly comforting and very liberating. Could I really be a completely different person just by doing different things? Working with this same set of cells, could I fashion myself a happy, successful, highly contributing member of society instead of a high-functioning underachiever who feels a sense of accomplishment every time she empties the dishwasher?

So I am trying to trick myself into becoming Secret Rebecca (surely I’d be happier free of my self-destructive—okay, masochistic—reflex?) by asking myself what she would do in the face of my daily predicaments.

W.W.S.R.D.?

Secret Rebecca wouldn’t hit the snooze button with the fervor of a Jeopardy contestant. She’s got miles to run, words to write! Besides, she goes to bed promptly at 11 each night, after a cup of chamomile tea and half an inch of The Brothers Karamazov (books after 1970 only on weekends), so she’s had plenty of rest by 6:30 a.m.

Secret Rebecca wouldn’t take an impulsive $20 cab ride just because her feet hurt; she knows that money would better serve her—and the world—put away in a green-growth mutual fund. After all, $20 per day is $600 per month! She’d be invited to sit at Al Gore’s table at the Obama inauguration!

Secret Rebecca’s resolve wouldn’t shrivel at the sight of a Starbucks—S.R. knows that not only does purchasing a double-tall nonfat caramel macchiato increase her diabetes risk, but also impacts the guy slumped in the cab of the tin truck on the corner. You see, Secret Rebecca is a trendsetter, so if people see her buying her coffee—black, no sugar—from Mario’s Koffee Kart, they’ll follow suit, and his business will increase 20 percent! Then it’s just a matter of time before she convinces him to go organic.

What would Secret Rebecca Do?: Not order this much take out.Secret Rebecca wouldn’t hold a grudge if a date bailed out of dinner at the last minute. She wouldn’t order two full entrees from the Japanese delivery place, shamefully asking the waitress for three sets of chopsticks for her imaginary friends, and camp out in front of the Gimme a Break marathon on TBS. She would go to the restaurant alone with a red rose in her hair and let the chef order for her. She wouldn’t even bring a book. She’d sit there, eyes fluttering in gastronomic ecstasy, savoring every bite of young eel offal, and her wine and dessert would be free. Three waiter/actors would fall in love with her self-possession and adventurous palate.

Do you hate Secret Rebecca? My friends and family do. Not because of who she is or how she acts—after all, I think everyone in my life would like to see me a little more pro-active and positive—but because her mere existence sort of renders me certifiable. I seem to be suffering from A.A.O.M.P.D.—Acquired Adult-Onset Multiple Personality Disorder.

I think it is the exhilarating sense of escape this alternate, Sliding Doors-self offers that has me wondering what Secret Rebecca would do, more than the possibility I might one day shapeshift into her. Though a “better” life might be an ancillary benefit.