In this book, we will discover how to access a deep sense of fulfillment by doing good for yourself and the world around you through the humblest of acts and the quietest of thoughts. There is a world of unseen benefits in giving of yourself, loving others, seeking justice, discovering and then working toward your own higher calling. All these acts lead to achieving a developed level of resilience. By following this path, you can literally change your life and the lives of those around you forever. As with Joe and Ted, different approaches to life can impact your particular personality and the development of your inner character. The choices we make every day, and the actions we take, have far-reaching consequences, even though only a fraction of those consequences are immediately apparent.
The Outer World and the Secret Life
The world we live in is relentless. Every day is filled with instantaneous access to information, endless streams of consciousness vying for our attention. Our inner lives are often as tumultuous and overloaded as our daily schedules, and we are compelled to broadcast our every move for all to see.
The pressure that this kind of existence puts upon us can feel overwhelming and stressful even on good days. Not only do we expect ourselves to balance more than ever before—careers, families, fitness goals, and political engagement, to name a few of our preoccupations—we live in an age when social media allows others to observe and critique everything we do, say, or think, so that our lives become a sort of unintended public performance.
Gone, it seems, are the days of privacy and quiet reflection. In this world of constant contact, we have never been more isolated and lonely, and a plague of depression and anxiety is sweeping over us. This can feel overwhelming and upsetting, and also impossible to remedy as our society continues to evolve and speed up day after day.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. There is another life simmering just below the surface of this existence. This life, the Secret Life, has been available to us all along, but we have pushed it aside in our rush to check things off our to-do lists. It is a life in which we strive to discover and develop our most noble selves, to define our sense of justice and infuse our lives with higher purpose, all while intentionally not publishing online updates on every goal we reach.
Learning to keep the right things a secret will bring about the most dramatic benefits you can imagine. We tend to keep our negative experiences private and to broadcast only positive things for all the world to see. As a result, we publicly tout our “best” selves at all times, and this can lead to jealousy, competition, and worse.
If we are honest, our experiences are never as simplified and rosy as they may seem to be on our Facebook profile. One mother I know joked, “If only I could admit that behind the camera that took a photo of my adorable toddler eating a beautiful homemade cookie, there were piles of unwashed dishes, a crying baby sitting in a dirty diaper, and toys strewn about on every surface.” We don’t publicize the messes in our lives or the confusion in our hearts. We keep all of that, all of the hurt and the disappointment and the self-doubt, to ourselves. And those are the thoughts that keep us up at night and damage our souls the most.
But what if, instead, we flipped things around? What if we kept the good things we did, like the perfect chocolate chip cookies we bake, private, and instead publicized the messy reality of the rest of our day?
I believe that shifting the focus of our inner lives from negative to positive can be life-altering and ultimately world-changing. Knowing inside, even if no one else will ever know, that you helped a struggling child go home with nutritious food to eat and books to read over the weekend, will warm your soul and give you the confidence and belief in yourself that you may otherwise lack. The beauty of the Secret Life is that it can slowly but surely shift your perceptions about yourself and reveal yourself at your best.
By embracing the idea of a Secret Life, a litany of acts and attitudes that are deeply felt but kept private, we can give ourselves the gifts of true self-confidence and resilience, two of the most sought-after and rewarding characteristics around.
An Ancient Wisdom for Our Days
Only one figure since the time of the Bible has ever been honored and celebrated by all three major Western religions. That person is Maimonides.
A philosopher, rabbi, physician, religious thinker, and logician who had mastered all the best science of his day, Maimonides was a “Renaissance man” centuries before the Renaissance. He believed deeply in the dignity and potential of all people. All noble individuals of any nation, he insisted, have the same high worth and sacred standing in the eyes of God. The achievements of noble people, those who serve as models and teachers of virtue, kindness, and truth, depend on their pursuit of individual nobility, the desire to live rich lives based on core beliefs and principles, and not on the nation, race, or ethnic group from which they arise.
Born in 1135 in Cordoba, Spain, Moses ben Maimon (later known as the Rambam, or Maimonides) fled his home as a child to avoid persecution. His family wandered for many years through western Africa and Morocco and finally settled in Egypt. His first major work, a commentary on the Oral Torah, was composed while on this journey, often while his family was experiencing profound poverty and homelessness. His next publication, a controversial 14-volume legal code that organized the vast complex of Jewish biblical and rabbinic law in such a way as to make it accessible to those without elaborate academic backgrounds, was completed by the time he was 45 years old and was written while he studied medicine and rose to become so well respected as a doctor that he served as the court physician to the sultan Saladin.
As if those accomplishments weren’t enough, the publication of his third and final masterpiece, The Guide for the Perplexed, was the culmination of Maimonides’ life’s work, and it would leave its mark on humanity for generations to come. St. Thomas Aquinas and other influential religious leaders were deeply affected by the work and philosophy of Maimonides. By the time he died at the age of 69 in 1204, he had achieved a towering stature among thinkers from all walks of life. Expressing the notion that he was the greatest sage to have lived since Moses of the Bible, his tomb in Israel is inscribed with the words, “From Moses to Moses there arose none like Moses.”
Despite having lived over 800 years ago, Maimonides comes across as a distinctly modern thinker. He was the first religious authority to understand many biblical stories as allegories rather than literal truth, a notion so controversial in medieval times that he was labeled a heretic and his books were even burned. His understanding that all of us in this life, regardless of religion, country of origin, or social stature, are part of the tapestry of a larger universe, all working toward a common cause, was radical and groundbreaking. He taught that all human beings are capable of hearing the internal call to rise and act according to their noblest nature. Those individuals who live life as their best selves redeem, as it were, all of humanity. Humanity is, in this sense, an organic whole, much as the universe and world themselves are. Everything is interdependent.
Two characteristic teachings in The Guide for the Perplexed were to love God unconditionally and to do noble deeds and good works without any thought of reward. Maimonides taught that ample rewards, both material and spiritual, would indeed come, but that these must not motivate or affect the quality of one’s behavior. His main concern was helping fellow thinkers discover their best selves, achieve their most noble accomplishments, and in turn change the world for the better, all while living a humble and peaceful life. These are pursuits that we still prioritize hundreds of years later, and yet it can seem like we are further than ever from accomplishing those lofty goals.
This book will illuminate the ancient teachings of Maimonides as they apply to our contemporary lives. We will see how making conscious choices to change our actions can lead to shifts in our mindset, and soon enough to societal changes for the better. The secret here is just that: keeping things secret. Life-altering change cannot come about by advertising accomplishments in mass media outlets. Rather, doing things for the grander purpose of improving the world works best when we cultivate a quiet, internal awareness of our choices and actions, rather than an external proclamation.
The Five Secrets
This book is divided into five chapters, one on each of the five secrets that