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INTRODUCTION

MAIMONIDES AND THE SECRET LIFE

At times the truth shines so brilliantly that we perceive it as clear as day. Our nature and habit then draw a veil over our perception, and we return to a darkness almost as dense as before. We are like those who, though beholding frequent flashes of lightning, still find themselves in the thickest darkness of the night.

Maimonides

Two men await their train on the subway platform in New York City. They are dressed in business suits. Each holds a newspaper folded under one arm, and both are staring at their cell phones. To the casual observer, one might think that these two men lead similar lives. Jobs on Wall Street, perhaps. Apartments on the Upper East Side, complete with wives and children and gym memberships. Let’s assume for a moment that they do in fact share those basic circumstances, with the same jobs and the same salaries.

The first man—let’s call him Joe—is heading home a little earlier than usual at the end of a long week at work. Just like every other day this week, Joe is spending his commuting time checking his stock profile on his smartphone. Obsessed with the fluctuations in the market, Joe is constantly refreshing his feed, counting his pennies, and planning his next move. Joe has always had a comfortable life, and he plans to maintain his wealth forever. In fact, it is his main goal in life to earn ever more money so that he can buy a bigger apartment for his family, own the newest gadgets, and take the most lavish vacations.

Joe’s wife has sent him three text messages so far this afternoon: one a picture of their son hanging upside down on the monkey bars, one a voice recording from their daughter about her science fair project, and one a reminder that they are going to a fund-raising gala tonight, and the babysitter is arriving in 10 minutes. He hasn’t read, or even noticed, any of the messages yet.

Meanwhile, the other man, Ted, is exchanging text messages with his wife, Nancy. He is on his way to the soup kitchen, where he volunteers to serve dinner to the homeless once a week, and he tells Nancy that he will pick up ice cream on his way home for movie night with the kids. He wants to know what flavor they like best this week, and which movie is at the top of their wish list. Ever since he spent a harrowing week living in his car years ago, Ted has vowed to give as much time and money as possible to the place where he was able to get a warm meal on those seven long, cold nights. Now a successful banker with a fine home and a loving family, Ted has stayed true to his word and not only writes generous checks to the soup kitchen but also rolls up his sleeves week after week to work there.

Ted appreciates his good fortune and knows that poverty is never as far away as you might think. Because he has experienced significant hardship, he does not take his lifestyle for granted, and he makes sure to save money for his children and wife in case of emergency. He also knows that giving money to those in need, even in small amounts, not only helps the recipients of that money, but also does good for his soul. Giving of his time and energy is just as rewarding, and he plans to instill these values in his own children as they mature.

The two men, though outwardly similar, have vastly different approaches to life. On the subjects of wealth, family, and dedication to a higher purpose, they could not be further apart. Joe works hard to ensure that he is as wealthy as possible, even if it means long stretches away from his wife and kids. He gives money to charity, attending glamorous events that cost thousands of dollars to plan and are as much about socializing and glitz as they are about raising money for worthy causes. When he votes, he makes sure to endorse the candidates who promise tax cuts for the wealthy, without much thought to other issues. Joe has never had to struggle, and he has not made an effort to empathize with those who do.

Ted recalls his own experience of near-homelessness and financial hardship and prioritizes meaningful volunteer work and pointed charity as a result, while making sure to appreciate his wife and children and to schedule special family time together. He lobbies local government officials to fight for employment opportunities, fair wages, and affordable housing for his city. He tries to live his life with a sense of gratitude and feels a strong desire to contribute to his community.

Which man has a greater sense of accomplishment and self-worth at the end of the day? If you had a choice between the two lifestyles, which would you choose? When we think about how to make our lives more meaningful, and how to make a difference in the world around us, we are quickly overwhelmed by all the options before us and all the competing priorities we hold.

It might seem easy to point to Ted as the more admirable of the two men, and to say that given the choice, we would be generous with our wealth and humble in our actions. But for the vast majority of us, if we are being honest, our natural instincts are actually closer to Joe’s. In our quest for survival, we are drawn to “more” rather than “less.” With even the best of intentions, it is difficult to part with our hard-earned money, and perhaps even harder to spare what little free time today’s frenetic world leaves for us.

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 can change your life and, by extension, the world in which we live. Each of these five subjects—charity, justice, unconditional love, higher calling, and resilience—is a core concept in the teachings of Maimonides. Discussed and debated since ancient times, these subjects are as relevant and interesting today as ever before.

In each chapter, you will learn how to change the way you think about and act upon your personal beliefs and values in these areas, and how such actions can lead to profound shifts in personal as well as global consciousness.

The benefits of living the Secret Life are countless. Changing your approaches to giving charity, to seeking justice, to loving others, and to believing in yourself enough to find and act on your higher calling will lead you to reach a level of resilience that will keep you grounded when you face difficulties and challenges. This is, quite literally, life-changing.

Best of all, it is never too late to start. Maimonides taught that as one ages, one’s intellect becomes stronger and purer, and one’s joy from that knowledge increases. With the added benefit of time and life experience, older adults are perhaps the most ideal practitioners of the Secret Life. Even if you feel that you have lived the majority of your life in a certain pattern that repeats itself time and again, the older you grow, the more intimately you know yourself and what matters most to you, and the more prepared you will be to accomplish great things.

So many success stories have begun later in life: Laura Ingalls Wilder published the first book in her Little House series at the age of 65, Julia Child learned to cook at age 40 and didn’t become a television host until she was 50, and Stan Lee, creator of Spider-Man and other Marvel superheroes, wrote his first comic books in his 40s, and to this day—at the age of 95—he enjoys a cameo appearance in every major motion film made about one of his characters. Even Moses, that great biblical figure to whom Maimonides was compared on his tombstone, wasn’t called by God to lead the Jewish people until he was 80 years old!

This goes to show that no matter when you start to practice the principles of the Secret Life, you can achieve great success. Whether you are 20 or 60, if you are willing to work on making better decisions, balancing your priorities, and dedicating yourself to a meaningful cause, you will see substantial change and success. Of course, we can never know how long we have in this life. But we should strive to never fall prey to the mentality that “time is running out, so why bother?” Humans now live longer and more productively than ever before. Age, as they say, is nothing but a number. And the greater your number, the greater your chances of making significant improvements in the world.

Are you ready to accomplish great things and change your whole outlook on life? If so, I urge you to quiet your mind, clear your desk, and spend some time evaluating how you have been approaching things until now, and how you can adjust your actions and choices to reflect a more ideal state. What you will find may just be the greatest secret of all.