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by Life in a NutshellAs you read these
essays, which Edna Lister wrote for a newspaper column in the 1940s,
When you follow her suggestions, you capture the Joy of becoming a Creator in your own life!
CyclesSpring announces itself with the greening of branch and opening of buds. Nature’s life looks up and pushes up to its capacity during the summer season of growth. Winter announces its campaign with turning leaves in autumn. Falling leaves tell us that nature’s life is sinking into a rest that simulates a little death. The compelling urge behind the seasons springs from the same life, and differs only in the direction it takes. Each of us is a thinking, choosing, feeling, conscious being, and we may choose our direction, either up into greater increase or down into a rest that ends all growth. We need not wait for spring’s gentle urge to be up and doing, although we must follow the logic behind the seasons in pursuing our plans. We must plow, harrow, plant and cherish our ideas, if we are to create anything new. Yet our ideas can die from lack of nourishment. It’s so simple – we may contact the same Power that propels the seasons in their endless cycles, and we may appropriate as much life for our enterprises as does the tree for its growth. Yet we need not wait blindly for the fulfillment of our destiny. All we need is one flaming desire, one definite choice, added to enough persistence to hold our mind on one point long enough to win!
The More & More PlanEach year we harvest and gather countless tons of fruits, vegetables and grains, while other untold measures of verdure and flowers come forth and wither. Yet each field and garden has the same amount of soil after harvest, and we must prune the trees and bushes again. The substance that nature uses in this growth comes from the invisible Source of all life. The power of attraction draws it from the heart of the tree, bush, bulb and seed. All growth follows undeviating natural laws of expansion, and nothing added from the outside can change the essential process. Do you really think that God endows tree, bush, bulb and seed with the ability to contact this Source, draw forth everything needed for expansion, but denies this to you? Do you feel bound to run your life on the "less and less life plan" because you believe you do not have the Power to operate on the "more and more plan" of abundant nature? Life has not hung its gifts on the outside like ornaments on some Christmas tree – gifts must come from exercising your inherent powers and abilities, which are far greater than any possessed by a tree. When will you let go of foolish ideas of lack, and let the Power within you draw all it needs to further the great design of life you have planted? Now is the right time!
The Greater WorksLife is filled with examples of the known and the unknown, which is fast becoming the known. Practically everything that formerly belonged to the "it can’t be done" class is now being done by someone who didn’t know that it couldn’t be done! We are living in an age of "greater works." Two thousand years ago the fastest travel was by the "ship of the desert," called a camel. Our ships of the air now travel faster than the speed of sound. We used rush lights first, then tallow dips. Now we turn night into day with electrical power. If this isn’t doing the greater works, someone should say so and make us believe it! Why doubt your ability to do greater things, to apply greater power as strength of mind and body to act, as greater new ideas to apply? Despite another’s lack of faith in your ability, you succeed. Occasionally your family or friend’s "you can’t do it" is exactly what you need to make you dig in and do! Go the limit on today’s power and you will have more for tomorrow. Someone is going to do all the new things, why not you? If you don’t know that something can’t be done, you can do it!
Why Turn the Other Cheek?Free advice to all would-be martyrs: To achieve martyrdom in the shortest possible time, try turning the other cheek whenever your manner or precious words of counsel offend someone. This is guaranteed to cause more folks to hate you than any other approach you can try. If you don’t care much for being a martyr, you must learn a lesson. If you are foolish enough to get into a situation where someone wants to slap you once, it seems common sense to turn the other cheek for another slap to impress on your subconscious mind that you are in the wrong place, to remember never to be caught there again! Nothing is written in stone that tells us we must return to the same person for a future slap for the same old thing. We are supposed to have the good judgment to avoid having to learn the same kind of lesson repeatedly. Sacrifice those words and actions that give offense in favor of a charming personality. Which means more to you? Martyrdom or charm?
Love the PromiseThe tears we shed about unfulfilled promises could irrigate the Sahara Desert. We are all sincere in what we say, as we say it. We even think we mean the hasty, angry words we speak, but find later that they were born of hurt and grief. Our dearest loved ones may look like ogres to us at night, but shrink to normal size in the morning. Life is full of situations where we make promises impossible of fulfillment: The friends we promise to see often, the letters we never find time to write, the little attentions we intend to give our family but forget. We mean our promises with all our heart – when we make them. Why can’t we underwrite our lives with common sense? Why not sip the last bit of joy from each promise another makes, then forget it? Why not accept the love behind each promise, and take our discounts then? If they fulfill the promise, we have another great joy. If they forget it, we are out nothing. We have not wasted any time or emotion over its fulfillment, so we cannot be disappointed. Let’s forget the tears and be happy!
Cat LessonsThe cat embodies six creative ideas: Perfect independence, perfect adjustment to life, perfect determination, perfect relaxation, perfect balance, and a perfect sense of direction and control. We can never lessen a cat’s individuality or independence. It never "knuckles down," but is always "the one" that commands respect. The cat symbolizes perfect adjustment, since it never worries or carries a burden because it knows how to accept. It hunts alone and always rustles up a meal, which represents perfect adjustment to life. The cat represents determination because of its ability to concentrate perfectly on one idea. A cat will single-mindedly howl at the door until you either let it in or let it out, and it will wait for a mouse by the hour in complete silence. The cat symbolizes relaxation. It works, then rests, plays, then rests in perfect relaxation. And it has sense enough to breathe itself into its body after sleep with a good, long stretch. The cat represents perfect freedom in balance and always lands on its feet. Finally, because the cat has a perfect sense of direction and control, it never gets lost, but always finds its way home. If you find that you’re not the perfect embodiment of these principles, don’t worry. Open a new account in God’s Reserve Bank, and wait at the door until you receive. "I open this account with enlarged ideas and huge declarations. I deposit what I desire to draw out, and must make my deposits every day. If I deposit fear, doubt, delay ideas, irritation or criticism, that’s what I will draw out!" Deposit all cat virtues, and let go of all cat detriments, such as laziness, selfishness, and fault-finding words that scratch like claws. Let’s always preen before our mirror and see if our Joy-face is on straight! RETURN TO TOP
Do One Thing at a TimeWe don’t live our lives just once, but many times every day. If we have a task to do after work, we do it dozens of times during the day. If we sell on commission, we sell not once but repeatedly, before, during and after the call. We carry the office home and live in it instead of with our family. We take our family to the office and live with them all day instead of waiting till we are home. We hold up the office chair daily, the bed at night, and even try to carry the elevator up instead of resting to our floor. So we are always tired, our hearts, eyes and backs are wearing out. Why not worry about just one thing at a time – if you must worry! Why not concentrate on the immediate task? Everything ends, one way or another. So look up, take a deep breath and let go! The sun continues to shine above the temporary dark clouds. Live above the clouds in the sunshine instead of the gloom underneath. Think yourself to sleep on a starlit cloud instead of holding up the bed. Let bed and chair, elevator and life, uphold you! Do one thing at a time with all you have and when you rest, rest "up!"
What to Do NextYou do know what to do next! You may think you don’t, but you always do. We stop and fumble to avoid what we wish to escape because we don’t like what we should do next. We may have hidden it from our conscious mind, but it is there, under the surface, a hindrance, a limitation. If you’ve "reached the end of your rope," you have only yourself to blame. It’s your job to know when your rope is getting short, and find another length to splice onto the end. What wears us out, physically and mentally, isn’t the work we do, but our internal conflicts about doing the duties we feel belong to another. You feel imposed on and cheated of what’s rightfully yours, even if it’s just free time. No one loses all faith and hope at once. The background of loss must cover a long period before you slow down, stop doing and spend time saying, "I don’t know what to do next." Another task is always at your fingertips. We always have another place to go, another person to see, another hour to live. You may have faith in this. Nothing can conquer faith. Your faith is unconquerable, so carry on! Do the next thing next!
Just DO It!If we live among others, we are bound to blunder occasionally. The better we are, the more a tiny mistake stands out, the more folks see it, the more wrath it calls upon us. Another, who is not so good, may make many mistakes and never gets blamed for it, which peeves us. Being "called on" one mistake is better than having a dozen overlooked. No one expects much from the lame ducks, but if we are good, everyone not only expects but demands more from us. Regard the reprimands as spurs to greater effort, for no one can afford to become satisfied with their performance, or they lose their reputation. If you’ve been a bumbling blunderer, keep an account of every future bumble and study "how-not-to-do-it" until you remember them. You’ll learn all the right ways and methods one day by the process of elimination. Never join those who are afraid to do anything. If you aren’t sure, do it anyhow, and do your very best. Remain cheerful, leave behind self-disgust and self-blame, and pay any price necessary to become letter-perfect in your relationships. With your eyes facing front, reach out to new ways to live, and practice self-discipline. You’ll win!
Make Every Minute Count!Do you put off certain tasks until you have "spare" time? Do you spend time resting and letting down while you wait for others? Have you unfinished projects in your basement and attic? Ruskin said that he could tell what a man was by the way he used his spare time. Some folks use it resting until they are finally invalids for life. "Letting down" leaves us too low to do anything when we try to get up. Use a stop watch on yourself for one day, and the total of unused minutes will amaze you. One who has a poor memory, who does not exercise his powers of recollection, who lets brain cells and nerve centers atrophy is only a lazy person. Make yourself memorize something while knitting, sewing, gardening or mowing the lawn. Prose, or poetry, do it now! Enough spare time will finish all the tasks and reading you’ve long put off. Every five minutes spent "doing" will cover much ground in a year. Don’t wait for three hours, use that three minutes. Harness your mind to the present. Use all your spare time to prevent useless stagnation. Make every moment count in constructive practice for doing!
Use Time to ClimbWe are all born equal in the number of hours we have for individual living. We can neither add to them, nor take from them. They stand. These hours all come from the future, slip into the present and sometimes become the past without having ever been used or lived. If you rest through them, you may rest yourself to death. If you strain to live in the future, you produce ragged, oversensitive nerves. If you sag into your body, hiding while you let life go by, you grow old before your time and live only in the past. By watching your present use of hours, you can foretell your future, unless you change overnight. Life is one barrier after another for us to surmount. Each hour means greater strength or greater weakness. Hours of self-pity weaken you, and tears make you a cousin to a jelly fish. Hours of courage strengthen you, and joy makes you alive. Conquering self this hour creates a stronger desire to climb higher on tomorrow’s hours. Choose to stand on Time this hour, concentrating all your powers in one direction. Years’ end is bound to find you nearer your chosen goal!
Making Time FlyFailure does not exist. Each is a success exactly as far as today has brought him. Failure consists of getting tired and hunting a place to sit and rest while asking "why" of life. The only answer is more effort. The only cure for life is more life. Too many "whys" produce self-pity, which drains the body of all desire for more life. Success is steadily marching toward a goal, the extra pressure you apply to get to the top, the reaching forward that draws to you more life. If your work or play absorbs you, you never tire while at it and time passes on wings. The secret is to carry over the same absorbing interest into the less interesting parts of your life. Keep your attention centered on what interests you in life. Make yourself take an interest in things about you. Hold yourself to that high point of quickened interest, and warm up to the task. Speed up the work you are doing or find new ways to do it. You can push just a little bit harder. You can do just a little better and find something beautiful to think about. Stop asking "why" and get busy now doing something you really like to do!
Conquering LifeEither you conquer life or life conquers you. One choice doesn’t cover the whole of life, nor does sitting and waiting cause life’s good things to fall into your lap like overripe fruit. Every new problem requires a new answer and every experience a new choice. Unless you choose wisely, you will continually lose. You cannot build life’s highway, but you can learn to watch for the signs, keep to the right and give everyone else plenty of room. You can sit alertly in the driver’s seat and be ready for either curve or barrier. You can take advantage of every opening in the traffic and surmount the obstacles. Life is like a horse that is always ready to take the bit in its teeth and run away. It will, especially if you allow it to wear the spurs and carry the whip! You must choose which is to be master, life or you? Being your own master means you must wear the spurs, carry the whip and be ready to use them when you tire and lag behind. Life may throw you repeatedly but you can always climb back into the saddle. Your everlasting effort at plodding is sure to take you somewhere. The effort will keep you from standing still at least and who knows, you might find a wonderful opportunity ahead! RETURN TO TOP
Mathematics of LifeLife itself follows mathematical laws, all under the rules of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. When you do not follow the rules, you become unbalanced and confused. Using physical energy subtracts energy from the body, which we must replace with more air, food and rest. Mental work subtracts from mental energy, and we must replace it through relaxation and recreation. Prayer must increase the Power of the spiritual life, the very essence of both the mental and physical life. Letting go of the old is subtraction. Adding the new is addition. You must divide the essential from the nonessential, lest your life becomes cluttered with unimportant matters and filled with confusion. No one can govern your mind or heart unless you allow it, so you can subtract the unnecessary thoughts and emotions, if you choose. Yet first you must divide what builds from what tears down your life. Add room so your natural abilities and hidden talents have a chance to breathe and multiply themselves a thousandfold. Addition of zest and multiplication of enthusiasm makes every day a new adventure. Subtract the old stuff that bores you to death. Dullness vanishes when you are fully alive!
The Burden of HabitWe make up our lives of right habits and wrong habits, which most of us are perfectly aware of having. Thinking, imagination and emotions are the tools we use in fashioning habits. Thinking makes the plan, imagination etches the blueprint and emotional desire releases the substance that fills the habit-plan with life, body and expression. If you fill the two sides of a scale with each day’s thinking, imagination and emotions, you might get a shock and answers to many of your questions. Place your positive, constructive habits on the right side and the negative and destructive on the left. The side that sags tells the story. If you want the habits on the heavy side of the scale perched in your living room, sitting at your table, or waiting in your bedroom, then you are using these tools of a creator perfectly. You create your life. The way you use your Imagination, Thinking and Desire determines what kind of life you have, what kind of habits you form. Thinking, imagination and emotional desire work against you, if you misuse them with wrong habits. It takes good old-fashioned perseverance to form new, constructive habits. You can do it! Just let go of indifference and lukewarmness. Use your imagination, thinking and desire tools and determine to create only those habits that you truly desire to express in your life.
Life’s Balance SheetHow deep is your bondage to people, to ideas, or to your self? Is your freedom-seeking a desperation that is driving you into greater confusion? Trying to avoid responsibilities and planning to "get away from it all" might work, if you could "lose yourself." Unfortunately, you take yourself along when you run away. If you dislike rain in one city, you will certainly dislike it in another city. Have you taken a self-inventory lately to see where you stand? What have you found? Does your balance sheet really balance, or have you debits in red? Has your service been halfhearted because more than half your heart is elsewhere? The only way to balance your book of life is to cure you of the wrong kind of desire-ideas. Tinkering with the laws of life will not cure this. Giving up the desire-idea of escape means working right where you are with all your heart centered upon the work. True freedom comes from conquering what surrounds you. Emancipation from any place or situation comes from mastering yourself and the condition, instead of running from it. True freedom is accepting your responsibilities and getting acquainted with life!
Mastery: The Bottom LineDo you seek freedom from boring relatives or domineering friends who push you around and dictate to you? Do you give of your service with an inner grudge, thinking, "Well, you can have it, but you’re not welcome to it"? Many do, though they ask no credit on the outside. If this is your attitude, now is the right time to change. Emancipation comes only through mastering the inner self. Self-mastery is the only freedom. No matter how hard you try, you cannot master anyone else. You can remake no one, though you may spend your whole life trying. You can conquer self by changing your general attitude toward family, friends and life. Each is in exactly the right place now for learning his next lesson. If you do not like it here, then this not the place waiting for you in the Divine Plan. It is the place you have made for yourself. You can leave anytime you like by cleaning your present spot and learning to like the lesson, not the place. You can change your mind, which is one thing for which you are wholly responsible. You cannot control outer things or people, but you can control yourself. Miracles come from a change of mind and heart, but you must make the change.
Zest or Rest?The only way to make life bearable is to live it vigorously and gloriously every minute. Running from life’s problems does no good. A problem has a way of catching up with you at the worst possible moment, even while you are congratulating yourself that you are rid of it. You’d never get to enjoy it, even if you could find a place to "leave it all behind." Everyone else would follow you to escape, too. There you have it! You have no place to go to "get away from" life. No amount of wishing, fretting, fussing or hating life will rid you of it. If you try to avoid living life where you are now, you find yourself all twisted out of shape from walking forward while looking backward! Get right down on your knees and scrub the mess. Roll up your sleeves and punch the fear. Take up the duster and clean out the cobwebs of your thinking and emotions. These efforts will make you zestful about living and enable you to meet life head on. Stop thinking about how noble you are. Brush the old clutter off your tired brain cells. Make room for new ideas, new friends, new plans and more life to pay extra dividends!
Resting ‘UP’When you find that you haven’t enough strength to carry you through a whole day’s activities, you cannot always blame it on the physical body. The idea that you are not strong enough to go the whole day will eventually so deplete the body of nervous energy that physical weakness is the result. Some can run for eight hours, some for only three hours. Then they must go to bed again to gather enough strength for another round. They live eagerly for the first hour, then sort of run down again. This is not living. It is existing, resting to gain more strength. Passive resting is a sure sign that life is boring you until you can no longer face it except in short periods. Going to bed to rest, reading from story to story with nothing interesting between, doing only what must be done and getting back as quickly as possible – all are signs of wanting to evade a life that bores us. You can generate enough energy within your body to carry you through the whole day. You can decide to live a whole day without getting too tired. You can take an interest in what’s around you, actually listen when others talk to you. An expectant attitude will keep you on your feet and build a strong body with plenty of energy. Resting is passive waiting. Living is active expression.
Peak PerformanceIt takes real strength to be a success. Do you really want to be the strongest person in your family, community or business? Of course, the strongest one always has the most work to do because others can always use a weak back, weak knees, weak eyes and weak head as an excuse to duck the hard tasks. If you are honest enough in your effort, you do try to run at 10 percent physical efficiency on a daily basis. Yet you dissipate your other 90 percent in silly gossip, fritter it away in imagination. You run old imagination films during the day and sometimes run one film repeatedly all night. All this uses physical energy with all sorts of negative results. Procrastination uses energy. Billy plays away his energy, then is too tired to cut the lawn – but the lawn waits for him. Billy isn’t the only one who is forever using double energy to accomplish things! Dreading a task misuses energy. Getting at it not only uses the energy generated when the idea to do it is born, but leaves the body with a surplus. This is the secret of abounding strength to do as you like. It becomes a joy to be the strongest one in your group, for then you can always say, "Yes, send me!" RETURN TO TOP
Love’s Golden ThawDo you feel that you’ve given too much of yourself too extravagantly in the past? Does no one ever appreciate what you’ve done for them? Has love passed you by? Does no one ever give you a gift? Are you the one who does all the giving? Is all the bread you so generously sliced from your loaf of life still floating around somewhere? Perhaps it has frozen fast to one spot and cannot move to return to you. Love is the magnetic, golden thaw that calls to us our own. Only love can open a barred door and melt frozen assets. Giving from a sense of duty, obligation or resentment sends forth the gift as cold ice to be resented in turn by the receiver. Giving easily with regret later freezes every gift. Ice cannot move of itself, so how can a frozen gift return to the giver? Love is elastic, and any gift given in love returns immediately, having collected the butter and jam for your slice. Love increases itself, going and returning. Turn on the heat! Melt that ice! Spread on that love!
Fan the Flame of DesireThe "wishers," the "hopers" and the "wanters" never get very far with their daydreaming. "Wishers" use the sitting end of their spine as a wishbone. "Hopers" are always praying and hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. "Wanters" demand what they want of life, despite payment here or hereafter. All our new ideas come from dreaming dreams and seeing visions. However, we can’t just sit and idly wish, hope, or demand of life. Heart fires go out under passivity. We must fan those "wishing, hoping and wanting" triplets into the flame of desire in our heart before they work to our advantage. A flaming desire moves into an "active becoming" that can work wonders in any age. Our difficulty is that we allow our flaming desire to cool so often while we let go of our plan. It takes so much time to whip up the blaze again that we have no time left for active work. When we start building for new things in our life, we must stick to it. We can’t turn against our desire by wondering what we’ll do if it doesn’t work for us. We must be faithful to our plan, never again turn to passive daydreaming or let old dreams absorb us. We must always possess the active ability to dream new things into expression while holding steady the flame of desire. Let a flaming desire possess you! RETURN TO TOP
White HeatIf we sit awake all night, waiting for a new dawn, we never see it because we’re too sleepy to know when it comes. If we stand and work for a new day, the dawn always appears, and we are awake to see it. When we sit long enough, we forget what we were waiting for and turn our interest to something else. At the white point of heat, they pour the metal for a steel bar. They never allow it to cool before the pouring. Sitting and waiting cools us off, and the longer it continues the less enthusiasm we have to pour ourselves into the needed mold of life. Why can’t we get "hot under the collar," or just hot without any collar over our jobs, our friends, our ideals? Why can’t we keep boiling over about our own futures? The experts call this white point of heat "efficiency," but they never seem to tell us how to hold that point. If we cool all day with boredom, we will surely be full of flaws at night. If we can learn how to boil all day, we can do anything we set our hearts on, even when someone pushes us off the fire and into the corner. The trick of success is to continue our effort and get the most from life by running on our own steam, which is that white point of heat needed to produce results!
Faith, the BuilderThe "substance" of faith is as much a part of inanimate creation as it is a part of our life. One phase of faith is unconscious and the other is conscious. In the animal, tree and very often in humanity, it is an unconscious faith. In all the children of earth who reason and think, it becomes a conscious use of that one faith. Paul said, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen." Evidence is the substance of the unseen hoped for, and the hope is faith! That substance is all about us, in the air we breathe, the food we eat. We cannot get more substance or destroy what is here. We can only tear down old forms and rebuild with the same substance. Recycling metals proves this. Metal is unconscious substance, unconscious of being used. Science and religion begin at the same point: "Let there be Light" – this is the one Substance, seen or unseen, conscious and unconscious. To rebuild our bodies and our lives, we must consciously use this faith to tear down the old unconscious substance and consciously remold it into a form nearer to our heart’s desire.
Believe to ReceiveLife can be a stupid business when we grow up and lose us that first rapturous expectancy and belief in Fairy Godmothers and Wish Fairies. Of course, we’ll be laughed at if we go around waving our magic wand, but then we’ll be laughed at anyway for our ideals. So why not enjoy the pleasure of an expectant attitude and chase away the blues with our magic wand. Children make wishes and never doubt that they will come true. We, who have grown up to be wise, make our wishes, then turn about-face and open a campaign of what we will do "if" the wish doesn’t materialize. We lack that simple faith in a Power great enough to back us all the way to success. Holding fast to that first rapturous faith in our ability to succeed, planning to meet our Fairy Godmother right around the very next corner is the only asset we need, provided we build on expectancy. We’ll never receive more from life than we can believe in having. So why not believe, wish-work greatly and wave your magic wand joyously always? There’s never a dull moment when you fully believe in a Fairy Godmother!
Act As IfDo you believe that you can make a declaration, and it will be established for you? Do you know that it will be established? Do you act as if you had it now? Or does discouragement creep into your mind and heart to swamp all your lovely ideas and aims? Do you get tired of waiting and turn to another well-advertised method as a short cut to accomplishment? If a man had stood in line all night at a ticket window, and got tired and left when he was third from the window, you’d know that it would be the end of the line for him if he returned. He would forfeit all previous waiting and standing. Yet, we do this to ourselves, often when we are in sight of our goal. Laws are laws and cannot fail. You can finish what you start, if you hang on long enough. Since you can never tell when you are third next at the window of fulfillment, keep your place in line until you gain your desired goal. Never let Old Man Discouragement get you down – hang on and know that persistence is the watchword and it always wins!
Growing UP!Have they called you a failure? Did it hurt? Did it make you sore? Or did it rouse your pride to greater endeavor? You can take it as you choose: As an opportunity to toughen your moral fiber, or as an occasion to become involved in more self-pity. As a stepping stone to advancement, or something to push you further into your shell. No one cares very much which of these you choose. Do others begin to tell you that it’s too far to the top, it’s too hard to climb, you can’t do it because you haven’t the education or the ability to make the grade? When they do, then you have already started the long climb to the top. Your head is already above the crowd, or no one would spend his valuable time telling you that you are a failure. They are afraid you will pass them on the way up. From now on use every bit of faultfinding as a challenge to greater endurance. Use both criticism and the laughs you’ll get as a measuring rod. Watch yourself grow! Failure isn’t real, but it is lack of faith in yourself. Turn your back on what "might have been" and become what will be when faith rules your life. RETURN TO TOP
A Simple FaithHave they called you simple-minded because you enjoy simple pleasures? Did it disgruntle you or make you feel that perhaps you were silly? Never allow yourself to grow too complex about your enjoyments. If you do, you will lose something of your spontaneity of heart that can cause you many dull hours later in life. Never try to emulate another’s ideas of enjoyment and never let anyone spoil yours. So take stock right now and decide just what is important. Then stick to your guns under all circumstances. Keep your list comprehensive enough to allow for added joys and uncomplicated enough so it won’t ever grow burdensome. Let’s find out why and how our grandmothers could always sing, though burdened with work and few conveniences. Let’s learn to be free of material things, neither possessing them unduly nor allowing them to possess us as they have in the past. Let’s use a simple-minded faith in a Supreme Ruler’s care for us!
The DO-ness of Faith"I won’t" is a challenge that we send the universe – one that reacts upon us like a boomerang. "I will" becomes an overdue invoice for us to pay all our debts to the law. A reason backs the yogi’s mantra. He knows that with every thought, emotion and picture that imagination builds we color the substance of our lives. Substance goes forth as breath, dynamic and powerful, or weak, right or wrong. Substance goes forth to do something every moment of our lives, both here and beyond what we call the "veil." Sending forth substance backed by good, constructive ideas formed into words to create for us will remake our whole lives. We must take advantage of this law and watch our expression through words because every word has a composite numerical value and creates after its own kind. "I won’t" always returns to us, and we must eat it and like it. "I will" recalls to us all the little clouds of darkness we’ve left behind, to be in-breathed and cleansed. So, to accomplish anything really worthwhile, we should use "I can" and "I do" – they challenge the forces of the universe to aid us at any hour. I now can do all things under faith!
The Face of BeautyOne day we look in our mirror and are surprised at the strange face that gazes back at us. The face we see is ours and has been forming as many years as we have to our credit. It is something we have earned. In fact, it is us we see. Written upon our face is the total of our lives. One famous writer said that no one could be called beautiful at sixteen because youth was always beautiful. However, when one is beautiful at sixty, that is real beauty because living in beauty earned it. A beautiful feeling within is translated into the beauty of the face without. Of course, the reverse also must be true. This is the only face we’ll ever have and it’s a shame we can’t ever turn it wrong-side-out to save the wear and tear of our old emotions. Since we can’t, it seems an excellent idea to begin now to remake it. Of course, we could avoid looking in the mirror, but it is too bad for the fellow in front of it, don’t you think? Our body will forever respond to the mind behind and within it, and we can remake it in the image of any desire of that mind. Living at the center of our being in poise will give us the expression of peace, and we will radiate a newfound joy – all it costs are effort and time.
Eternally YoungWe have grown up with the idea that old age is necessary. The three great life periods spoken of as emergence, maturity and decline have us stymied before we are able to think for ourselves. Some people really begin to live at seventy by acting as if they were youthful and doing all those things left behind with youth. It is possible for anyone to renew an old body by acting as if. What holds us back from accepting this as our portion? Psychology has this answer. We must renew the mind before we can renew the body. First we must discard all our great-grandmothers’ patterns for bodies. We must rid ourselves of the idea that we shall "decline" with the added years. Eternal youth is born in the mind and heart first and only then can it be expressed in the outer. When we combine the use of proper diet and exercise, feeling and thinking into a coordinated whole, we can and shall have bodies that are youthful. We shall be mentally alert, with imaginations that build only those things we decide. Why plan to live only fifty or sixty years when the cells can renew themselves for a thousand vigorous and healthy years?
At the Heart of SoulDo you really want eternal youth? Do you want to pay the price necessary to regain all your lost ambition and forgotten ideas? Would you like to touch the flame of desire again? Eternal youth comes from living at the heart of the soul. It comes from the very center of that divine spark that is your real identity. It comes from that ability to enjoy the days because they are full of life and because life itself is so very entrancing. Eternal youth comes from a mature understanding of responsibility, from that experience of knowing, loving and calling everything Good as it comes. Eternal youth isn’t afraid to suffer and grow, and counts all pain as gain. It has no tears to dry because it is too busy living to take time for crying. We weave the life of eternal youth of stardust and moonbeams, held together by cobweb-fine strands that grief or sorrow would rend asunder. Eternal youth knows that it must hold fast to confidence and assurance. Eternal youth cannot listen to anything that might disturb its delicate balance of joy in and about life. Eternal youth is as free as air and as delicate as a spider’s web!
PromotionsDoes it always rain when you go on vacation? When you go out to dinner, is your favorite dessert always gone? Are the good seats sold out when you get around to buying yours? When you reach the place in your affairs where everything leaves a bad taste in your mouth, where work or play is drab monotony, where your house is getting old, your salary shrinking, your car rattling, then something must be done. Perhaps you are so interested in these things that unconsciously you are holding out on your family, your boss or your business. Perhaps you are forgetting that you must hustle. If you hold out on life, life will hold out on you. Anyone can foretell the finish of this attitude. Start now to prepare yourself for stepping up and you’ll be discovered. Don’t worry, you’ll be seen. Steadfast effort is the only royal road to promotion and advancement. Prove yourself ready for it now by carrying more of the load where you serve, by accepting more responsibility in your present place, by giving twice as much as they pay you for doing. We must earn promotions before we can receive them. You can’t change this law to suit. Diligent expectancy keeps you grinning while you’re struggling! RETURN TO TOP
It’s Never Too Late!Right now is the time to take a firmer grip on that load you’re pushing to the top of the hill. This is the right place to draw a deeper breath for those last few difficult steps. The long climb has made you tired – who wouldn’t be with such a load? Your poor feet and hands are aching and blistered, but don’t stop now – the top is in sight! Remember how you started: Young and confident, gay and laughing, ideals and idols, dreams and visions, ready to conquer every dragon in your path, ready to lay the whole world at the feet of your love, ready to give up the whole world for your love? Well, it’s never too late – it’s only too soon if you have not yet created your dreams or collected your million. Get this one thing: It’s never too late! Rest a while, but do not let go of your load again or it will roll to the bottom of the hill as it has so often in the past, with wrappings broken and your life scattered in every direction. It takes so much valuable time to seek and pick it up again. Turn around if you must, but keep your back against the load. Don’t lose an inch of ground gained. See how far you’ve climbed? A little extra push, a little more steam, an ounce more of grit and you’ll be over the top!
Odds & EndsWhen summer finally comes, we’re all so fed up with winter’s grind, so tired of everlasting routine that we’re apt to sag into tiredness and let go completely. When fall comes and we must resume duties, we waste too much effort trying to get into action, lose too much time trying to pick up the scattered ends left dangling all summer while we rested "down." Letting go too far means slipping into slack mental habits. It’s always Thanksgiving before we get started to really accomplish anything. The only way to save ourselves both time and effort is to find a method of relaxing without letting go, without losing any of our alertness and aliveness. Finding this happy medium is not too hard and will save plenty of time in the fall. If we cannot change location or homes or work during the summer, we can change both ways of doing things and times of doing things. We can put on new summer minds and leave all worrying until fall!
The Good FrontKeeping our eyes on the rest of the world is so much easier than keeping them straight ahead. Yet watching neighbors and friends is a waste of time, and never pays a single dividend. None of us can judge what is going on behind a smile or a frown we see. A smile may cover a deep grief we would not care to hide away in our heart. A frown may hide a heart afraid of being hurt again after some devastating experience. Both are putting up a "good front" behind which we hide the real self. Each of us shows to the world what we want the world to see. We must look deep below the surface if we would uncover the important things of life and this takes time. We cannot do it with a casual glance. Sometimes a "two-story front" covers a shack behind. Sometimes a poor "front" covers solid gold. Keeping the eyes straight ahead is no easy task. It’s a full time job requiring full strength and courage. Save your eyes for seeing only the important and true things of life. Meet life head-on, laughing instead of groaning, struggling even when too tired to move. Victory comes from steadfastly holding your eyes upon your goal!
Stars: Alibi or Goal?Do you collect alibis? Are you full of excuses for dawdling over things? Do you whine when things go wrong and beef over everything you dislike? Do you believe in fate you can’t escape or that the stars rule your life? It cramps your style to believe in a fate that cuts everything by pattern, then sews it up in fine seams, while the stars compel you to follow that pattern. Fate and stars are safe alibis, since they can’t retaliate. If you wait to have your stars "right" before asking the boss for a raise, he may refuse because his stars are all wrong that day. The uncertainty of living on the Fate and Star Program is that the stars and fate never seem to get together for us. Whining and excuses went out with hoop skirts! Today we change our fate line into our Path of Destiny! We reach for the stars, knowing that we can do anything that we desire to do, provided we back it up with hard work. Real work needs no excuses. Everyone can see what we are doing!
"Sensitivity"Are you so self-conscious that it makes you unhappy? Do you just know that when you walk into a room everyone has been talking about you because they become silent as you enter? When over-sensitivity reaches this advanced stage, it needs drastic measures. Isn’t it a bit far fetched to think that we are the most important being in the lives of everyone we meet? That a room full of people cannot meet without using us as the main topic of conversation? It could be possible that they might be thinking and talking of someone or something else. Are you just too, too proud of being super-sensitive? This is only an exaggerated form of egotism, though we think it a sign of extra special "fineness." When we tell folks all about our super-sensitivity, we are only telling them how madly in love we are with ourselves. When we study our effect upon others instead of their effect on us, our eyes will be opened to a thousand things we’ve been blind about before. Popularity comes from showing interest in others and their affairs – and in remaining silent about our own. Try forgetting self-consciousness in service for others.
Half a Loaf or Whole?Is your life one compromise after another? Does your day always leave you with an armful of substitutes instead of the things that you start to gather? Have you almost reached the stage where you do not know substitutes from the things that you wanted? Have you buried all your ideals under such a mass of practical ideas and so much common sense that you can’t find them? You can’t ever forget that person you wanted to be. You won’t get anywhere just by sighing over your lost youth. Every idealistic problem always has a common sense approach. If you give up because you can’t make it work the first time, you can’t expect much from it. Because the approach to its creation was wrong doesn’t mean that the idea was wrong. It only needs further thinking to find the right way to make it practical. All the rest of those things that can’t be done are going to get themselves done, so why don’t you see what you can do about them? Compromise if you must, use that half a loaf or that crust, but be sure to keep on wanting the whole loaf and the real thing! RETURN TO TOP
Taking StockAre you always "on watch" for others’ words and actions so you’ll miss nothing that might be offensive? Do you feel like "starting something" over everything you hear? If you’re miserable because no one understands you or sympathizes with you, this is a good time to take stock. How can you blame an enemy’s enjoyment if you look hurt about everything that happens? If you show that you’re sitting on the point of the pin every time something hits you, you can count on more blows. Do you wriggle and squirm every time you are hurt? Almost everyone likes a circus and some folks just have to play ringmaster to keep their fatty ego inflated. They must play to a grandstand, though it is only their victim. When the performance impresses the victim enough to cringe, a sense of power thrills the ringmaster. The only cure is indifference to their performance except to admire it as perfect in its kind. Become the admiring audience instead of the cringing victim. Stop watching for offenses and forget hurts. Why start something or be miserable to satisfy someone else’s ego?
The Virtue HuntAre you certain that your family deliberately laughs the most when you feel the worst? Just when everything has gone to smash and you can hear the opening rumbles of one of your worst spells? Being with folks is always hard because they have such a variety of dispositions, each needing different treatment, and the strain finally gets too great to bear. We can become unbalanced if we keep looking for faults, including our own, until we see only faults everywhere while sinking fathoms deep into a sea of super faultfinding. Did it ever occur to you that you could hunt for virtues? What we see depends upon where we are looking. What we are hunting determines what we will find and what we feel depends upon both. Everyone has at least one virtue. We might find it, if we hunted hard enough. We may have to dig in under that family laughter to find it, but we can. Last year’s best is not good enough for this year’s struggle. We must earn this year’s success this year and that takes persistent effort in finding the good instead of pursuing the worst. Forget worst spells and faultfinding – laugh with your family!
Who’s the Goat?Do you always avoid the blame by making someone else the goat? Or are you always made the family or office goat? Do you seem to invite this? It takes two to make any bargain, and you need not be the second party. Allowing someone to tag you with a load you know nothing about can become a habit. Bearing the whole burden, taking all the leftovers, always getting the smallest piece of cake, having plans interfered with every time can finally make anyone a martyr. Worse, it can set the mind to enjoy being martyred. Is it better to be the goat or to make someone else the goat? This depends upon the viewpoint. Keep right on being the goat, if it satisfies you and you enjoy it, otherwise speak up for justice. Make a stand that the family share burdens equally. Let each in turn take the small piece of cake. They’ll respect you, even if they do not like it. If you’re among the world’s goat-makers, don’t be surprised when, like proverbial chickens that come home to roost, your little goats return to their maker, butting you fore and aft. It’s better that both goat-ees and goat-ors mind their own business now!
CrossroadsHave you just paid out all the money you had saved for a vacation with the family this year for a graduation, an illness or that kitchen remodeling? Does everyone take it for granted that you won’t mind or be hurt over the scuttling of your ship? Well, this is another important crossroads in your life and your next decision may determine your whole future. One way will complete the drying up of the milk of human kindness within you and the other will break open an old encasing shell and set you free. Have you felt this shell pressing in on you lately? Occasionally we reach the limit of our present environment and find we’ve outgrown the old ideas, actions, emotions and people. This means a new cycle of endeavor, if we take our discounts and plan something new instead of silently boiling over inside with resentment. It means space to stretch our sails and run before the wind. What does it matter about the clouds and the storm today? What if it does turn to a gale? Storms come, but they always go. Patch up your old ship, caulk the old seams or build a new one!
Rx for Joy!When the sun hides behind a cloud, do you think it’s gone forever? Do you choose the shady side of the street, then complain of the cold? Do you sulk and freeze instead of crossing into the sunshine? You can, if you like, because no one will come along and carry you. Folks may think it odd to act that way, but they’ll leave you free to please yourself. On sunny days you can live under clouds of darkness formed in our own head. On cloudy days you can live in the sunshine because your heart is singing with joy. Choose which you prefer, sun or clouds, and live it. Don’t be a half-and-half person. If you like clouds, then make good black ones! Cover your spot with them if you like, but don’t expect another to share your spot when he likes the sun. If you want a popular spot, make it sunny and folks will seek you. Friends will come and friends will stay when your spot is full of warmth. Remember, no one else can make your spot sunny or fill it with shadows. No one can keep you under clouds or force you into the sun. This is your life – under the clouds or on top of them in the sun!
Life’s New OpportunitiesAre you fond of airing your opinions or of telling someone off? Do you often threaten to tell someone all about what you think of his wrong ideas? Lying in wait for the other fellow is all right, if you don’t happen to be the other fellow. Do you wait until the other fellow is completely off guard, then land hard, making him look foolish, making him stutter and fumble in dismay? This may give you satisfaction, but it leads to a dead end eventually. Right or wrong, must you always be right? Opinions and prejudices change with the seasons. Sometimes we later find that everyone was wrong. If you are too wrapped up in what you think you know, you’ll never be alert enough to find the new answers to the new opinions. We gain a reputation for a snappy comeback only by watching for the new opportunities in life. Dwelling upon old issues clouds the thinking processes and persistently giving away pieces of mind might lead to giving away too much! Then what would we do? We might give away all that we have – one piece at a time!
TroubleshooterWould your family be disturbed if you decided to stop always hunting for trouble? Aren’t you tired of expecting trouble, day after day? Any time you get tired of trouble you can give it up. No one can insult you unless you allow it. No one can get inside your mind to mess it up unless you open the door and invite them in to do the stirring. Your thoughts dwell upon the dark side of everything with your permission. Only you can change it. Did it ever occur to you that you might be boring your family? It is a bore when someone is always watching – like a cat waiting for the mouse to dash for the cheese – picking on every phrase to make it into something. Besides, why look for trouble when just waiting brings enough and mostly it turns out for the good after all. Why not become a troubleshooter instead of a troublemaker? A troubleshooter can always find a trouble cure, and this pays more dividends for the effort than do trouble-making and hunting. Change a bad habit into a good one by trying to cure troubles rather than make them. Once a troubleshooter, always a troubleshooter. RETURN TO TOP
Classes, Exams & GradesExpecting a second-grader to make perfect marks on a high school lesson would be the height of folly. From birth to death, life is graded into individual classes, each important to the one in it. No two are in the same class studying the same lesson, so how can we be alike in what we are doing? How can we all give the same answers to lessons when they are all different? We have no reason to feel self-important about passing with high grades. Our old high marks will do us no good in the next class. We must have the stamina to dig out the new answers. Learning rapidly gives us no authority to gloat over another’s slowness. Our growth slows and stops when we wrap ourselves in a mantle of exaggerated ideas of our ability. If another wants to take up his stance upon one step and never move higher, leave him alone to enjoy himself. The "I can’t understand" and the "I can’t see why" classes are full and vain speculation over the reason others stand still grows into a feeling of superiority. This may feel good at the time but we could flunk our next exam unless we keep busy – and that would be just too bad, wouldn’t it?
Look UP, Not Back!Once upon a time, so the story goes, two cities were to be destroyed by a great fire. No one believed that they would be destroyed except the prophet who received the information when he was without witnesses. He believed, so he removed his family from the cities. Any woman could understand the Lot’s wife and why she looked back to see whether the cities really were burning. She looked back even after she had been told she would turn into a pillar of salt if she did. In the first place, her husband was always talking about something. She had just hung new drapes in the living room, the furniture had been recovered and she had a new piano that she didn’t want to leave behind. She just had to take one peek. One look back turned her into a pillar of salt! Perhaps we do not believe the story, but we do look back. We turn to hardened arteries, hardened brain cells, hardened hearts and lives. Looking forward and living upward renews the cells and makes for youth and beauty. Which do we prefer? Hanging onto past glories and fame, while turning to a pillar of salt, or joy today?
A Firm FoundationYesterday’s achievements cannot be used as sofa cushions and feather beds for the future. A single tremendous effort may make you a world hero, but to rest on one performance for the remainder of your life will not maintain your hero’s status. Today’s hero is always rudely awakened to face a cold fact: No one stays sold overnight. We cannot afford to stop selling ourselves for a single day or we lose with someone. If we forget to smile for an hour because of a hurt, someone calls us an old grouch. If we lose interest in others on the day they need it, they think we do not love them. They hunt greener pastures where they can find sympathy. Married couples who lose that first rapturous exploration of interest called the honeymoon find themselves becoming bored and headed toward separation. Interest in others’ affairs makes us an agreeable companion who is sought in spare moments. Self-interest is interest turned within. Self-selling is interest turned outward. What good is the past except to be used as a firm foundation upon which to build our future? Avoid bogging down in self-pity. Turn your interest outward toward others and life.
The Secret EnemyWe achieve, not by what we add to the outside, but by what we get rid of on the inside. The only enemy we have is that little fellow deep within our heart who is always looking for trouble from the outside. We waste enough time playing detective, gathering evidence, trying the case, judging and sentencing those we call enemies to run any two lives perfectly. We must agree with this hidden adversary "whilst we are in the ways with him," which means at the very time he rears his head and not a day or week later. We can agree with anything we find in the world of our expression. When we allow this secret enemy within to rule our lives, we surely believe in outer enemies. Then we fight many battles in our minds, supplying our enemies’ answers, too. But when we go to battle over imagined wrongs, the enemies we’ve created never give the answers we’ve put in their mouths. Often we’re left in a worse state than when we started our "war." Success in the outer is caused by ridding ourselves of hidden enemies within our hearts. Do it now!
One Step at a TimeWho invented the idea of failure anyhow? Who thought up the "doormat" idea? Why do we go right on planning to become a failure and turning into a doormat? There’s no choice between the two. They are both poor excuses to replace that original fame we intended to gather from life. If we persistently push forward a step at a time toward our objective, be it ever so small, we can’t fail. Failure is just getting tired and quitting before we arrive. Plodding on must mean success sometime in the future. The time required doesn’t count. Nothing does, except our dedicated determination to succeed. Don’t join the "doormat" family! Meekness is all right, if it is an active meekness that holds up its head and takes everything squarely on the chin. Passive meekness is an invitation to the whole wide world, including our dear family, to pick on us. A "doormat" attitude, which makes others want to wipe their feet on us, is no good. If we act like a "doormat," someone will surely step on us! See how much you can take with a smile – and like it!
Law of AveragesHave you forgotten how to meet the new need for greater speed? Have you lost the desire to accomplish more every hour? Have lean years slowed you down and made you feel old? The law of averages and compensation is exact no matter whether we believe it. If our daily average of service is only 10 percent of our ability, then 10 percent is all we’ll take in returns. To get 100 percent from life, we must put that much in as our share of the world’s service. Service is the rent we pay for the space we occupy. This investment of ideals and service given to life must return to us in the amount we’ve invested and we must average 100 percent every day! If you can shake loose from past self-indulgences, you can scale any heights that you can envision. Accept a greater destiny for yourself and keep your eyes fixed on a long distance view, if necessary. You are not less than you were, despite time, age and waiting. You are all that you were plus all that added experience has given you. Buried deep in your soul is the ability to bring forth your finest dreams and they fuel themselves! Stop resisting your destiny, and step up your creative effort!
Your Five-Year PlanWhat have you planned to accomplish with your life by the end of this year? What is your five-year plan? Unless you plan, you won’t do enough daily building to reach your desired place. Unless you set a charted course, your life will slip by and you’ll find the years have caught up with you without having furthered your aims. If you don’t plan to uncover and unfold your greater abilities and powers, if you don’t take time today for self-improvement, time steals away. One day you’ll realize that you’ve become a member in the "Grand Order of Discards and Has-Beens," a large organization whose members are all waiting for something wonderful to happen. You cannot wait to receive more before giving more. If you do, chances are you’ll never create the opportunity to show the world how good you are. Someone will always beat you to the next place by just a "few minutes." The more you give right where you are, without grudging the service, the greater will be your reward. What do you care about tough going? Or bumps and bruises? The goal is the thing! Forget your bumps and bruises and get busy! RETURN TO TOP
Bite Your Tongue!Anyone can get tired and quit, bluster and grow angry, be critical and condemning – it takes only a brain cell-and-a-half! The single-celled creature can do as much, so don’t be proud of it! Self-mastery requires using real brains with alertness and unwavering persistence. It takes less strength of character to bite the tongue in self-control than it does to conquer all desire to lash out and burn another with hasty words unwisely spoken. However, biting the tongue is the first step toward conquering self. This eventually leads to complete self-mastery, which is more than half the battle toward any goal. The higher your vision, the longer it takes to bring it forth into the outer where it can be seen by others. It takes longer to build a cathedral than it does a five-room house. If your vision is cathedral-size, others may finish their dreams before your foundation is complete. Waste no time watching others, for it will take more time and effort of labor to build yours from foundation to roof. To be unhampered by emotional
jags, you must use great discrimination in choosing your attitudes
toward life, then follow them with perseverance and courage under
all conditions.
DO Something!Did some disappointment cause you to wrap all your dreams and put them away in moth balls years ago? Or have you put them in cold storage so nothing could happen to them? If you have, get them out right now, unwrap them, warm them up and air them. Have you thought it your family’s fault that you are not a doctor, a lawyer, an artist, a musician or a teacher? Don’t excuse yourself another day with such silly soothing syrup for your lack of push and drive! How do you know that you could have been these things? You can’t know, if you’ve never done anything about it, and you never will unless you do something now! Someone may have kept you from it while you were very young, but after that it was up to you. If you had really wanted it, no one could have kept you from it. Night schools and books cover everything anyone can want. Nothing on earth can stop one who is determined to do something. Find out now what your dreams really mean, one at a time. If you still feel cheated, start one project. If after three weeks you develop a passion for it, continue. If it bores you, drop it and forget it. That deathless desire within you can do anything. Move your dreams from the talk-about-it class – DO something!
Our Subconscious SieveDo you have trouble remembering things? Do you continually think that perhaps your memory is failing you? Why do you think this? Subconscious memory is a sieve so fine that nothing ever falls through. Held there for us to draw upon are the memory impressions of past lives and our present life with all its experiences. The subconscious is a willing servant, ever ready to aid us by sending up to the conscious mind whatever we desire to use. But the subconscious grows careless unless it is well trained. Any servant treated in a slipshod way does slipshod work. The subconscious memory servant is no exception to this rule. If your thinking is sloppy and confused, if you’re always contradicting yourself, subconscious memory may refuse to answer your ring. It’s neither lost nor gone – it needs only some good, hard corrective measures. Before sleep at night give it definite orders to listen and obey your commands. Tell yourself that your memory is wonderful, that it sends everything you need instantly. Don’t contradict yourself! Keep coaching yourself until you get results!
The Balance of PowerHave you harnessed your three great creative aids, Imagination, Thinking and Desire? Are they working for you twenty-four hours a day? Have you bridled them with a curb bit? Are you driving them straight toward your destination? Life might be likened to a pair of balance scales, with the two sides representing the positive and negative sides of your life. On the right side are all the fine, positive, constructive things that thinking, imagination and emotion can do for you. Into the left side are all those factors that are negative and destructive, that give the lie to your real self and tear down all the good. Which side holds the balance of power in your life? The positive or the negative, the right side or the left side? Are you certain that you are using imagination, thinking and desire to create what you want from life? If not, then empty the left side now and make sure your balance is on the right side. You’ll find that delay in your affairs will vanish, things that you have been working to find will search for you. Results will come from your honest efforts, sometimes without effort or work!
Your Chariot of LifeWill, Desire and Imagination are the tools we use to create our lives, to envision or dream actively. They are our detriment or our salvation, according to our use of them. Will and Desire are the team mates drawing our chariot of life. Imagination is sitting in the driver’s seat, holding fast the lines of control. If the team pulls in the same direction and with the same strength, we can have anything we can imagine ourselves as having. Do your Will and your Desire pull together? If Will chains you to a desk to work and Desire leaves your body to go to the ballpark for the game, your team mates are pulling in opposite directions. Your Imagination becomes confused and cannot concentrate upon the business in hand. The broad highway of life leads straight ahead. If Will and Desire are pulling to either side, Imagination is drawn and quartered trying to hold the lines and keep your chariot of life on the highway. Will and Desire must pull together always. Either bring Desire back to the desk or take Will out to the ball game. Get your Imagination, Desire and Will going in the same direction, simultaneously!
The Real "I"Will and Desire must work together to attain any goal. If Desire wants to play golf, but Will takes us back to the office while our friends go to play, chances are overwhelming that we’ll accomplish nothing the whole afternoon. Desire is on the golf course while Will sits in the office betrayed by Imagination’s pictures of the game’s pleasures. Will can’t concentrate when abandoned by Desire and led down the primrose path by Imagination. We can easily tell whether we’re in charge of our creative tools. Take an inventory: Would I like to find everything I’ve imagined during the past month sitting on my doorstep, waiting in my office, resting in the living room or perched on my kitchen table? Or are they nightmares? Would I like each of my imaginings to come true right now? If we would, we’re well on our way to complete success. If we wouldn’t, then we start right here to hold our own. We consciously imagine what pattern we desire, then cut our thinking to conform to our chosen life pattern. We make sure our emotional life does not give power to what we don’t want in our lives. We keep imagination’s eye on our chosen goal, not letting it run wild, daydreaming or idling away our valuable time. Our real "I" takes charge, dictating to imagination what we desire to create as our new, successful glorious life. RETURN TO TOP
Chickens Come Home to RoostIt sounds pretty complicated when we talk about what mind will do for us when harnessed and used with direction and control, but science aids us to gain a better understanding. Radio, television and satellites prove that there is an unseen substance that does move into the ethers and reassemble in another spot as sound and picture. It carries through any thickness of concrete and there is no barrier through which it cannot penetrate. Have you applied this principle to your words and thoughts? Every thought you think, you send into the atmosphere as a vibration that has a definite form. Every time you picture something it builds a form in another grade of substance. Every time you send forth emotion, it does the same thing. Three grades of substance make a composite form in the invisible. These may be soft little white doves or sturdy black crows, but return to you they must. Our grandmothers knew this, for they always said that our "chickens come home to roost." Each thought, emotion and picture returns to us. Imagination, thinking and desire must be directed and controlled for good results!
Opinion or Action?Tumbleweeds grow in the dry lands of this country. Their tops are enormous compared with their shallow roots, so the first windstorm of the season pulls them up and sends them scurrying in every direction. They blow along aimlessly until they pile up against some barrier, huddling together for comfort in their plight. Opinion drifters are like tumbleweeds, and pile up in the same way, for the same reasons. Disgruntled drifters gather, discuss and blame everything and everyone – but never do anything about the subjects of their complaints. They never blame themselves, never admit that they could be responsible for any of the situations they complain about. Indifference and lukewarmness are today’s curses because those who indulge in them are always prey to those who oppose the social system, government or individuals. The indifferent mouth catch-phrases with great gusto because it gives the do-nothing class something to do. Much talk covers up their shortcomings. They blow from camp to camp exactly as tumbleweeds blow in arid country, never resting, finally ending in dry barrenness. As a nation and as individuals, we must have deep-rooted convictions about our ideals, general or specific. Our nation’s greatness is based upon the depth of our individual roots in the soil of right thinking.
Give it Your Best!It is better to "make haste slowly" than to do tasks in a hurry and find that we must do them over because of slipshod work. As we travel along, we feel that having to stop and do so many trivial things for family and friends is holding us back. We plan to do just so much during the day. We have a dozen unexpected calls on our time and energy, which at night leaves us with almost nothing of the day’s original plan accomplished. Our work piles up. Saturday finds us exhausted. Sunday is no day of rest. This is one lesson we can learn and, in learning, save ourselves bodily wear and tear, at least. Patience is not to be worked for, or we find our lives full of little things to try our patience – brought to us by our call for more patience. Move up into your tower room of poise. From this vantage place of Power your only expression will be peaceful, expressing all the patience that you need. Do your very best in each thing. Use your best mind, your best heart, your best effort, even on extra calls and the time you save will give you all the time you need!
PoiseDo you admire those individuals who are always unruffled under every condition? Have you wished that you could achieve the same fine balance and poise? You can, but we pay a price for poise. Only the deep desire to be a greater person gives one the courage to make the necessary payments. Like all worthwhile abilities, poise does not come overnight. It is a matter of slow growth. It must be earned. What sacrifice can you make to gain this serenity of spirit? No one can run from family and duty to be free. Yet each may find sanctuary from the hardship of life in a high place of the soul. Living in this high place will create within us the needed calmness to face the outer world unruffled. We may reach up into this sanctuary at an instant’s notice and in it find all those needed answers to life’s problems. It is the place of foresight instead of hindsight. Poise is an inviolate place, which may not be invaded, and it is not escape!
Give to GetHas life let you down? Has your search for sympathy and understanding been unfruitful? Are you tired of waiting for someone to give you both? Has your expectation of another’s sympathy and understanding led you into a load of obligations? Many married men and women are caring for a family because they thought their partner was sympathetic and understanding. Both were seeking the same thing and both were fooled. Most folks want free sympathy and understanding without giving anything in return, except housework, cooking or a monthly check to cover expenses. The truth is that giving of the inner self must earn both sympathy and understanding. Remember that day you went home to get sympathy and found someone with a worse story, so they thought, and you gave them comfort? You found your release in giving to someone else, and your own burden grew lighter as you gave. That which we demand of life, we are always forced to give to life.
End of an EraChange means advance if we so declare it. Civilization doesn’t stand still, but we don’t notice the changes until we’re almost within a new cycle of expression. The change always creeps up on us because the keynote of the Western world is activity and we’re too busy "doing" to be "seeing" simultaneously. So, one day we are shocked into a realization that something new has happened, which throws us into a state of confusion and bewilderment that seems to leave us helpless. We flounder around trying to doctor and patch the old, but it doesn’t work. We find that we must seek new ways that will incorporate the best of the old with the needed new. We can’t throw out all the old. All we need is to cut off all dead limbs and twigs, do a bit of grafting and cultivate the soil. Our difficulty is that so much of the old clings to the trunk tenaciously. The world has developed so many ways to graft and take from people that it is hard to convince many that this era is finished. It is ended and we need to adjust to it, believe in it and work together now for a new era makes right the one might.
Open Your DoorDo you believe that opportunity knocks but once at anyone’s door? Have you failed to answer that one knock, then decided that it was too late to do anything about it? This belief has immobilized many a potentially successful life, and if we accept it, it will delay our success too, despite the fact that opportunity knocks at our door every day. Each opportunity knocks but once, except in rare instances, yet new opportunities arrive at all hours. To greet opportunity we must stand with open arms, waiting. Not many of us find a ready-made place for ourselves. We must do the making with the ideas plans, tools and materials we have, and our combination of these factors determines what we make. We must know our goal and defend all that we do toward that goal. Intermittent work and lagging steps do not help. Continuity of effort is what succeeds, never giving in or backing down, no matter the cost. Time never stops and neither will we if we keep moving with it. This is the very hour of fulfillment for anyone who believes it. RETURN TO TOP
From Mountains to MolehillsHave all your pleasures turned to labors? Do you find yourself dreading the very things that you loved to do only a short time ago? If so, you must add some new zest to your living, something entirely different must enter your day’s activities. You must find something else to give new hope to your tired heart. Where can we go to find these new hopes and desires? Naturally, if we could buy or find them on the outside it would be a very simple matter, but we cannot have a renewal of life in this manner – and the effort of digging them out from within is almost too great to contemplate. However, since no one will ever stick them on from the outside, we must seek them within the individual soul. Sometimes only physical fatigue or emotional reactions cause such a state of mind. Whatever the cause, we can conquer it only by ourselves. If you have been making mountains out of your little molehills, start digging. Enough will power applied now will make molehills from your mountains!
From Tail to Kite!Anyone becomes quite tired of being a "nobody" while everyone else is leading and getting credit for it while "anyone" works just as hard but is never noticed. We all dislike the idea of being only the tail to some large kite with plenty of force and ability to fly high. We’d like to be kites ourselves, but we can’t push our way through. It isn’t much consolation to know that no kite can leave the ground without its tail – we still do not like being the tail! String is useless while waiting around doing nothing, however string and kite can set a new standard in high goals. It takes that string and bits tied together to balance the kite, and where that kite goes, the tail follows! While serving as a balance tail and string anchor to earth for another’s kite, we can learn how to become a kite ourselves. The alertness and aliveness we learn while acting as a balance will allow us to soar high when our turn comes. Let out that string and help the other fellow’s kite aloft. Some day his kite may fly right out of your life and forget to return – but you’ll be ready to become a kite, really free!
Prime Your PumpWhen enthusiasm dies, hopes fade with it and old age sets in. Love flies out the window when enthusiasm for the loved one dims, usually because of the daily intimate contacts that disillusion. Enthusiasm is the very motive power of all life and must be kept alive within the heart if we are to advance. Without enthusiasm to give life meaning, progress slows, and all desire to conquer fades from heart and mind. Do you start everything enthusiastically then lose interest? If you do, it leaves you with no energy to complete your project. The time comes in every phase of our affairs – love, marriage, friendship or business – when we reach this dull, drab place. We must call upon every reserve of strength and duty to push through, without regard to feelings or desires, paying no attention to discouragement or disillusion. By looking up to the stars, by holding fast to the joy anchor deep in your heart, by lifting high all ideals and faith, by adding a new interest or doing things a different way, you cross this desert. Prime your pump with hope, and enthusiasm will come bubbling up.
An Ounce of AppreciationIs appreciation the last thing your family or boss thinks of giving? Does it take all the natural joy from your work, and leave you feeling low and unnecessary? Even work that one may love can grow stale under these outer conditions, if we allow ourselves to think too much about not being appreciated for what we are doing. The way to cure this dullness in our own lives is easy. Start an appreciation campaign of right where you work and live. Everyone responds to it. Everyone loves it. Appreciation keeps the old world ticking. It is the spice of life to most folks and most folks will do most anything when others appreciate it. It doesn’t cost a cent and gives large returns to the giver. You may not receive appreciation from those to whom you give it, but you will create bubbling joy within your own heart. Life will look rosy again and your outlook will return to normal. Try it tomorrow wherever you find yourself. Use it on your family. Find something to praise and your smile may draw some praise to you. An ounce of appreciation will give many a pound of satisfaction.
Confusion or ClarityCan you do any number of tasks simultaneously, and do them all well? Or does being called upon to do more than one assignment at a time throw you into a state of confusion? If you have a "single track" mind, are proud of it and do not want to change – be satisfied and go your way. However, if you would like to be able to act as an executive, who can grasp many details at once, acting upon them at once having given previous orders while making new decisions, then begin a new campaign of self-discipline now. You have millions of undeveloped cells of brain capacity waiting, and all you need to do is to call it into service. Several exposures on one negative create a confused image. Crossed phone wires cause confusion. Pictures taken one at a times, one exposure right after the other, will produce as many clear images as you need. You can use a dozen phones at once, if each connection is clear. Keep each set of negatives clear in your mind. Never allow them to overlap or blur each other. Turn completely from one idea to the next keeping each wire clear and distinct – all you need is practice. Remember, one picture at a time, and hold each line free. RETURN TO TOP
Return on InvestmentAcross the road from each other live two gardeners with the same soil and climatic conditions, both having an equal start in life. One gardener is prosperous and has good crops. The other’s garden is run down and produces extra poor crops. One always wins, and the other always loses. He is a day late with his planting and it rains, or he plants, then it is dry. Nothing goes right for the one, and everything goes right for the other. We can find this situation in any walk of life – it is common. The cause cannot be found in outer events or factors, but must be sought within the individual himself. Only a discrepancy in the two attitudes toward life – something expressing from within – can account for the outer difference. One lets details slide, and they accumulate until he is too late to do the right thing at the right time. He is off somewhere else when others need him in a vital role. His attitude of "what’s the use" grows as he accomplishes less and less – soon he is waiting for a "break." The other drives himself to do the necessary tasks in turn, he studies climate and market. He turns both to his own advantage. "On the job" and "do it now" bore us. However, they form the right attitude toward our own outer success and pay the greatest of all returns on our investment.
The Road to WisdomConstructive fear and common sense go hand in hand as companions gaining wisdom from every new experience. Just to be afraid of new experience is neither common sense nor constructive fear. It is just fear. To wait for the traffic lights to change could be caused by a fear of being hit, but it would be a good, constructive fear, for it saves lives. To avoid disobeying the law for fear of getting caught is a constructive fear and leads into the habit of obeying laws. "The end of fear is the beginning of wisdom." Wisdom comes from learning that something is wrong to do or that it won’t work. That is how we instill morals into children’s minds. Without enough imagination, wisdom never grows. When doing hazardous work, imagination builds pictures of what could happen, one becomes afraid and from this uses the necessary caution to protect life. A constructive fear of getting caught makes one avoid unwise actions until the habit of obedience invites wisdom. To be tough and not care what happens is lack of imagination, not wisdom. A constructive fear, imagination and common sense leads to wisdom.
What’s in a Name?Has the world called you an opportunist? Have you let down and slowed down because you can’t stand to be called names, especially this one? Well, if anything said about you can stop you, you’ll never win any race. When a horse refuses to start with the rest, when he always gets out of hand, he goes into the discard, for racing. Life is surely one long race with time. However, life is good, though the going is mostly on a muddy track. What if we do knock down the bar when we take a high jump? We can charge it to practice and keep on trying, can’t we? Falling doesn’t mean a thing, but mounting again counts. Unless we watch for each opening, we’ll never win any race in life. Yet, if we see an opening and dash through before anyone else, we’ll be called an opportunist. How can anyone win anything without taking advantage of every opening that life offers? So, play the game cleanly. Be proud of every scar, count every bruise as evidence of advance upon success, and don’t mind a bit of mud. Take the bit in your teeth and ride hard. As an opportunist, be a good sport.
Rich Man, Poor ManOnce upon a time two brothers lived near each other. One was wealthy and the other one couldn’t be bothered thinking about money because living was so important. The wealthy brother was always worrying about his improvident brother when not busy worrying about other things, but he always had to worry. The poor brother wouldn’t return to get the dime he was short-changed of because he couldn’t be bothered about the interest on a dollar. He never cared about money until his purse was empty. Then he hustled to fill it again, but he always had a relapse. He either had money or didn’t, but it never bothered him either way. He was too busy laughing at life and singing his way through it. His heart was happy because he was alive and well. The wealthy brother was never well, and happy only when his money was increasing. He certainly had no time to waste just enjoying life. Someone had to earn money, didn’t they? Now, his wealth has dwindled away because he has worried himself into weakness and illness. The poor brother is earning more all the time, still laughing. We can’t have it both ways, can we? We must choose.
Uncle Sam’s Britches PatchesWhen we fully stop doctoring, operating upon, tinkering with and patching our Democracy and let it breathe for itself, we’ll realize exactly what the dictators have always known – it is a perfect form of government for all peoples. Because of the demagogues’ loud shouts we’ve put it to bed, spending our time feeling its pulse, feeding it broth and putting an ice pack on its head. No wonder it has nearly died, which is what the world’s dictators want. They are afraid of it, or they wouldn’t bother fighting it. Democracy is unwieldy and cumbersome until it gets up speed, then nothing can upset it or hold it back. We do not need to make us work together! We ask questions, but we work for love of freedom. We get disturbed, but we do not stop. We’ve taken on the heaviest load ever tried before by a nation, but we can carry it, even the share of those too lazy to haul their own weight – our reward will be liberty for all nations. The work of freeing these nations from darkness too great to contemplate must go on faster. When we finish ripping all the propaganda patches off Uncle Sam’s britches, underneath we’ll find good cloth, ready to wear just as long as it takes us to win!
Anti-Fog FormulaHave you hungered for a formula that would dispel that foggy feeling that envelopes you some mornings, when you cannot seem to shake some weird spell of semi-consciousness? One young woman found a formula that sent her to the top of a profession that chose her for its own. When her father died, leaving an invalid wife and small son, a friend found a "job" for the daughter, who was still in high school. She had only her nerve and the will to do. So, she started saying: "Lord, don’t let me miss a trick today." He never did. She prospered and advanced with only her midnight oil and merchandising books from the library – after she fed everyone and did the house work – straight into an executive position as head of a firm. Lord, don’t let me miss a trick today – instead of crying because she had a family to care for and had to get up early to feed them before work. Lord, don’t let me miss a trick today – instead of good times with the other young people, making good where she found herself chosen. "Lord, don’t let me miss a trick today. Let me use what I have, where I am now."
Tune in the Joy StationOur brain cells and the corresponding faculties form a complete broadcasting and receiving set and are individual. We can send out on the waves of ether whatever we desire, and we can tune in upon any vibration on earth. In fact, we must send forth every thought, emotion or vain picture we allow in our station. If our thinking and emotions are messy, so is our broadcasting. What do you tune in from the world, and what do you broadcast? Are you the victim of vagrant thoughts and scattered ideas that you pick up unconsciously? Do you allow your own subconscious mind to broadcast all the intimate thoughts and feeling you would not care to have recorded and re-broadcast to you? When we have a wandering mind and "nobody is home," no one is in charge of our station to consciously direct and control our faculties. When we are home and in control, we can choose what we broadcast and tune in only those positive and constructive things that will aid us to grow stronger. Let this Joy Station pay us great dividends for our service. RETURN TO TOP
Racetrack or Rut-track?Do you pride yourself on being a good sport and obeying all life’s rules? Can you obey all the rules when life stacks things against you? Life is like a race track. At intervals during the year, hurdles are set that we must take in our stride. Our particular rut is the race track, the hurdles are our peculiar limitations, principally old opinions and prejudices, which we must renounce if we ever expect to see the gates open to the road of success. How much effort have you spent trying to avoid taking your hurdles? We’ve already wasted too much time going around them or crawling through the bars. Why, we’ve even tried digging under until we found that this disqualifies us for the track. We’ve been bold enough to push them aside, only to find them back in place our next time around. Wildly we dash, or slowly we drag around years on the same old rut-track, dodging the same old issues, same old battles, same old people doing the same old irritating things, same old story of everything stacked against us, while time passes. Let’s face it now. Life is just one obstacle race after another. Hurdles and obstacles make life an adventure to a contender.
X Equals Your DeterminationHave you had an inner, secret urge all your life to do something different – something you’d love to do, but you are afraid to start? Never has an urge been placed within the heart of man that he could not realize, if he were willing to do enough good, hard work to develop it. When an idea touches his mind, it has come from his Source and must, under law, carry with itself the ability to become that which it is, in form. The difficulty of preparation and hardship of change is its only hold-back. What do you feel or think will hold you back? Analyze yourself carefully in stages and decide which trait is your own peculiar drawback to success. Or are you only afraid of being laughed at by your family? Whatever it is, bring it into the light of day, then firmly talk to yourself like this: "You can be what you desire to be. You can do whatever you desire to do. You can make good, provided you make the first effort and start." The rest is just plodding steadily toward that goal. Your ability equals your desires – X equals your determination.
Jealous MistressesLife and salvation are free to everyone alike. They are priceless, the most expensive commodities in existence. They cost nothing, yet they cost everything. To hold them, one must devote every moment of life to them – both are jealous mistresses and brook no rivals in love. Yet why do we need more life and what good is salvation? We must do better to save ourselves from economic slavery. The whole world needs saving. Weak eyes, weak backs, weak knees and weak minds mean lack of life. To be saved from weaknesses, we need ever more life. To be saved from darkness of slavery, we need more Light. To have strength and freedom, we must pay court to light and life. We must woo them above all else. Life and salvation are free to be loved and held in triumph.
Inner PeacePeace comes from an inner grace that radiates from the soul into the world. Peace comes from understanding others, not having them understand you. "Live and let live" is probably the motto to cover this. Family peace is established when each member does everything possible to understand the others. The first step toward permanent peace, whether among families or nations is to live without misunderstanding. We could make any nation peaceful by removing all the people – there it would be, all peace and calm! It’s the action of rubbing elbows with those who are not agreeable that causes disagreement. We cannot look for peace from outside. True, lasting peace must come from that inner sense of well-being buried deep within each heart. It must come from a conviction in each one’s heart that we can bring it about by living in peace in our spot. We cannot talk peace and go home and fight with family. Peace can be made a habit, just as easily as any other emotion. The sooner we start to cultivate peace habits, the more rapidly it will spread into the world. A peace that will last must be started sometime. Why not now – by everyone who wants peace! RETURN TO TOP
Dreams: Idle or Planned?Are you still waiting for your ship of dreams? Do you wonder where it is and why it doesn’t return to you? Are you sure that you loaded it with a cargo you want? Sometime ago we launched this ship loaded with our old desires, the pictures we’ve built and the thinking we’ve done, good, bad and indifferent. Most of this cargo must be spoiled and moldy by now. Are you certain that you could use all the rubbish of the past when it comes? Wouldn’t you prefer a new ship with an up-to-date cargo? If you look, you might see that old ship anchored right offshore near you. Then you could start unloading that old cargo of unwanted things and rebuild your ship into a fast runner. Unload it now and start loading a new cargo of every lovely and beautiful thing you can conceive of or use. Give it a shove, launch it again, then know that it will return to you speedily in fulfillment of your dreams. This is as real as if you built it with hands, believe in it, plan and watch for its return, because it surely will. Idle dreams mean wasted time, active, planned dreams mean fulfillment.
The "Education Habit"Do you wish you had the education that would make it possible for you to walk and talk with those who have been well educated? Do you feel inferior among your group? Any honest heart-desire for education can be satisfied easily in this land. However, if you are traveling with some group of folks who make you feel inferior, start traveling in a different direction with another group. Educated folks never make anyone feel inferior or uneducated. Education is a part of the one who is truly educated. No one is conscious of the skin covering the body unless something happens to it. Education is as much a part of the soul of the individual as the skin is part of the body. Once skin is normal, we forget it. Once we gain education, it is so a part of us that we are never conscious of having it. Education is always drawing from the other fellow to itself, consequently, when in the presence of a truly educated person, one always feels at his best because he is being drawn upon for bits of knowledge. The "education habit" is always too busy learning to cause inferior feelings. Therefore, seek those who are still educating themselves. RETURN TO TOP
Ideas in MindWe call necessity the mother of invention. During the next ten years, necessity will cause more new inventions than during the past hundred years. Anyone can see this, for the lack and shortage is public property, and we must find substitutes. We will recombine many old materials to replace those we no longer have to use. Someday we will use coal exclusively for materials and electricity will come directly from the atmosphere. Scientific research is open to anyone who likes it. Have you thought seriously of how this relates to you? What contribution would you like to make toward this change? Are you completely satisfied with your work? If not, now is the time to make that longed-for change, while everything else is in transition. You won’t feel so conspicuous. Begin right now to do what you really have always wanted to do. Fifteen minutes a day for ten years will cover any college course. We must remake all our gadgets to fit the need, and these new ideas are now waiting in Mind. Someone must invent them, why not you? You can try, can’t you?
Stagnation or Clarification?Do new ideas pass you by and land in your neighbor’s mind, though you are eager to have one of your own? Are you discouraged over your inability to grasp new things? Sometimes we have so many old, cherished notions and ideas in our mental house that we have no room for any new ones. If we cannot give up our outdated, outgrown ideas, they grow long moss, just like southern trees, shutting out all that is new. We must prepare a landing place for a new idea. The mental house cleaning is just as important as the physical house cleaning. A pitcher filled with stagnant water is useless. To be useful, ready to refill, we must empty it and clean it. We may find valuable data, effective unused ideas lost in the clutter, and when opened to the light of day, they may attract new material, giving birth to a new presentation for practical use. Results of a mental house cleaning can be amazing in clarifying mental alertness. Empty the old ideas, and take your mind somewhere for a refill.
Score on LifeIs your greatest desire to find a sheltered nook where you can rest? A sunny spot where you can watch the world pass, leaving you all safe and quiet and untouched? If you are spending your time hunting an easy spot where nothing can ever happen, or a safe place to sit away the years, you might as well give up. Such a place doesn’t exist, either here or in heaven – playing the harp twenty-four hours a day for a million years sounds like hard work! To hide isn’t to be safe. To be safe isn’t living. To be perfectly safe is only existing. Life means growth, growth means pain. To give plenty of life a chance always hurts at first. When your arm goes to sleep, it hurts to awaken but later feels fine. No one ever had too much life, it is having too little that gets us down. If we decide against having any more life because the little we have hurts so, we might just as well go find an old shell and crawl under it to live like a turtle. Don’t let life score you, score on life. Life is like a thistle – to be lived, it must be grasped tightly. Every pain is a step up. The advantage is yours when you decide to hunt the hard spots before they hunt you.
Determination Is the PipelineHow many hours each day do you spend feeling sorry for poor little me? How many criticizing the government, the weather, the other things that you dislike? If the things that you dislike are things over which you have no power, why waste time and energy finding faults with them? The chances are that they will all be going on for some time, so what? If you feel that your paycheck is too small for your services, your work too hard, your hours to long, your troubles too great – why, go ahead and cry. Someday you’ll discover that no one else really cares much, and criticism is a pretty cheap claim to fame, although you are an expert at it. Criticism is a shoddy way to use your will power. Can you make up your mind and stick to it? If you can, nothing is impossible for you to accomplish, but if you can’t, you are only digging your present rut deeper. If everyone you meet can unmake your mind for you, you won’t even reach the bottom rung. Make up your mind, keep it made up, take one step at time toward your ideal, and someday it will show on the outside. The speed of your results may surprise you when you hold up your head and smile at life. Determination is the pipeline from your will power to your future.
Voice of PeaceBeneath all racial hatred and jealousy, fear and greed are the same underlying principles of creative desire. All religions are founded upon them and politicians use them to mold humanity to their will. From the savage to the highest intellectual type, aspiration awakens the desire for something to follow that is greater than oneself. Whether it is idol or fetish, business, science or cause, once the focal point is found, faith supports it and devotion gives its all. All earth’s religions teach us this, yet they have left out that essential ingredient to breed peace: Brotherly love, which is the very essence of peace. When brotherly love reigns, we forget the self in service, forget hardships in love of the cause served, and face death without fear in a sacrifice of love, not hatred. If dictators can use the qualities found in every heart to produce war, then we can use those same qualities to produce peace! How? When we deeply desire the same for our brother as for ourselves, when the cause of brotherly love possesses us with a flame of eagerness, when Unconquerable Faith backs our efforts to bring it to pass, when enough of us prove that faith by our continued devotion, then we will erase war from the minds and hearts of humankind.
Familiar GuestsImagine two coaches, poised on a rise above the beautiful City of Desire, which lies in the distance, like a mirage. Both coaches roll downhill over a meadow to a fork in the road. The way right enters hilly country, while the left road enters beautiful terrain. Apathy drives the team, Opinion and Prejudice, as they dash along, taking the easy way at the fork because Apathy confounds their sense of direction. Doubt and Fear ask for a ride. Prudence says no, but Apathy says it doesn’t matter, pushes Prudence off and Fear sits in his place. They stop for Self-Pity and Gossip, then Intolerance and Pride, Revenge, Confusion and I Don’t Care, a four-year-old who says "I won’t. I can’t." Worry, who’s always hungry, sits between Sorrow and Tears. The team begins to lag with the load, and the coach finally gets stuck in the Bog of Despair. Reason and Imagination drive the other coach pulled by the team, Desire and Will. They choose the rough and stony way, but reorient themselves on every rise. Their passengers are Faith and Understanding, and Poise and Power, a newly married pair. They meet Beauty, Strength, Joy, Ecstasy, Rapture and Delight, who surround the coach singing. Comprehension, the gate keeper, welcomes them at the City of Desire. We meet all these familiar guests in life. It’s up to us to choose which mystery guests we invite into our coach. All of us have stood on that rise and decided whether to take the easy way or the hard. No matter how often we begin the journey, finally we must choose the way to the City of Desire.
Seasons of the SoulIn fall, sap descends from the tree’s branches to the darkness at it roots, instinctively obeying the laws of nature regarding its particular life. In winter, the tree lies sleeping while it gathers the strength we see portrayed in buds, leaves and blossoms. Occasionally a tree dies, which is escape from life, but it’s not beyond an unconscious or instinctive consciousness to do this. Spring opens a time of great expansion. Homeowners dig weeds, plant, prune and prepare for growth as the sap of consciousness ascends. Our unconscious instinctive phase of mind responds to the seasons, and dictates our spring, summer, fall or winter as we ascend and descend the pole in consciousness. During fall and winter, desire, vitality and consciousness recede to subterranean depths. We bury ourselves and wallow in the trough of self-pity. Some people live through four seasons a day! Subconscious mind is like a garden full of weeds – hatred, rebellion, selfishness, jealousy, self-pity, resentment – that we can change into beautiful flowers of love. We eventually begin to dig around our subconscious roots, plant new seeds of consciousness and begin pruning to lift subconscious to live in the Light where it belongs. No matter how often you dig, you find weeds to pull, and must pull them to learn why you’re in bondage to petty emotions. This is no wasted effort, but part of being a good caretaker in your garden of soul. Be a faithful excavator of hidden self. It returns to you as goals fulfilled, new security, new increases, new friends, new illumination, new beauty in your life. RETURN TO TOP
Life’s Basic TypesIn life we meet just a few basic types. We can tell who they are by what they say: "Blamers" want God to do it for them and blame him when life doesn’t go their way. "If I knew what God wanted, I’d do it. God never answers my prayers. If God wants me to move up, he should lift these things from my path. God is punishing me." The "wisher" class waits for success to fall into their laps, and everything is too much trouble: "This is so hard. I just wish God would take care of this. I never get what I want. God doesn’t answer my prayers." The "off in a corner" type says "I can’t stand the vibration of a group. I can do it alone. I don’t need help." The "fearful" type is afraid to be wealthy or to be trusted with money. "Money isn’t important to me." Who can pay the bills by being proud of poverty? "God must not want me to have it." God trusts us with the priceless gift of free choice, so why shouldn’t he trust us with his Infinite Substance? Stop being afraid that if it’s good for you, it will hurt someone else. We can become Creators. God can’t wait for us to become perfect, but uses us in the hour we see perfection. If God can do such magnificent works in our ten minutes of burning desire, think what he could do if we stood at that white point of heat constantly!
Courage in ActionWhat we need is a personal right so great that we are ready to die for it. We can’t buy courage in the dime store, or for millions. No invisible mantle will supply it – you have it or you don’t. The courage to stand comes from an inner conviction that what we are doing is this great right, and bravery is its inevitable outer expression. No following false gods on the outside or loudly voiced opinions can manufacture courage, fur such substitutes fail when called upon under fire. A right goal with the inner courage that never gives way or backs down, showing a brave front to all enemies, does not come from choosing between two evils, even the "lesser" one. It comes from choosing the one right, and this is always the way of sacrifice for individual or nation. Straight down the middle of the right road runs our choice, from evil and darkness into the light, Winning comes only from using sacrifice and success as synonymous terms, backed by deathless courage. Our choice of "death" rather than to lose our ideals, and facing that "death" gladly, shall open the gates of life to all others forever.
Face That Dragon Now!Does something that looks like a great red dragon block your path? Has it dried up your courage, leaving you cold with fear and dread? Helpless? Then stop, look and listen. Nothing is as bad as it looks from a distance, and hope and an answer exists for every problem life can present. Take your eyes off that dragon and start looking within yourself. Exercise does your will power good, and now is the time to start exercising! Be too proud to turn your back under fire. Every soldier knows to face front, discount cold, hunger, long marches and discomfort – to forget all and serve. Eyes front and start marching straight at that dragon! It will shrink as you advance. Stare it down. If you are convinced that you can pass it, you can! It will shrink to the size of a bloated old bullfrog. Fear always makes things look larger than life, many times their real size. Life is your friend – meet it, love it, march right into it and live. Charge the problem and be convinced of victory!
ProblemsWhat is a problem? Loads of folks say there is no such thing. A problem is a situation that our own thinking, emotions and imagination have produced. If we insist upon living with a problem, insist upon taking it to bed, insist upon taking it to work, insist upon taking it to play, insist upon taking it out to exercise it, it will thrive. As long as we are "conscious" of the problem, we feed it. When we shut off its food, it grows weak. The idea that we "must be free" is an indication of bondage. Since no one can bind me, I must be binding myself. Freedom from problems is the "natural" result of knowing truth. Truth is the sum total of facts and processes as they exist, move and are stated in Principle. Truth about life is the sum total of facts and processes as we find them in life. Truth of Principle is life as God knows life. We must know life as it is in God. How is life in God? Inevitable, invincible, limitless, Substance, Power, Mind, and ideas. If we have to know first, we’ll never arrive! We must "seek first" to open the real of te possible. Let go of the problem entirely! Don’t care about it! It is good!
The Fountain of YouthWhat causes youth and strength, age and weakness? They are ideas! Both youth and strength "train together!" Age belongs to the calendar, and weakness belongs to mind. Yet Spirit is the same, yesterday, today, forever. So, what happens? Why do people age and weaken? They entertain undesirable guests, thoughts that overstay their welcome. Stop entertaining them, and they leave! A strong will never changes its purpose. A weak will is afraid to change its attitudes, tactics, or way at a moment’s notice. We must hold to the purpose of our goal. All the powers of life back the person who surrenders completely to Power. No half way measures are acceptable! We must gamble life, and stake everything to hold all the aces in hand to play at the right time. When the powers of life control us, nothing can stop us – steadily, unchangeably, surely, determinedly, the game is ours. If we listen to the world, we’re beaten before we start. Start in the Silence, under Light, and never reveal your hand. No condition can down, conquer, hold you back, or keep you away. Youth and strength grow from agreeing with God and adjusting to the world. We were built to be and do now.
Hours of GoldDo you know that every hour is all new, shiny and golden? Do you know that God has sent them to us as pure Light? What if He sent them all gray and drab and we had to make them into Light? That would be hard, wouldn’t it? But He hasn’t. They are sent to us as perfect as God can make them, and we are fully equipped to take care of them and see that they are not made into dark. We have feet, hands, heart, brain cells, faculties, voice, tongue and lips to form words and send them forth, all to keep these Golden Hours pure Light. Isn’t that an easy task? He gave us the easy part to do, to return to Him each night every day’s page of hours unspotted by the world. This is our hour to open a new account with life! Place in this account all we desire to draw upon for our present now. We cannot draw from unless we have already placed in it exactly what we expect from life. What have you already deposited with life? Cold emotions, dark thoughts of doubt and fear? Or are you now drawing upon an overflowing account of Joy? Remember, we must place our own account with Life. No one can ever do this for us. We can open it with whatever deposit we want. How about a new account with God’s Bank of Life, all Joy plus? Let’s resolve to deposit a huge new account, right now, of all good things overflowing. Remember, God is abundantly able to supply all you can imagine or desire.
Your New YearThis is your year of fulfillment. Do you know exactly where you are going this year? Have you charted a new course to fit the changing times? It doesn’t matter how many small ports you are forced to visit by circumstances beyond your control, how often you must stop for forced repairs, how many contrary winds blow you off your charted course. Delays cannot keep you from finally reaching your chosen goal, if you constantly hold to your original course, clearly outlined on your new chart, always set your helm on a straight line back to your course of life, or if you return to the original line the instant your ship is free to move again. Keep your mind made up. Do not allow anyone or anything to unmake it for you. God’s winds are always with you. Do you know this deeply enough in your own heart to remain strong in confidence that you can win? Constant in your thinking and determination to strive and struggle with life itself until you have won? Nothing is too hard to do, no effort too great or too long to make, no goal too distant to attain. The long-range view of life is the success view. When you cramp your view to today’s despair, you lose incentive and the power to move toward success. So, make yours a long-range vision, part of a 10- or 20-year plan. Give yourself time enough to accomplish a truly great plan. Now is your time of fulfillment! "Old age" and "too late" don’t exist! Life is "deathless, ageless and abiding." Life is "the same yesterday, today and forever," and you are life. Chart a new course. Tie down your helm so no contrary winds of earth can blow you too far to return to that course. No heavy gale can take the helm from your hands, or make you alter your course toward your goal. You are complete within yourself, and you are already your own fulfillment. |
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Copyright Notice: Copyright 2005 - 2011, Linda Mihalic, Editor. All Rights Reserved. All titles published by The Society of the Universal Living Christ are under copyright protection. You may not modify, publish, transmit, transfer or sell, reproduce, crm, display, or in any
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