Psssst…you want to hear a secret?

Most secrets are not secrets at all.

We won’t die happy if we keep thinking someone has a secret and if we just hear it our lives will be transformed.

According to the definitions offered by a Google search of “secret” a secret is:

• not open or public; kept private or not revealed;
• clandestine: conducted with or marked by hidden aims or methods;
• unavowed: not openly made known;
• not expressed; “secret (or private) thoughts”
• privy: hidden from general view or use;
• confidential: (of information) given in confidence or in secret;
• something that should remain hidden from others
• information known only to a special group
• mysterious: having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding
• mystery: something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained; “how it got out is a mystery”; “it remains one of nature’s secrets”

This makes me question the book about about the five secrets you must discover before you die. How will I ever DIE HAPPY TODAY if I don’t know the secrets? I like John Izzo and I think he writes well but I don’t think he needed to rely on secrets to present his book on happiness and meaning based on 235 interviews.

His book is titled: The Five Secrets You Must Discover before You Die.

Here is a snippet from the publicity for the book:

From town barbers to chiefs to CEO’s, these people had over 18,000 years of life experience between them. He asked them questions like, What brought you the greatest joy? What do you wish you had learned sooner? What ultimately mattered and what didn’t? Here Izzo shares their stories – funny, moving and thought-provoking — and the Five Secrets he learned from listening to them.

18,000 years of life experience, are you ready to hear the secrets:

1. Be true to yourself
2. Leave no regrets
3. Become love
4. Live the moment
5. Give more than you take

Wow, who would have ever guessed?

I don’t know about you but I thought this was good common sense even if it was not all that common. Perhaps the secret is that we keep this information from ourselves rather than acting upon it.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think you’ll get hurt reading this book, and I do believe the “secrets” can help you if you practice them but can we stop trying to lure people in with clever titles that make people feel that they are out of the loop and out of the know.

Oh, by the way, I am sorry I revealed the secrets, I am such a blabber mouth, but then Jim Bolt shared them over at Fast Company and that’s how I found out.

Photo credit: The Secret Passage Way to the Treasure by http://flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/799314036/