The Home of Steven Barnes
Author, Teacher, Screenwriter


Monday, January 03, 2005

Why I'll never get rich with the Five Minute Miracle

Simply put: it's too inexpensive, and it works.  Don't understand what I mean?  Here's an example: look at all the infomercials on television dealing with waistline reduction.  All the "Ab loungers" "crunch machines" "super ab blasters" and so forth, available for just four easy payments of 49.95.  All crap, and they know darned well they'll sit in the closet inside a month.  Go to the local Sports Mart and check out the Ab equipment prominently displayed.  The same overpriced garbage, with pictures of models who spend hours every day in the gym, dieting their butts off, smiling, lying and suggesting that you too can look like them in just seven minutes a day.  Now.  Look up on the top shelf.  Almost out of reach.  A simple box, priced at about six bucks.  Something called an "ab roller" or whatever. Maybe "Ab Wheel."  It's just a rubber wheel with a handle on each side, like something made from a tricycle wheel.  You kneel, or stand (if you're a stud or studette) and roll it out, tensing back and abs, and roll back again.  Ab-solutely killer.  It is the only ab device you'll find on the market that really is worth the money. It works.  It hurts.  It's hard to find. Because most people want something for nothing.
##
In the year the 5MM has been on the market, we've sold a couple thousand copies.  Whoopie! I am sure that sounds like a lot to some of you, but it's nothing, really.  If I've personally made a thousand dollars, I'd be surprised.  That's like one month's residuals on my Baywatch scripts.  Then why do I do this, and why do I say I'll never get rich? 
##
Because it works.  The concept of balanced goals anchored in your body, brought to mind five times a day works.  The concept of deliberately raising your energy five times a day works.  Why wouldn't everyone want this?
1) To take responsibility for all three arenas of your life is painful.  Recently, I was at a party where, basically, people were blaming poor people for being poor.  O.K.--that's one position, and I won't weigh in on it.  What was fascinating was that there were a disproportionate number of overweight folks there.  Ask them why they're overweight, and they'll talk about social factors, and job factors, and family factors.  Everything but personal responsibility.  I spoke with people there about their wish for a healthy relationship.  Why weren't they in one? They spoke of all the crazy men/women out there.  No personal responsibility.  Wow!  Isn't that exactly what they were blaming "poor people" for?  Don't they grasp that our perceptions create our reality?  If they begin to truely wrestle with their own demons, they must develop compassion for others, and that is a price most are not ready to pay.
2)  I don't promise a quick fix.  No, it is a consistent fix.  It is months of constant effort, with a guaranteed payoff along the way.  Infomercials thrive on suggesting you can "blast" that weight off, or "find your soulmate in a week" or "turn your finances around overnight" or some such crapola.  There's one born every minute, folks.  And that one ain't gonna buy the 5MM.
3) You can't make spiritual progress without your body and heart.  The saying goes that you can awaken the kundalini through the heart, or through the body, but never ever ever through the head.  A person's spiritual progress is anchored in their dealings with THIS world.  This anchor is revealed through their discipline and control of sensual pleasures (the body) and their love and respect for others (relationships.)  Along the way, you develop skills and the ability to express them so as to contribute to your community (career).  I am so grief-struck at all the good people I've known on spiritual paths who neglected their families, their bodies, drove themselves broke, claimed they didn't want relationships while lurching from one disaster to another, and yet aspired to great spiritual oneness with the universe.  I'd run into these poor souls years or decades later, and they were emptied, mere shells, bitter and disillusioned, devoid of life force and convinced there are no real spiritual paths.  WRONG!  The real spiritual paths are all around us.  You can find them in churches, synagogs, mosques, temples, forests, and homes all over the world. 
But you must bring the spirit forth from within you.  You must CONTRIBUTE your own spirit, not seek it from others.  When the student is ready the teacher will appear.  When the lover is ready, the beloved will appear.  When the artisian is ready, the customer will appear.  YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE for your life.  In life, in love, in business, you don't get what  you want--YOU GET WHAT YOU ARE.  And this is what people will run like hell to avoid the truth of.  And the Five Minute Miracle goes right down this road. 
##
I know that only one in a hundred people who read this will buy it--I've seen the statistics.  That's all right.  I speak for that person, and for those who might be ready to try some other valid approach to growth (they're out there, trust me).  Because every one of us who genuinely loves life and growth, who genuinely cares, who struggles with her own demons and wins, creates the space for another pilgrim to walk the path. 
The 5MM is a genuine doorway to the inner world.  I implore you.  In 2005 take my invitation, or meditate and clear your mind until some of the other doorways reveal themselves to you.  this tired but glorious world needs all the help it can get.

Steve

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