Whirled Musings is four today!*

Four years ago today, inspired largely by having participated in Steve Salerno's SHAMblog, I decided to create a Whirled of my own in the blogosphere. And so it was that I sat down and typed out a tentative blog post. And on the second day, I created a less tentative post. And then I was off and snarking.

It has been a fun four years, and I'm shooting for a few more.

To celebrate this momentous anniversary, the Universe has blessed the oceans of my Whirled with more snark chum than all of us together could possibly consume in one sitting, so I'll just share a couple of tasty bits with you here before I go off to celebrate my Fourth Blogaversary (actually, to concentrate on my real work for a while...but I can celebrate for a few moments, anyway!).

To begin with, Mr. Fire published a blog post today about the five biggest Law of Attraction mistakes. He wrote:

Truth is, there are many mistakes when it comes to using the Law of Attraction. It’s usually because most people don’t have a complete understanding of it. They saw the movie The Secret and thought they got it, when all they got was an introduction to it.

Oh, dear. Mr. Fire has apparently forgotten that when The Secret first came out, it was widely promoted, on the official site and elsewhere, as containing the ultimate answer and having all of the information you need to get whatever you want. Of course we couldn't realistically have expected that claim to last, not when there were so many derivative products and frauducts to be sold.

So what's the biggest Law of Attraction mistake a body can make? As might be expected, Mr. Fire did not say, "Believing in that whole Secret scam in the first place." According to Joe, Mistake Number 1 is believing that all you have to do is imagine what you want, and you'll get it. Not so, says Mr. Fire. Here's the truth:

Imagining what you want is a great way to program your unconscious but it’s only a first step. You still have work to do. That’s where the Law of Right Action comes into play. Do something to assist the attraction of what you want. Rhonda Byrne created the movie The Secret with more than the Law of Attraction;** she didn’t just sit and dream about it. She took action.*** (She’s taken more action recently, as her next book, The Power, will be out in August.****)

This from the man who, in The Secret, famously likened the Universe to a mail order catalog:

“This is really fun. It’s like having the Universe as your catalog. You flip through it and say, ‘I’d like to have this experience and I’d like to have that product and I’d like to have a person like that. It’s your placing your order with the Universe. It’s really that easy.”

And he even put that snippet on his own video blog, so he must have been seriously promoting that point of view.

LOA Mistake Number 2, according to Joe, is using the Law of Attraction to try to attract a specific person. Don't do it, warns Mr. Fire, explaining, "Trying to attract a specific person is a violation of free will." This is from the guy who also sells products that claim to teach you how to put all of your prospects into a "buying trance" so they will do your bidding (he even wrote a book about it). I guess it's okay to violate someone's free will when you have a frauduct to sell.

I found Mr. Fire's choice for Mistake Number 3 – focusing solely on the material – interesting as well:

Focusing on the material, in attracting new cars [and here he provides a link to his ubiquitous Attract A New Car gimmick] and more cash, is fine, as long as you know it’s a temp high and a mask for the real juice of life: the Divine. Don’t focus on the car, but on the feeling behind the car. That is Divine.

Lesson assimilated, Mr. Fire. Maybe you'll learn it one day yourself. Meanwhile, it's hard not to notice how desperately many of the New-Wage hustledorks seem to need those new cars and more cash and so on in order to capture that "juice of life." And it's hard to overlook the whole vision-board thing that has been so popular with LOA true believers. Seems that little exercise is all about the material, not to mention being really kind of juvenile. Or, as Salty Droid put it recently on his blog:

...because poster boards with magazine cut-outs aren’t just for 6th grade science projects and serial killers anymore {yes they are!! f--k sake …}.

So enough about that. The really, really BIG piece of snark chum is that NBC has chosen Whirled Musings' birthday to debut yet another "reality" show. This one is from the world's all-time most successful hustledork, Tony Robbins. Even TV Guide is rolling its eyes:

Cheers & Jeers: Tony Robbins? Gimme a Break!

Jeers to NBC for turning over an hour of primetime to a glorified infomercial.

The Peacock has flirted with the equivalent of self-help ads (The Biggest Loser, Losing It With Jillian), but the net has truly crossed the line with Breakthrough with Tony Robbins, an hourlong series debuting July 27 at 8/7c. That's right, "author, strategist and coach" Robbins—who was mocked as a charlatan nearly 20 years ago on The Ben Stiller Show ("I hypnotize you with my teeth, and you pay me money!")—is now a network-TV star.

In the series' premiere, Robbins helps Ron and Marie Stegner back from the brink of bankruptcy and divorce by presenting them with "challenges" like flying a Russian MIG fighter ("I don't know any other housewife doing a flip in a jet," says Marie) and living on L.A.'s skid row for a week. Of course, viewers can't perform these kinds of stunts, but they might buy Robbins' books, DVDs or CDs to gobble up more of his banalities ("Own Your Breakthrough!"). As Marie puts it when she's sleeping on the street (with a camera crew in tow, natch), "This is reality." No, this is reality TV—there's a big difference.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

That's it for now. I promise you I'm continuing to sort through the swirling chum and will serve up some more very soon. Meanwhile I want to thank every one of you – even those of you who don't like me so much – for your part in making this blog what it is. Here's to at least four more fun-filled years.

* I know it's my Blogaversary and all, but really, you don't have to get me a gift. But if you insist... the "Donate" button is conveniently located up there at the top of the page.
** That's right, Mr. Fire! Rhonda didn't just use LOA to create The Secret. She used the partially unpaid labor of creative and talented people as well.
*** Rhonda took action, all right: legal action, mostly, against the people who had actually done the real creative and marketing work and just wanted their fair share of what she'd promised them.
**** Well, after all, she does have those legal bills to pay.