WHERE YOUR SUPPLY IS
He who dares assert the I,
May calmly wait
While hurrying fate
Meets his demand with sure supply.
HELEN WILMANS.
Never affirm, or think about yourself, your prospects, your
career, or your happiness what you do not wish to come true.
Every child should be taught to expect success and happiness, to
believe that the good things of the world are intended for him.
We never can get more out of ourselves than we expect. If we
expect large things, demand them; if we hold the large mental
attitude toward our work, toward life, we shall get much greater
results than if we depreciate ourselves, and look for only little
things.
That man who dares not "assert the I" with undaunted assurance, with the
conscious vigor and determination of one who believes in his divinity,
will never do great things, because he will never make the demand that
will draw a "sure supply."
Before one can hope to win out in any undertaking he must be able to
say "I" positively, with the force of conviction. He must polarize his
mind to the positive attitude. This is the attitude that creates, that
produces results in the world of matter as well as in the realm of
spirit.
The positive man is forceful because he has faith in himself. He forms
his opinions without the aid of others and is not afraid to stand for
what he thinks. He does not hesitate to differ with others. He is not a
"mush of concession," like the negative weakling who subscribes to what
everyone he meets says, thinks or believes. He makes statements with
positiveness, without hesitation.
The Bible would never have gained such a dominating place in the life of
the race had it referred to authorities to substantiate its statements;
had it tried to prove its doctrines. Much of its supremacy has come from
its tremendous positiveness, its vigorous affirmation of facts.
You will find nothing negative or wishy-washy in the Great Book. Its
assertions are imperious, positive, dogmatic. It is one perpetual
hammering, driving home of truths, of great fundamental facts. The
Biblical writers speak with assurance and authority because of their
profound conviction of the truths they utter. They do not argue or
plead. They affirm. There is no appeal. As has been well said of the
Bible, "It never appeals to readers for confirmation. It states. Every
line breathes dominance, superiority and confidence."
We find the same imperious dominant qualities, the same positiveness in
great leaders of men. They deal in affirmations. They throw themselves
with intense conviction into whatever they attempt. They continually,
both mentally and vocally, assert their power to do it, and--the result
is a natural corollary; they succeed in what they attempt.
The difference between the positive and the negative mind, the man who
can "assert the I" with vigor and the man who cannot, is the difference
between success and failure.
The positive man keys his life to the "I can" note, the negative man to
the "I can't."
The positive man denies the limitations of environment, of resources, of
opportunities. He not only believes but _knows_ that infinite bounty
surrounds him, and that he can make it his own.
The negative man, on the other hand, will not fight against environment,
no matter how hard it may be, but will yield to it without a struggle.
He sees limitations and difficulties everywhere. To him obstacles are
insurmountable.
But for the positive, dominant qualities in man we would still be living
in caves and eating our food raw. It is the positive, forceful man that
overcomes. Obstacles do not frighten, or turn him from his purpose. They
are to him but the apparatus in the gymnasium, which give him additional
strength and reinforce his determination to achieve. He knows that he
can command infinite supply, that the great forces of the universe are
working for him, and that he has only to direct them. He knows that it
is his birthright to conquer; that the Creator put him here for that
very purpose--to overcome, to grow, to ascend, to be godlike.
Every one has sufficient positive power to guide and direct his own life
if he will only use and develop that power. If he does not use he will
lose. If you do not think and act for yourself, if you do not assert
yourself and push your own way, the forces about you will take command
and push you. And remember this: _When you are pushed you go down-hill_;
_when you push yourself you go up-hill._ Every one is either pusher or
pushed in this world. Even the kingdom of heaven is taken by violence.
He who would attain it must be aggressive for truth. No namby-pamby
weakling who is afraid to stand on his own feet and fight for the right
can get there.
If you ever expect to do anything to justify your existence, quit
looking for some outside agent which will move your life train. Your
power is coiled up right inside of you. There is where your engine is.
The name of that engine is _I_. Use the great force at your command. Get
up steam and forge ahead. You will never get very far by any other
means. You are only losing time in trying to get any power outside of
yourself, in pulls or influence, to move you forward. When the Creator
made you a co-partner in His work, He put inside of you all the
machinery necessary for the part you were to play. Claim what He
intended for you. Develop and use your machinery, and no power on earth
can hold you back from the goal you set for yourself.
Say to yourself, "It is my duty to make good, to obey that inner urge,
that ambition prod which ever bids me up and on. I am resolved never
again to allow anything to interfere with the free and untrammeled
exercise of my physical and mental faculties. I will unfold all the
possibilities that the Creator has infolded in the ego, the I of me.
There is no lost day in God's calendar, no allowance for waste, and I am
determined henceforth to make the most of the stuff that has been given
me, to play the part of a son of Omnipotence."
As a matter of fact, every day has a splendid possible prize awaiting
every human being, a prize which no money can buy. It can be obtained
only at the price of splendid effort and self-assertion. We are too
timid, too fearful of results even to attempt what we long to do. And we
are too easy with ourselves, too willing to drift with the tide of our
moods. Every man who has ever achieved grandly has been a stern
schoolmaster to himself. He has incessantly affirmed his ideal and held
himself unwaveringly to its realization.
By cultivating the positive we drive out the negative. This is a
psychological law. It is to "empty by filling." Affirmation is always
more potent than negation.
Prof. Halleck says "By restraining of an emotion, we can frequently
throttle it; by inducing an expression, we can often cause its allied
emotions."
Prof. Wm. James makes a similar statement. "Refuse to express a
passion," he says, "and it dies. Count ten before venting your anger and
its occasion seems ridiculous. Whistling to keep up courage is no mere
figure of speech. On the other hand, sit all day in a moping posture,
sigh, and reply to everything with a dismal voice, and your melancholy
lingers. There is no more valuable precept in moral education than this,
as all of us who have experienced know. If we wish to conquer
undesirable emotional tendencies in ourselves we must assiduously, and
in the first instance cold-bloodedly, go through the outward movements
of those contrary dispositions which we wish to cultivate. Smooth the
brow, brighten the eye, contract the dorsal rather than the ventral
aspect of the frame, and speak in a major key, pass the genial
compliment and your heart must indeed be frigid if it does not gradually
thaw."
Few of us realize the tremendous force there is in the vigorous
incessant affirmation of conditions which we long to establish. United
with the visualizing of the man or woman we yearn to be or the thing we
are determined to achieve, it becomes an irresistible power in shaping
events. Act the part, affirm the possession, the assured realization of
the thing desired, and it will tend to materialize. This is a
fundamental law of creation.
What is called auto-suggestion, or self-suggestion, is one of the most
active agencies employed in mind building. We can literally make our
minds, thought by thought, as we can our bodies, fiber by fiber, through
vigorous affirmation.
There is a mysterious power in the spoken word which gets a greater hold
upon us than simply passing the same word through the mind or looking at
it on the printed page. The vocal expression of a thought makes a
greater impression upon the memory and especially influences the
subconscious mind. It works like a leaven in the whole nature, putting
agents in motion that establish a connection between us and our desires,
the objects for which we are working. The persistent affirmation of our
ability to do that which we have undertaken in a superb, kingly fashion,
is a great stimulus, a positive, creative force.
There is nothing more helpful in building a strong positive character
than bracing yourself up by searching, heart to heart talks with
yourself. In this way, better perhaps than in any other, you can take
stock of your mental assets and improve yourself all along the line.
If you are timid, for instance, or even feel that you are something of a
coward, stoutly deny it. Insist that you are no shirker, no coward, that
you are brave even to daring. Boldly assume the quality of a hero,
vehemently affirm that you actually possess invincible courage, and you
will be surprised at your immediate increase of strength and
positiveness. Deny that you have any weakness, defect or deficiency
which can handicap your career. Insist upon affirming the opposite
quality, the winning quality.
If you lack decision, if you are a waverer, a vacillator, if you are a
putter-off of things, if procrastination runs in your blood,
persistently affirm that you possess the opposite qualities. At the same
time resolve that you are going not only to play the heroic part in
life, that you are not only going to begin work upon the duty awaiting
you, but that you are going to put it through, that you are going to do
things, and that you will never again allow yourself to waver, to
procrastinate in the smallest matter, even if you do make mistakes now
and then. Better make a mistake and forge ahead than to remain negative
and inactive.
The habit of vigorous affirmation is the habit of victory. But remember
that action must follow on the heels of resolution or you will never go
any farther. Affirmation and resolution without prompt endeavor for
realization are worse than useless. It is the man of action, of
continued and repeated action, the man who never acknowledges defeat who
ultimately wins out.
During our Civil War the Southern generals said it didn't do any good to
beat Grant, because he never knew when he was beaten and, consequently,
wouldn't stay beaten.
Men who leave their mark on the world are men of iron resolution, of
grim determination. If youth were only taught at home and in school the
power of an inflexible resolve, an inexorable affirmation of the thing
they are determined to accomplish; if they were only taught the
invincibleness of an unshakable will, of the positive victorious mental
attitude, of a resolve which knows no defeat, life would not be half so
hard.
"Nerve us with incessant affirmatives. Don't bark against the bad, but
chant the beauties of the good." The positive, creative, affirmative
elements are our friends. They draw us our sure supply. All negatives
are our enemies. They drive away supply. Affirm the good, never the bad;
the bright, never the dark; the true, and never the false; harmony,
never discord. We should never forget that whatever tends to optimism is
ready to "give us a lift."
The first step toward a happy, successful life is to get control of the
supply that is ready to flow in answer to our demand. This you can do by
forming the habit of affirming that the best will come to you, that only
the things that are good for you can come into your life. Don't let
yourself slip into the foolish habit of anticipating trouble,
misfortune, sickness, disaster, accidents. To anticipate or expect such
things is to affirm their reality and draw them to you. The habit of
anticipating them will get them into the habit of "arriving." You will
thus be drawn into a current of circumstance corresponding to the
character of your negative thought.
Put yourself into a positive, success and happiness attitude the first
thing every morning by taking time, even if only a few minutes, to
commune with the Creator. Get into tune with the Infinite, the Source of
your strength, the moment you awake. Keep yourself in harmony with the
Principle which underlies your being during the day and your every act
will be a step forward on the desired road.
Say to yourself constantly, "Happiness is my birthright. I was made to
exult in life, not to go about with a long, sad, dejected face as though
it had been a bitter disappointment, as though I were a misfit in the
world. I was made to radiate joy and gladness and to go through life as
a conqueror. If I am indeed a child of the Creator (and I know that I
am), it is a positive insult to Him to go through the world as though I
were a beggar, a slave. I bear the image of the King of kings, and it is
my business to make all men see the likeness. It is my duty to prove my
divine heritage by radiating royal manhood."
I know of no practice which will do more for one's growth and
life-enlargement than the habit of rising above one's moods and
discouragements through perpetual affirmation of one's divinity. If, for
example, you get up in the morning feeling negative, blue and
discouraged; if you don't feel like working at anything, just go off
alone and have a good heart to heart talk with yourself something like
this: "Now, look here, young man (or young woman), none of this: you are
going to do a grand day's work to-day; you are going to get right out of
this condition; you have had enough of it. If you are a real man (or
woman) you will rise above your mood and wring victory out of this day,
even though it looks so unpromising.
"It does not matter what comes or what goes, what happens or what does
not happen, there is one thing I am sure of, and that is, I am going to
be positive, creative, to get the most possible out of to-day; I am not
going to allow anything to rob me of my happiness, or of my right to
_live this day through from beginning to end_, and not merely to exist.
"I do not care what comes, I shall not allow any annoyance, any
happening, any circumstance which may cross my path to rob me of my
power and peace of mind. I will not be unhappy to-day, no matter what
occurs. I am going to enjoy it to its fullest capacity. This shall be a
complete day in my life. I shall not allow the enemies of my happiness
to mar it. No misfortune in the past, nothing which has happened to me
in days gone by, which has been disagreeable or tragic, no enemies of my
efficiency, shall be guests in my spirit's sacred enclosure to-day. Only
happy thoughts, joy thoughts, friend thoughts shall find entertainment
in my soul this day. No negative thoughts, none of my enemies shall gain
admittance to scrawl their hideous autographs on the walls of my mind.
There shall be '_no admittance_' to-day, except to the friends of my
best moods. I will tear down all black, sable pictures and hang in their
place pictures of joy and gladness, of things which will encourage,
cheer, and increase my power. Everything which ever handicapped my life,
which has made me uncomfortable and unhappy, shall be expelled from my
mental kingdom this day and every coming day."
If you make a resolve like this every morning and live up to it during
the day, you cannot help being positive, productive, creative.
The positive mind repels all thought enemies that would hinder progress.
Doubt, fear, despair, worry, these have no place in the creative brain.
They are products of the negative mind. The man who would bend
circumstances to his will can not afford to harbor them.
Hold negative, despondent, discouraged thoughts and your surroundings
will be negative, unpropitious. Hold positive, confident, hopeful,
cheerful thoughts and a congenial environment will manifest itself.
It is wonderful what right thinking can accomplish even in a naturally
weak, negative mind. The insistent and persistent holding of the
positive thought, the assurance thought, the self-confidence, the
self-faith thought; the determined effort to think and act for oneself,
to direct one's own forces will gradually change a negative
non-productive mentality into a positive, creative one.
I have known very timid, sensitive people who scarcely dared to say
their souls were their own before others, to so cure their habit of
self-effacement and so strengthen their weak self-confidence by constant
audible affirmation of their own strength, that in a very few months
they had largely overcome this weakness.
Fear is negative; courage is positive, affirmative. If we would make our
lives effective, we must root out all of the things which keep us in
discord, all negative elements, and give ourselves over to the power of
affirmation.
Many a person has ruined his life effort by depreciating it and sending
out to those about him the negative vibration of his inferiority. We
radiate our faith, our confidence in ourselves or our doubts, and
distrust. Others catch the contagion of our opinion of ourselves.
Whatever you do, don't set up in your own mind and in that of others a
picture of yourself as a weak, ineffective, negative personality.
People do not realize the harm they do by making uncomplimentary and
unfavorable remarks about themselves. It does not matter what it may be,
the assertion of anything unfavorable to us or unlike what we wish to be
is injurious. How often we hear men and women say: "I never can remember
anything. I am always forgetting umbrellas and packages. I never can
remember names or faces," and similar negative, depreciatory remarks. It
never occurs to them that by making such statements as these they are
strengthening their defects. They are not aware that by impressing these
unfortunate images of themselves upon their mental mirror they are
seriously injuring their self-confidence, their ultimate chance of being
what they would like to be or of getting what they desire.
The character of civilization would be radically changed in a short time
if parents were to teach their children the wonderful, strengthening,
character-building power in the habit of affirmation. If boys and girls
were impressed with the truth that the constant affirming of the good,
the beautiful and the true, the insistent holding of the ideal of
themselves as they would like to be, is a real creative force that tends
to actualize what they long for many of the problems of the race would
be solved.
As a matter of fact the worst enemy, as well as the best friend, any
human being ever has is inside of him. The very mental attitude of the
majority of people is utterly antagonistic to their advancement.
A really brainy professional man whom I meet quite often is a striking
example of the baneful effects of the negative self-depreciatory
thought. He wanted to do something big in his line, but he has had only
mediocre success, and in consequence has so soured on life that he seems
to have lost the power to enjoy himself. The truth is, the early
contracted habit of self-castigation and unfavorable comparison with
others who were more fortunate at the start has stayed by him through
the years and practically disqualified his mind for real enjoyment or
for making the most of his talents.
Another negative character of this type is a man in commercial life who
is forever recalling his lack of opportunities. He never tires of
referring to the fact that he was handicapped at his very birth by a
slovenly slipshod father, and that all through life he has been placed
at a great disadvantage compared with other men. He believes, and
constantly affirms that he is unlucky, that he has never been at the
right spot at the right time, that no matter how hard he works he feels
a mysterious something holding him back.
Some malignant fate, or destiny, he complains, is always tripping him
up, thwarting his most strenuous efforts, overturning his best laid
plans. Through its machinations, although he has worked harder than
anybody else he knows, he and his family have remained in poverty, while
his associates have become prosperous.
The cause of this man's failure is not far to seek. It is plain that he
started wrong and has been going wrong ever since. He has been talking
failure all his life, affirming hard times, poverty, ill luck, and
disappointment. He has been sowing thistles and all sorts of ill weeds
in his garden and yet he wonders why his harvests have been so stingy,
so blighted and over-shadowed by weeds.
Affirmations, acts, motives, ambitions, mental attitudes are the seeds
sown in human gardens. Their character determines what our harvests
shall be. Our future reaping depends entirely on our past sowing. What
we are enjoying or suffering to-day is the result of yesterday's sowing.
We are reaping weeds, thistles, thorns, or beautiful flowers and
luscious fruit, according to the seeds we have sown.
The only soil in which our good seed thoughts will flourish is that of
mental harmony. In this fruitful ground lies the secret of all
efficiency and happiness. To come into unity with the Author of our
being is to realize perfect mental harmony. And this is the first
requisite of an efficient life, a goal that can be reached only by the
road of constant, unfailing affirmation.
When you long for something that it is perfectly legitimate for you to
have, sow your affirmation seed in perfect confidence that it will bloom
in reality. Say to yourself, "Our Father-Mother-God is no respecter of
persons. He is not partial in his treatment of His children. They all
have the same rights, the same privileges. He will give me through my
own effort what I need, what I ask for. The poorest, most ragged wretch
that crawls has just as many hours in his day as has the ermined king. I
can and I will do what I long to do. I will be what I desire to be."
Affirm this again and again to yourself. Do not wait for an opportunity,
make your opportunity. The power of affirmation will work miracles for
you.
Most people seem to think that if they were only in an ideal
environment, without worry or anxiety regarding the living-getting
problem, if they were free from pain and in vigorous health, they would
then be perfectly happy. But, as a matter of fact, we are not half so
dependent for happiness upon environment, upon circumstances, as we
imagine we are. False ambition, envy and jealousy are responsible for
much of our uneasiness, our restlessness and discontent. Our minds are
so intent upon what other people have and are doing that we do not get a
tithe of the enjoyment and satisfaction out of our own work, out of our
own possessions, that they should afford us. We think so much about
what others have and spend so much time wondering why we cannot have
similar things that we do not see the beauty, loveliness and sweetness
in our own environment. We question and envy when we should affirm and
realize. We neglect the most potent means within our grasp--the
miracle-working power of affirmation. The supply will come in answer to
our demand.
Every one of us has an inalienable right to be comfortable, prosperous,
free from anxiety,--in short to be happy. Man was not intended to be a
worrying machine. The fundamental principle of the human constitution is
based on harmony and, when we are in harmonious relations with the
universe, we attain the maximum of efficiency, of power, of usefulness
to the world. It is then we get the maximum of enjoyment and happiness
out of life. Is it not worth while to get into such relations? Is it not
foolish to remain in discord when by the simple process of affirmation,
linked with divine faith and effort, we can transform ourselves and our
environment?