“_When you make the effort!_ It is the _you_ inside that must make
the effort.”
And I finally came into this understanding.
I want to impress the fact that I did not learn at once all the
things I am now telling. This knowledge grew. But I’m going to state
some things before I go on to tell of how I found my life’s big
opportunity.
I gained the understanding that old age is a matter of the
_ignorance_ of Life. New laws of Nature are continually being
discovered. In the last century science discovered electricity. This
century will see the discovery of Life.
Man has both the mental and physical power to keep young, _if he will
use that power_. Instead of being a thing on the dump-heap, _man
may grow in power as he grows in years_. His body is made by food,
drink, air, and _thoughts_. Its cells are constantly rebuilding. By
understanding his own power, he can direct this rebuilding to an
increased Life-capacity.
His power to do so has been limited by his own ignorance. Once men
said that there could never be a steam-engine. Later they scoffed
at the possibility of building a flying machine. In his discovery of
new laws, man is learning that he has hindered his own growth through
his lack of understanding. A man can never _grow_ old. He may _stop_
growing, and stagnate. That is what I had done.
The first lesson that I had to learn was the difference between youth
and old age. Both are really matters of the spirit, rather than of
years. One may be aged at twenty, and a youth at eighty.
The spirit of youth has courage, is venturesome, progressive,
optimistic, _creative_. The spirit of old age is afraid, reactionary,
pessimistic, and stagnant. Youth laughs. Old age sighs. Youth is
eager to discover new paths. Old age wants to stay in the prison of
habit and travel the same old ruts.
I had been traveling in ruts. And I had worn them _deep_. For twenty
years I had _let_ myself live in the same old dark apartment, and
take the same old route to the same old printing-plant. And I had
wanted to cling to the same old ways of doing work. The time came
when I realized that I must have been something of a proposition to
the printing-plant’s young management. For I had stubbornly opposed
the new efficiency system.
Because I felt tired at night, I had _let_ my wife give up all other
associations to keep me company. I had _let_ myself lose interest in
my old friends, and I had shunned making new ones. I selfishly clung
to just my own immediate family. That meant heart-stagnation. The man
is old who has let himself lose his heart-interest in _people_.
The man who loves most, lives most. Youth loves.
I had _let_ myself drop out of touch with all the big public issues.
I felt no interest in any country but the United States, and that
meant very little to me outside of New York City. And here in New
York, where every opportunity offered, I never went to a lecture, or
to a concert. I had stopped going to see the new plays; I talked
about the superior old days of the theatre, when Daly’s was in
its prime. I didn’t even read the new books, but prided myself on
sticking to the old ones. All of which made for brain-stagnation.
_I had grown afraid of adventure._
This revelation came to me suddenly, the next day after my first
experience with the Voice. It sent a tingle of protest through
me, and I cringed with something like shame. But I halted on the
sidewalk and faced the fact squarely. Then I rebelliously pulled
myself together, quit my hunt for a job, forgot my poverty-stricken
bank-account, and went for a trip through Central Park and the
Metropolitan Museum. I had not been there for years. It all seemed
like a new world to me. It stirred my stagnant emotions and filled me
with new interests.
We are continually losing these life-building values that lie right
at our elbow. A man will travel the same old route day after day to
his business. If, once in a while, he would go even a block out of
his way, he might have the feeling of new adventure-get a new view,
or some experience to stimulate new cell-activity in his stagnating
heart and brain.
When I got home that night, I was several years younger.