The Real Secret

"The Secret" was a popular neo-occult system introduced a few years ago. It taught how to get what you want.

The method was legit. But it's a wicked genie prank, because the problem with getting what you want, as any hedge fund manager or candy store employee will tell you, is that it never satisfies. It never fills the empty place. We convince ourselves a bit more money or power or sex or this-or-that will slake the desperate thirst, yet it so obviously does not. Never has. Never will. Failure to register this evident truth represents the very kernel of human foolishness.

The real secret is not to learn to get what you want. It's to learn to want what you get.

I linked once before to the Tale of the Russian Cosmonaut, but here it is again: