The secret...

No fair! I said to myself when I saw my electric bill - no fair how the electric company can come up with these rules and regulations. No fair that I can't complain and WIN! No fair, no fair, NO FAIR!

The way it goes is that if you are a low consumer, you get subsidized service. This was our case when we first got connected, but after about 8 months of delightfully low electricity payments, our bill suddenly jumped to the medium consumer level. In this case you still get a gov't subsidy but it's lower, so you pay more of your true bill yourself. Every couple of months we'd get a notice saying CAREFUL, YOU'RE GETTING CLOSE TO THE HIGH-CONSUMER RANGE! (and this means zero subsidy; you pay the full price! From what people have told me, once you get into that range, it's hard to go back down). During those months, I frantically changed all our light bulbs to those energy-saving flourescent bulbs, hounded everyone into turning off electrical devices not in use, and changed from an electric coffe-maker to a stovetop one!

... But I didn't see much change in the bills, which continued to rise until - you guessed it - we were classified as high consumers and our bill jumped so high I cried when I saw it, whining pitifully to the poor man who handed it to me, "How can this be??? We've done everything in our power to get the bill back down, and now it's higher than ever! I give up!" Amazingly after this, the tariff did go down! (makes me wonder just how the electric company works??). Happy days were here again as we found ourselves back in the mid-range. Even my environmentally-conscious morality can tolerate mid-range because after all, this is a household of 6 people... we do have a microwave and power-tools for fixing cars and making home improvements, we also have 3 computers that are running practically nonstop most days...

But then, last week, the bill came again... I knew I had to expect it to be high again, since it's the bill that's coming after the holidays when you normally go all out in every way... but, I mean, to be DOUBLE THE AMOUNT OF THE LAST BILL???? TOTALLY UNFAIR!!!

So, after the intial anger, denial and disbelief, I had to talk myself back to a good place. And just about the time I had managed to do that, one of my students mentioned The Secret during our class. She told me if I wanted to know more, to talk to a co-worker of mine, so I popped into this person's office and said, "Okay, what's the secret?" and she just smiled at me, opened the drawer of her desk and whipped out a DVD, handing it to me and telling me to take my time in returning it. The DVD was called The Secret! So I watched it and what it all boils down to is this: THE UNIVERSAL LAW OF ATTRACTION... just think about it a minute. This means that your thought waves can attract the very thing you're thinking about!

Now that makes sense to me! In fact, I've been trying to find an explanation for the phenomenon I have been seeing in my own life over the past several months; it's been the subject of more than a few conversations in my classes as well as at home. You know how you can be thinking about something and then, that very day or the next, something happens in your life to connect and bring a conclusion to that thought or resolve the problem behind it?

When I talked to Lu about it (he loves a good philosophical discussion), he responded by telling me that the microscope was invented in 13 different places in the world all during the same time period, by 13 different people, none of whom were in contact with any of the others, each one different from the other 12, but all of them accomplishing the exact same objective!! I was flabbergasted by that. It seemed to be proof that thoughtwaves do travel!

Anyway, whether you buy into this theory or not, I experienced its effect once again just the other day when I swallowed my anger about the electric bill and made my decision to cut down on electrical devices starting ASAP. But that very evening I found myself hankering for nachos, which I usually make in a flash thanks to the microwave. I pacified my conscience by promising to start my electricity cut-down "mañana"; but it was still with some guilt that I slipped that plate of nachos into the microwave for a quick cheese-melt. Evidently, however, my thoughtwaves had sent out the message to the universe and the universe had answered because lo and behold, the microwave was dead! Wouldn't start, wouldn't even display the digital clock.... completely GONE! Pretty amazing, huh?