[Sidenote: Continuous Happiness Impossible.]
A continuous state of happiness cannot be enjoyed by any human. There
are no plans, no habits, no methods of living that will insure unbroken
happiness. Happiness means periods or marking posts in our journey along
life's road. These high points of bliss are enjoyed because we have to
walk through the low places between times.
Continuous sunshine, continuous warm weather, continuous rest,
continuous travel, continuous anything spells monotony. We must have
variety.
We need the night to make us enjoy the day, winter to make us enjoy
summer, clouds to make us enjoy sunshine, sorrow to make us enjoy
happiness.
But, dear reader, mark this: We can be philosophical, and have content,
serenity and poise between the happiness periods.
When you get blue, or have dread or sorrow, or possess that
indescribable something that makes you feel badly; when you have worry
or trouble, then's the time to get hold of your thinking machinery and
dispel the shadows that cross your path.
Occupation and focusing your thoughts on your blessings--these are the
methods to employ.
As long as you dwell upon your imagined or your real sorrows, you will
be miserable and the worries will magnify like gathering clouds in
April.
[Sidenote: Think Happiness.]
Change your thoughts to confidence, faith, and good cheer, and busy your
hands with work. Think of the happiness periods you have had, and know
that there are further happiness dividends coming to you. Keep this sort
of thought, and with it, useful occupation, and the sunshine will dispel
your gloomy forebodings and sorrow thoughts like the sun dispels the
April showers, bringing about a more beautiful day because of the clouds
and storms just passed.
When trouble or sorrows come, sweeten your cup with sugar remembrances
of joys that have been and joys you are to have.
Envy no one; envy breeds worry. The person you would envy has his
sorrows and shadows, too. You see him only when the sunlight is on the
face; you don't see him when he is in shadowland.
[Sidenote: Brace Up, Cheer Up.]
No, dear ones, I, nor you, nor anyone on earth can have complete,
unruffled, continued happiness, but we can brace up and call our reserve
will-power, reason, and self-confidence into action when we come to the
marshy places along the road. We can pick our steps and get through the
mire, and sooner than we believe it possible, we can get on the good
solid ground; and as we travel, happiness will often come as a reward
for our poise and patience.
My friends say: "You always seem happy," and in that saying they tell a
truth, for I am happy often--very, very often--and between times I make
myself seem to be happy. This making myself "seem to be happy" gives me
serenity, contentment, fortitude, and the very "seeming" soon blossoms
into a reality of the condition I seem to be in.
You can be happy often, and when you are not happy, just seem to be
happy anyway; it will help you much.
13.
A little child is crying over a real or fancied injury to her body or to
her pride.
So long as she keeps her mind on the subject she is miserable.
Distract her attention, get her mind on another subject, and her tears
stop and smiles replace frowns.
This shows how we are creatures of our thoughts. "As a man thinketh in
his heart, so is he" is a truth that has endured through the centuries.
We are children in so far as we cry and suffer when we think of our ills
or hurts or wrongs or bad luck.
We can smile and have peace, poise and strength if we change our
thoughts to faith, courage and confidence.
[Sidenote: Fear-Thought and Faith-Thought.]
Our condition is what we make it. If we think fear, worry and misery, we
will suffer. If we think faith, peace and happiness, we will enjoy life.
Every thought that comes out of our brain had to go in first. The kind
of thoughts we have afford an indication of the kind of people we are.
If we feed our brain storehouse with trash and fear and nonsense, we
have poor material to draw from.
[Sidenote: Thought Control.]
The last thought we put in the brain before going to sleep is most
likely to last longest. So it is our duty to quietly relax, to slow
down, to eliminate fear-thought and self-accusation, and to substitute
some good helpful thought in closing the mental book of each day.
Therefore read a chapter or two from a worth-while book the last thing
before going to bed.
Say to yourself, "I am unafraid; I can, I will awake in the morning with
smiles on my face, courage in my heart, and song on my lips."
These suggestions for closing the day will be of instant help to you.
The great power for good--the wherewith to give you strength, progress
and efficiency--is within yourself and at the command of your will.
You can't think faith and fear, good and bad, courage and defeat, all at
the same time.
You can only think one thing at a time.
Your great power is your will, and the wherewith to help yourself is
your thought habit.
Change your thought habit as you go to bed. You can do it; it's a matter
of will determination. The more faithful you are to your purpose, the
easier your task will be. Be patient, conscientious, rational and
confident.
You are what your thoughts picture you to be. Your will directs your
thoughts.
Don't get discouraged if you can't suddenly change your life from shadow
to sunshine, from illness to wellness.
Big things take time and patience. The great ship lies in the harbor
pointed North. A tug boat could make a sudden pull and break the great
chain or tow line.
Yet you could take a half-inch rope and with your own hands turn the
great ship completely around by pulling steadily and patiently. The
movement would be slow, but it would be sure and you would finally
accomplish your purpose.
Don't jerk and fret and be impatient with yourself. You have been for
years perhaps worrying and thinking fear-thoughts. You have put a lot of
useless and harmful material in your brain.
You can't clean all your brain house in a day or a week, but you can do
a little cleaning each day.
You can take the faith-rope of good purpose and start to pull gently,
and finally you will turn your whole life's character toward the port of
success.
The great crowd worries; only the few have learned the power of the
will, and the benefits to be derived from mental control.
Business and social duties call for strong men and woman. You can't
reach mastership if you remain a slave.
Your first duty is to yourself, and success or failure is your reward
exactly in proportion as you exercise your will power and handle your
thought habits.
14.
[Sidenote: The Best Medicine.]
The doctors are giving less medicine and doing more in the way of
suggesting diet and exercise rules, sanitation and preventive practices.
Medicine is mostly poison and its effect is to shock the organs or
glands to bring about reaction. Nature makes the cure.
In emergency drugs are all right, but the doctor and not the individual
should settle the matter of what drug to use and the proper time to use
it.
When there's a pain or disease, it's due to congestion of some organ, to
infection, or to improper nourishment, or improper habits.
Ninety per cent of aches, pains and ailments can be cured by a dominant
mental attitude and by proper attention to eating and exercise.
The habitual medicine user is not cured by the medicine but by nature;
the medicine simply serves as a means to establish mental control and to
create confidence in the sufferer that he is to get well.
Recently I spent much time in a large hospital visiting a relative who
had been operated on. I know several members of the staff of doctors and
nurses.
I have seen many operations, some very heroic ones, and my appreciation
of the good work of good surgeons is greatly augmented by the wonderful
helps I have seen them bring to suffering humanity.
I have talked with scores of patients and watched the progress of their
cases.
I have by plausible logic, mental suggestion, and good cheer to the
hospital patients, brought many a smile through a mist of tears.
I have seen the wonderful results of mental suggestion to the
discouraged patients.
To show the effects that faith-thought will produce, I will relate some
instances.
[Sidenote: Mental Sickness.]
One patient screaming for a hypodermic injection to relieve her pain was
given an injection of sterilized water and the pain vanished. Another
just could not sleep without her bromide. The nurse fixed up a powder of
sugar, salt and flour; the patient took the powder and went to sleep.
That was mind control and mental longing satisfied.
Another patient had to take something to stop her pains; she got
capsules of magnesia. The capsule satisfied her longing, established her
faith and gave her relief; the relief was through her mind and not
through the capsule.
[Sidenote: Changing Thought Direction.]
I have seen several weary, despondent patients fretting and wearing
themselves out over their so-called weakness and run-down condition. I
have placed copies of "Pep" in their hands and watched courage, faith,
cheer and serenity come to them. It diverted their minds from
self-thought and self-accusation to faith-thought, confidence and
courage.
You can think of only one thing at a time, and "Pep" or any other book
that can change the thought habit from fear to faith, from worry to
peace, is doing a service.
I've been in shadowland in the hospital to see for myself the actual
help that mental control will bring to sufferers, and the evidence is
far above my powers to describe.
I've seen the patient's eyes brighten up when the cheery surgeon came
with hope, smiles and confidence on his face.
I've seen the drooping of spirits when well-meaning but poor-expressing
friends came into the patient's room and condoned and sorrowed with
him.