THE SECRET

Near the end of 2003 I read Stephen Covey’s ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’, and this sent me into this brooding that I mentioned in an earlier post. I am now nearing the end of 2007, and I have just come from watching ‘The Secret’. (An aside - I have read a lot of books, and watched a lot of movies and documentaries that have been pivotal in my life – such as the book ‘Meeting the Mad Woman’ which I quote all the time, and a few others I cannot recall just now, but I think books and movies are the principle way that I get to know stuff…)

So, ‘The Secret’ – it has definitely always been operating in my life, although purely by accident.. I always wondered why I seemed to have been born with the proverbial silver spoon in my mouth, why bad things never seemed to happen to me (or at least, why I never feared that they would happen), but I realise that it is because I always expected good – I mean just now I remember how I put myself in really dangerous positions (really innocently though), and to this day I have no idea how I survived!

What ‘The Secret’ says is that we create our reality. We create our health, our prosperity (or lack of it), our relationships, name it! It is summed up as the law of attraction, where we get what we attract into our lives (Now obviously this is not a new idea but I think I have never got it so clearly as I have today). A cousin of mine gave me a book some years ago (mainly because it did absolutely nothing for her) and there was a story about a little boy who was lying in bed one night and I can’t remember how it came to be but he got to talk to his personal genie or angel or whatever. So the Angel tells the little boy to ask for whatever he wants and that the Angel would grant it. The boy replies that he has no more faith because his prayers are never answered. The Angel says ‘But of course they are – give me one example of when they haven’t’

The little boy says ‘Well, I prayed and prayed that I wouldn’t be sent to Aunt what-her-name’s place (can’t remember the name) to spend the holidays and I wished and wished I wouldn’t be sent there but I still got sent there.

‘Well,’ the Angel said, ‘whatever you think about you get. You thought so much about your Aunt’s place that you ended up going there’

I remember this story really striking a cord with me. A room mate of mine once told me (she had studied psychology at one point in her life) that the mind cannot differentiate between ‘I want’ and I don’t want’ – as in if you say ‘I hope I don’t forget’ your mind will register ‘forget’ and you will indeed forget but if you say 'I hope I will remember’, your mind will actually prepare you to remember. So the Secret essentially says the same thing – you attract what you think about! The life one has is the life one has attracted to one self by what they spent time thinking about. A friend of mine has recovered from (quite serious) cancer recently ut she says the entire time she knew she would be fine, and wasn't afraid to die at all! I have to say that the secret wa sat work in her life too.

So the other day my Senga and I had a talk and she asked me to think about WHY I attract the men that I attract – i.e. the ones that I DON’T want! (or was it a friend of mine pointing this out?) After watching the secret, I see very clearly how come I am attracting these men –

1. I talk about the men I don’t want and their various nagging qualities ALL the time!
2. I hold the belief that this country is full of men I cannot relate to

So NO WONDER!!

Anyway, the bottom line is that The Secret says that one should think about what they WANT, and not only think about it, but also visualise it, and put themselves in a state of having already received it. For instance – if you want a certain car, visualise yourself sitting in it, feel the feelings you would have driving that car, and you will begin to attract the car.

One thing that I found crucial is that for one to think ABOUT what they want, they must first KNOW what they want. In my case, I think I know what I would like, but I am too ashamed to really admit these things. For instance, I would like to have nice shops around me, I would like to have fruit and vegetable shops around me that I could find any ingredient in to make the recipes that I have saved on my computer. HECK, I would like to travel the world!! The Secret encourages one to think about the eventual thing, not the means, so I realise that for instance, I have tended to think that I would like to have all these ingredients at my finger tips but I live in the wrong city, or I would like to travel the world but I don’t make enough money, and on, and on.. Over and over, I negate or contradict what I desire and no wonder it doesn’t come to pass.

Take travelling for instance – on the small income that I have, I do travel twice, thrice a year – so why do I look at my circumstances?? As for cooking, I have become a better and better cook (I would like to think), and enjoy what I cook – and I think this has come about ever since I stopped saying ‘I can’t cook!!’ The other day I was confidently going to prepare four or five new dishes to serve a t a brunch for my sister’s birthday!! (I'm still going to prepare these and make an eggless Christmas cake that will totally rock!)

Anyway, all in all, from now on, I am going to be bold about what I want (it’s what I want, who cares how petty or selfish or silly it is? More to the point, I will believe that it IS possible and IS sure to happen!!) I have heard about positive thinking a lot, and The Secret is kind of positive thinking, but while positive thinking by itself has never really struck a chord with me, The Secret has because it goes beyond positive thinking – it focuses on an end and sends a specific request out into the universe. Positive thinking to me was more wishy washy general positive thinking.

The book ‘Emotional Intelligence’ was another book that really spoke to me – and in the Secret it says that one can literally control their own emotions. For example: when I got up from watching The Secret, I felt my head pounding with a terrific headache, and I caught myself frowning and wondering why and concentrating on the headache and cursing it and all that, then I thought hey, let me concentrate on a clear head, so I begun to visualise my head clearing, calming down, etc. and almost immediately the headache begun to recede – this is something that I just done now, in the last 20 minutes! And I have no headache as we speak!

Last year, I visualised Belgium into being – of that I am 100% sure!! For weeks I thought of nothing else!! I really, really wanted to go!! And I did! Earlier today when I was in that meeting and hating it, or when I am grading papers and hating it, well, it must be an indication of how much I love myself if I can allow myself to do things I don’t enjoy. I mean I have to say that until earlier this year I really enjoyed my work, but for months now I have been feeling off kilter and as the secret says, as soon as you feel negative feelings - frustration, irritation, depression, anger, etc., then you are out of alignment with what you want! Although on the other hand, about these tasks that I find so stressful, can infuse myself with good feelings about them and not hate them at all. But more importantly, the benefit of thinking about what one REALLY wants is that one will not stay in a situation they do not want for any length of time!!!

So, what is the conclusion of the matter?

I will now go back to my house and think about what I really want, and I will begin to say these things, and think these things, and SEE these things, and I feel certain that these things will come to pass. Off the top of my head, and thinking back over my desires the last few weeks, I would say the things I want include:

1. Getting into that PhD programme (Why? I like the sound of Edinburgh, I want to find out the solution to the problem I have set out to study, it will be nice to live in the literature capital of the world, I want to experience a new culture, I will be near the rest of Europe and will travel around, etc.) I have to think this over – am I concentrating on the means (getting into the programme) or the on experiences I want (travel, etc.)?

2. Becoming a published author: When I read all the books that people have written, I begin to doubt that I have as much imagination or talent, but from now on I will believe that I have a special and unique talent, and I will not be longlisted, nor short listed, but that I will win the Man Booker Prize for new author!

3. What else? I will think of these later. Oh, I want a new job. British Council has invited me for an interview (something I honestly did not expect!) but there is this Norwegian NGO in Sudan that I applied for a job with and it pays a whole load and I think at the moment, I would like to earn a big salary, so I have to think about what I want again.. Incidentally, a friend of mine gave me 'The Secret' to watch because I was telling her that I have always felt that even though I have never gone to a single interview in my life, I have always known that as soon as anyone invited me to an interview then I was going to be irresistible.

Right, I will be off now. Maybe I should start to visualise internet in my house!! All this having to walk up and down is just not on!

Hey, guess what? I think this big change that I foresaw (visualised?) may just be taking place already!! Did I speak too soon? Ah well, I did say it wasn't over till it was over.. Oh, one last thing - the best part of visualising good and success and all that is that one's day to day life is completely free of stress and worry - for instance I just remembered that we shall be hosting my sister's in-laws this Sunday but I am going to start already seeing it as a success!

Oops, I also want to be a loving, committed relationship - how come I always forget to ask for this? I have to work on that I see!!

SIGH...

Last week of work.. Most of the staff are gone, and if I hadn't sweet talked one of our interns to stay, I would be all alone in the office.. Certainly the work I am doing now can wait until next Semester but why put off until next semester what I can do this semester - besides, marking exams is my least favourite task so I don't want to start a new year with unpleasant tasks!!

This morning, I went to a meeting of the University Research and Publications committee, at which I represent my faculty but at one point I had to feign illness and step out because BY GOD It was boring!!! It got me to thinking that what I was reading recently on the lack of companions on my spiritual path is extending to work… The chairman of the meeting is one of those old school types who read every word of the minutes and drones on and on about a point that has clearly been exhaustively discussed; and to make everything worse, we were not provided with even a drink of water despite the fact that the meeting dragged on for hours (!) and that we are all part of this committee on a purely voluntary basis – you’d think some one would think of little comforts like those.. (The director of research is also old school like that – take your comfort from the fact that you are providing a service – what hogwash!!)

Anyway, I think all this is made more difficult by the fact that I have lost ALL energy to continue at this job – and I think this is an important lesson for me in staff motivation – people will usually be willing to go the extra mile if they feel appreciated, valued and challenged. In this whole quagmire of a university, I don’t feel as if even my own immediate supervisor listens to what I say – I mean I tell the man that I don’t feel as though I fit in the program as it stands in the faculty and he says he is sure I can fit – huh? Are YOU listening to me?? Mbu and I shouldn't lose morale because they still need me in the faculty – well, how come I am the only one who can’t tell? I even tend to think his romantic interest in me is clouding his judgement – I should just write my resignation letter – that ought to jog him out of his dream state! (Yes, he is the colleague of the Cape Town fame!)

Ah well, looks like this year's holiday season will be just like 2003 – that was one broody holiday – my family were really worried; they thought I was depressed or something, while actually I was hatching a serious plan to change careers, and this I did successfully within the first six months of 2004. Basically, just like now, I was completely fed up with what I was doing at the time and felt compelled to make a change..

Speaking of change, a few days ago I was reminded of the strong feeling I had at the beginning of the year that by the end of the year my life would be completely different – well, two more weeks before the year ends, it is not too late. Whatever the case, I better get back to grading assignments, atleast that will be THAT task out of the way.

AN AUTHOR IN THE MAKING?

I just got back from a week in South Africa (four days in Johannesburg and four days in Cape Town) – J’burg was a lot of fun, caught up with one of my girls that lives there, and went to a church service that moved my disbelieving soul deeply!! (More about that later) I also tried and tried to no avail, to locate a poet that I met in Durban in ’05 (lives in J’burg) – that was too bad, it would have been really nice to hang out. Then did quite a bit of shopping too, though I kept not calculating the price of things in my own currency so I quickly run out of money!! No matter though, opportunity only presents itself so often!

Cape Town: Oh my God!! Breathtaking!! We had really good weather the day I was there so I managed to take the tour bus around town, took the cable car to Table mountain and walked around on top of it – and so lucky was I that I was told that soon after I left the mountain the cable car didn’t run anymore because the weather conditions on the mountain got too rough (winds in Cape town can get up to a speed of 100kph – they will turn over a Double Decker bus apparently!!)

We moved on to the venue of our meeting, among the wineries and grape farms of Stellenbosch – that was quite breathtaking too, with the skyline being dominated by these hulking rocky mountain ranges, and the sun setting over them, and clouds rising up from behind them and slowly spilling over into the valley before us every evening – simply stunning!

Anyway, the meetings went very well but my colleague was more insufferable than ever – At first I tried my best to ignore his – uhm, how do I describe his statements? His conversation consists of him mentioning the places he has been and what he has done on aeroplanes and in airports as if the mere mention of these names and things makes them interesting – in fact he will usually preface these announcements with ‘you know what is interesting? The airport in Bangkok is built soo weirdly!!’ One will turn their attention to him and wait. He will be silent, satisfied with this little nugget of info. You'll think 'Yes, weird - how though?' He'll figure this in itself is informative and enlightening. He'll give a little chuckle. You realise he has nothing to add so you give up, and wait to discover for yourself one day what he meant by 'built weirdly'.

Or, one of those days we were eating Ostrich – well he was eating Ostrich (I was eating a divine vegetable dish) when he goes:

‘You know, one would never guess this was a bird!! It tastes so strange’

I’m still willing to engage in small talk at this point: ‘what do you mean?’ I ask.

He’s like ‘It tastes like enew or kangaroo’ Well, thanks for clearing that up for me! You know perfectly well that I have never been to Australia and I don’t even know what an Enew is buuut, my powers of imagination are really highly developed so, nooo problem! (I had to google Enew just now – turns out it is even spelled ‘Emu’ Hmmmm. By the way, it looks kind of like a turkey or an ostrich anyway so I don’t know why he was surprised!)

And then there are the exaggerations - sometimes downright lies – like telling our South African colleagues, with me sitting there, that all the roads out of Kampala have been dug up – so not true! And today I heard him complain – with a straight face, to our ICT guys that one can access our internal mail much faster off campus!! SO not true – I was with him and I also checked my mail on his laptop and he is totally lying!! Anyway, he is in a constant cold war with those guys because he thinks they are too incompetent and he knows better – so any cheap shots he can get in, he will! That’s another thing about him – he fights so unfairly and tries to get the upper hand by bullying others or making them look bad.

Then there are the generalisations and the absolutes: those guys have no clue what they are doing; you can trust Ugandan carpenters to mess it up every time; they always change the boarding gate numbers at the last minute, and they always send you all the way to the opposite end of the airport.. today someone brought us a 2008 calender and we all crowded round to have a look (the office is winding down so we jump on these distractions) - admitedly not the best graphics but the moment he clapped eyes on it he goes (with disgust)

'There are no graphic designers in Uganda!!' I just walked off and clamped my mouth shut..

Then the arguments: cyclic, or baseless or him vehemently disagreeing with other people’s perfectly sound arguments, and then buckling under the combined pressure of their counter arguments and slyly changing his position: ‘that’s what I have been trying say all along – you guys were not listening!’ Yes, our fault.. of course!

Finally there is stating the obvious, reading street signs or menu items aloud to fill silences, sudden bursts of singing or chortling or impersonations – also to fill silences, and general fidgeting – all the while glancing at me to judge my reactions – it came to a point when I stamped an expression of boredom on my face and left it there!

Then when I could no longer ignore him, I tried to join in all the small talk, but trying so hard not to sigh with exasperation or hold back a sarcastic comment also begun to take its toll, so finally I just took a note book out of my bag and vented in there..

Dear God, I sound so judgemental, so bitter (catty, superior, name it) – all the things I really hate to be – I have been wondering if this outpouring of bile is a result of seeing something of myself in him – they always say that the things that one hates in one self, one absolutely cannot stand in others. I am still exploring this possibility because honestly I have never felt this negatively towards another person – except perhaps a cousin of mine, who is still the only person who has ever driven me to a fist fight, such as it was…

I wonder if I am on one side of the proverbial thin line – shall I one day come to love him as obsessively as I - what – I don’t want to say hate him, coz I have no reason to hate him, and what does hating someone mean anyway? I simply can’t stand him!! I just wish he would disappear from my life…

Anyway, after that notebook was out of my handbag, I wrote and wrote and wrote.. I wrote so much that I wore out a whole pen and I got more than halfway through a good sized notebook! Maybe 50 or 60 pages! So now I am wondering if I have the makings of my first book - although I will have to change a few details otherwise I will be so busted!

Ah well, that aside. I participated in the MTN marathon with my two sisters two days ago, did the 10km route but my God – that was tough!! Our youngest sister run the whole way and my sister and I walked/run - my sister walks sooo fast, and does this sooo effortlessly, I was just left wondering what kind of sportsperson I am if I cannot walk 10 km! So today, I am going walking, gotta up the exercise!!

Otherwise quite swamped with work, end of the year, been away a whole week, and all that... So I’m off for my walk now, later..