E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, Colin Bell, Bill Tozier, and the
Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net/)
Transcriber's note:
A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected,
but words consistently misspelt by the author have been left
intact.
EVENING ROUND-UP
More Good Stuff Like PEP
by
COL. WM. C. HUNTER
Author of
Pep--Dollars and Sense--Brass Tacks
Ginger Snaps--and Other Books
[Illustration: the author]
$1.00 Net
Published by
Hunter Service
Kansas City, Mo., U. S. A.
Copyright, 1915
by Wm. C. Hunter
CONTENTS
Page
Anger 150
Brass Tacks 250
Character 252
Church 180
Closing Note 242
Continuous Happiness 86
Crying Babies 218
Dad 215
Daughters 138
Diet Rules 71
Doing Things Twice 34
Dollars and Sense 249
Dreams 97
Egotism 188
Elimination 82
Fake Medicines 177
Food 134
Friends 104
Geology 193
Ginger Snaps 251
Girl 221
Gloom 46
Happiness 49
Home 68
Inventory 185
Insomnia 156
In the Big Woods 124
Laziness 119
Leaders 231
Making Plans 14
Man's Danger 108
Medicine 57
Mental Pleasures 206
Mistakes 159
Mother 128
Natural Law 18
Negative Attitude 73
Nerves 38
Observation 28
Old Age 234
Our Bodies 131
Our Sons 111
Panama 209
Patriotism 197
Pep 246
Perseverance 190
Personal 22
Pessimists 43
Pills 173
Pioneer Mothers 145
Poise 142
Practical Helps 26
Reading 61
Real Charity 100
Religious Extremes 114
Ridicule 200
Salt 154
Self Accusation 89
Sincerity 167
Speculation 225
Stars 228
Thought Control 53
Time 238
To-day 212
To-morrow 161
Verbomania 65
Walking 78
Wives 203
Woman's Beauty 94
Worry 9
Dedicated
to Nancy, my wife
FOREWORD
Each evening, just before retiring, we will have a little Round-Up of
the day's doings, of the problems in our business and home life, of our
hopes and ambitions.
We'll try to solve perplexities, dissolve worries, absolve ourselves
from pull-backs, and resolve to better our lives.
We'll plan and prepare that we may have more poise--efficiency--peace;
that's Pep.
We'll learn how to establish helpful thought habit that our lives may be
full of gladsome notes instead of gruesome gloom.
We'll aim at
LIFE--LOVE--LAUGHTER
These, then, are the purposes of this book.
WM. C. HUNTER,
Kansas City, Mo.
July 18, 1915.
WORRY
The Nerve Racking Pace That Causes "Americanitis"
Nervous breakdowns are increasing as a result of the American worry
phobia.
This high tension Americanitis presumes too much upon nature, by
persistently forcing the nerves to carry loads far beyond their
capacity.
So many people are pleasure mad, they become so deadened by excess of
enjoyment and indulgence that ordinary pleasure is uninteresting. They
seek unnatural excitement, original methods and unusual activities to
appease the appetite. Then they become blasé and constitutional
pessimists.
It's a maddening, nerve racking pace they go. To keep up the gait there
is an incessant battle for wealth, and the struggle wears and weakens
the nervous systems.
Both men and women go the terrific gait. Men and women having this
health-destroying worry, mate and marry and they lay foundations for
deficient progeny that suffers from the sins of the parents.
The phobia is almost universal; it has permeated all classes of society
from highest to lowest.
Excitement, that's the keynote; for the rich there is society and polo
and useless functions and conventions.
Society is a game of cards, not only playing cards for money, but the
card convention of paying calls by leaving pasteboards in lieu of the
old-fashioned visit.
Society is the builder of fourflushers, the generator of
insincerity--falsehood and rottenness.
For the poor, the aping of the rich, in dress the wearers can ill
afford, the picture shows, the cheap theatres, the automobile, bought
with a mortgage on the home.
It's rush, push, excitement at any cost. The great cost which they don't
seem to consider is the cost of the nerves.
We all enter the world with an abundance of nerve energy, and by
conserving that energy we can adapt and adjust our nerve equipment to
keep pace with the progress and evolution of our times.
The way to preserve and conserve nerve equilibrium and power is to rest
and relax the nerves each day.
You may rest them by a change of the thought habit each day, by
relaxation, by sleep, and by suggestions made in this book.
There are few advance danger signals shown by the nervous systems, and
in this there is a marked difference between the nerves and the organic
system.
If you abuse your stomach, head, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys or eyes,
you have distress and pain.
The nervous energy is like a barrel of water; you can draw water from
the faucet at the bottom until you have almost exhausted the contents.
Nature mends ordinary nerve waste each day, like the rains replenish the
cistern.
A reasonable use of your nerve force, like a reasonable use of the
rainwater, means you can maintain a permanent supply.
But you must be reasonable; you must give the cistern a chance to refill
and replace that which you have drawn out.
You, who have shattered and tattered your nerves, are not hopeless. You
can come back, but it must be done by complete change of the acts that
brought on the condition.
Get more sleep. Eliminate the useless, harmful fads, fancies and
functions, which disturbed and prevented you from living a sane,
rational life.
Avoid extremes, cultivate rhythm and regularity in your business and
your home life. Keep away from excitement. Read really good books. Walk
more, talk less.
Eat less heat-making foods and more apples. Follow the diet, exercise
and thought rules suggested in "Pep."
Maybe these lines are being read by a discouraged one who is "all
nerves," which means lost nerve force. To you I say there is hope and
cheer and strength and courage if right here, now, you resolve to cut
the action, habits and stunts that knocked you out and follow our
suggestions.
I know, my friend, for I've trotted the heat, danced the measure, and
been through the mill.
Now I am fearless, calm and prepared. I can stand any calamity, meet any
issue, endure any sorrow.
I can do prodigious work in an emergency, go without rest or eating
when required, because I have Pep, which means poise, efficiency--peace.
I realize nothing bad is as bad as it is painted. Nothing is as good as
its boosters claim.
I go in the middle of the road, avoiding extremes. I have confidence in
my heart, courage, hope, happiness, and content.
I've buried envy in a deep pit and covered it with quick lime.
I am keeping worry out by keeping faith, hope and cheer thoughts in my
brain room, and these are antiseptics against the worry microbe.
I have my petty troubles and little make-believe worries, just enough of
them to make me realize I have them licked, and to remind me I must not
let up on my mastery of them.
Worry growls once in a while just to make me grab tighter the handle of
my whip.
And you may enjoy this serene state, too. There is no secret about it. I
will gladly give you the rules of the game in this book. Just prepare to
receive some practical, helpful suggestions.
MAKING PLANS
How to Use Our Assets to Best Advantage
You are a busy person, so am I. Busy persons are the ones who do things.
The architect is a busy man, but he has learned that the time spent in
preparing his plans is the most valuable employment of his time. The
plans enable him to do his work systematically and lay down rules and
methods to get the highest efficiency and accomplishment from those who
do the work of erecting the building.
If the architect would order lumber, stone and hardware, without system,
and start to erect the building without carefully prepared plans, the
building would lack symmetry and strength, and it would be most
expensive.
The planning time therefor was time well spent.
Few persons have the ability to plan and conserve their talents so as to
produce the highest efficiency. Men rush along thinking their busyness
means business. Really it means double energy and extra moves to
produce a given effect.
The elimination of unnecessary moves means operating along lines of
least resistance, and any plan or method that will help to do away with
unnecessary moves and make the necessary moves more potential will be
received with welcome, I am sure.
With the object of conserving energy and strengthening your force, this
book is written.
It shall not be a book of ultimate definiteness or a book of exact
science. There is no definite or exact rule that will apply, without
exceptions, to any science except mathematics.
But we shall learn many helpful truths, nevertheless, and if I err or
disagree with your conclusions, just eliminate those lines and take the
helps you find.
In my previous book, "Pep," I particularly emphasized the importance of
taking a few minutes each evening and using the time for sizing up
things, by inventory, analysis, speculation, comparison and hypothesis.
I have received many comments about that particular suggestion.
I find that many of the great captains of industry who are
accomplishing things worth while, have learned the value of this daily
habit.
Mr. E. C. Simmons, the president of the Simmons Hardware Company, has
for about fifty years followed this daily sizing up plan. He takes
fifteen to twenty minutes each evening in seclusion, with closed eyes,
and finds the weaknesses of his plans, formulates new plans, and
generates new ideas for the morrow. He says this habit is one of the
greatest contributing factors to his success and to the building up of
the largest hardware business the world has ever known.
I want to help YOU to form the habit of rounding up each day's
activities in the quiet, relaxed, uncolored, unprejudiced secluded
environment of your home. Each evening we will together size up
things--a sort of daily round-up.
I have chosen the evening as the time for our little talks. In the
evening we can be cozy, comfy and communicative. The bank is closed. We
met the note and got through the day. We are alive and well; we can open
our hearts. There is no office boy to disturb us, and the life insurance
agent is away at his club.
Yes, we can be alone and tranquilly let down the tension, lower the
speed and with normal heartbeats play the low tones, the soft strains,
the quieting music, and soothe our nerves.
All day we've heard the band with its drums and trombones and shrieky
music. The day with its busy whirl kept our analyzing mental think-tank
occupied with thoughts of gain and game and fame.
In the evening we have time to study logic and to reason, to analyze and
inventory, to thresh out problems.
So let us relax and reflect in these evening round-ups.
NATURAL LAW
Obedience Is Rewarded, Violation Is Punished
Man's nature makes it imperative for him to be interested in something.
That interest is to his help or hurt, according as he directs it.
There is much worry and misery in the world because so many are astatic,
like a compass that has lost its loadstone.
Man is definitely the result of the materials the body and the mind feed
upon.
Character is the result of a determined purpose to be and to do right,
to one's self and to his fellows.
The man of character focuses his attention on truth, and on fact.
He uses theories with fact, to aid his progress, but he recognizes that
theories, without fact as a safety ballast, is a useless expenditure.
Theories without fact leaves man in a rudderless boat; he gets nowhere,
he only drifts.
Theories often help to get at facts, but the better way is to get at
fact by proven experience, of which there is an inexhaustible abundance
in the world.
Facts are based on natural laws. The study of natural laws is
beneficial.
We shall strive in our studies to keep close to fact with just enough
speculation to enliven the interest in facts.
Living the artificial life makes for worry, illness and failure.
Living in harmony with the great natural laws is the helpful way to
live.
To abide by the law is safety, to violate the law brings punishment.
Every man is better if he follows scientific methods and habits of
thought and living.
The loafing or astatic mind will fall into morbid tendencies.
The employed, truth-seeking, idealistic, hopeful mind is never dependent
on people or things for its pleasure.
The acquiring of helpful knowledge, the seeking of worth-while truth,
are ever profitable employments, paying present and future dividends,
and meanwhile those acts positively divert the thought from morbid
tendencies.
The Evening Round-Up is intended to be a companionable, helpful text
book, a counselor and a friend.
We shall strive to bring helpful knowledge, good cheer and interesting
facts, for your present occupation and benefit.
If I succeed in accomplishing my purpose even in part my time has been
well spent.
We have an unchallenged fact to rest our feet on, a fact that shall
follow us through all the pages of this book; and that is: our thoughts
NEVER stop, our brains never sleep.
While we live we shall never get away from our thought; so then, we must
consider that thought current, and reckon with it.
The motive power is turned on and we must grasp the helm if we sail the
sea of life successfully, baffling storms and avoiding rocks.
Scientific books are usually dry, uninviting reading; they lack the
human interest. They are generally bloodless skeletons.
We shall try to weave science into new patterns and paint interesting
pictures so that science will attract and not repel.
This book is different in its suggestions, in its prescriptions, in its
language, but it is universal with all scientific books, in that its aim
is helpful truth.
We go by different routes, but our objective point is the same.
We will avoid technical names and symbols and speak the common language
that the multitude understands.
We shall deal with problems and aspirations that come to us all in this
busy workaday world.
We shall try to cut the underbrush in the swamp and blaze a plain trail
out on to the big high road.
We shall keep in step to the drum-beats of truth, we will rest and
recreate in cool shady places, and then up and on to our purpose with
smiles on our faces, courage in our hearts, and song on our lips.
Every moment of our journey shall be worth while and positively helpful
if we take the trip with conscientious applications, and continuity of
purpose.
Our path is strewn with roses and thorns; we must enjoy the roses and
escape the thorns.
We welcome you, the neophyte, who has joined us in our pilgrimage.
PERSONAL
Are YOU Pleasant to Live With?
Let's be personal; that's a good way to establish a good idea in place
of a bad one.
Are YOU pleasant to live with? Keep this personal question before you,
even if you are cocksure that you can answer, yes.
Maybe there are some little jars, rattles, gratings, you are not aware
of. Few of us are honest when looking for our own faults. There may be
some sand in your gear box. It won't hurt you to keep the personal
question alive for a few days,--"Am I pleasant to live with?"
I love the pleasant people whether they are fat, lean, tall, short, red
heads, brown heads, homely, handsome, republicans or democrats.
The complaining, unpleasant grouch is like a bear with a toothache,
miserable himself and spreading misery all around.
A freckle-faced, red-headed, cross-eyed man with a healthy funny bone
will spread more cheerfulness and sunshine than a bench full of sad and
solemn justices of the supreme court, or a religious conference.
What a different story would be written of Job, if he had only possessed
a servant who could dance a double shuffle and whistle "Dixie" while
cooking breakfast.
David was a man after my own heart; he brought gladsome songs into the
world. He, said "Live the ways of pleasantness."
You can pray, sing, play, work, think, rest, hope, you can be well or
ill, rich or poor and still be pleasant to live with.
Being pleasant helps you to be strong in body and mind, and it keeps you
young a long time. It's good medicine, I know it. My little motto, "Be
pleasant every morning until ten o'clock, the rest of the day will take
care of itself," has brought sunshine into many homes.
If you frown it will soon get to be a habit--and give you a heavy heart.
If you smile your face will be attractive, no matter how unlucky you
were in the lottery of beauty.
Be pleasant and you will never feel old.
Every girl wants to catch a husband. Remember this, girls: A pleasant
disposition is more benefit than seven barrels of beauty cream.
The pleasant disposition is a sure route to happy land and happy homes.
Old Ponce de Leon lost out in searching for the fountain of youth. If he
had been pleasant he would have kept the smiles on his wife's face and
there would have been no excuse to leave her to find the mythical
fountain.
Hoe cake, bacon and smiles beat lobster, champagne and frowns.
Our land is thrice blessed with its peaceful, happy homes--for "happy
homes are the strength of a nation."
Be pleasant in your home, make the children feel home is the pleasantest
place in the world.
Every act and example is written in the child's memory tablet. Let your
hours with the children be loving, laughing, living hours.
Pat them on the head, joke with them, whisper affection, express love to
them. Those acts will be remembered in all their years to come, for you
are planting everlasting plants that may pass onto a hundred generations
and make children happy a thousand years from now.
Be pleasant to live with and the people will turn to you as you pass and
shine your cheerfulness like the sunflowers turn to face the sun.
Be pleasant to live with and you will have more pleasant things to live
for, and there will be kindnesses, kisses, beauty, health, peace, fun,
happiness and content coming your way all along the great big road of
life you are traveling.
Be pleasant, don't be cross and crabbed because someone else in the
household is not pleasant. Do your part; you will likely thereby cure
the frown habit on the face of the unfortunate disturber of your peace.
Make yourself right before you criticize your life partner. Answer this
question, "Am I pleasant to live with?"
Don't fool yourself in the matter. Get right down to brass tacks with
yourself, watch your moves and acts and attitude for ten days carefully
before answering the question.
If your answer is no, then now is your time to change your attitude and
try the pleasant plan, and here is my blessing and good wishes in such
an event.
PRACTICAL HELPS
Dealing With Actual Conditions You Are Facing
I have been fortunate in having splendid eye-sight and hearing, and with
these, a good memory.
I've traveled much and my education has been getting experience directly
or learning experience directly from those who had experience.
All the while I've had to do with, and about business and social
problems, and with and about the things which worry and perplex the man
or woman in the business as well as the home world.
I am trying to stage this book, and our relationship, upon practical
things we are to talk about. I want you to know and feel I have hoped
and feared even as you have.
I am in the midst of these things even now as I write this book. I am
not in a reflective mood, living in the past or glorying in deeds of
other days. I am writing this today and of today, even as you are
reading it today.
By day I face reality and problems, and temptations and tricks and
frauds and deceits, and after the day is over I write these lines and
try to inoculate myself with a serum or toxin that will serve as a
safeguard on the morrow to ward off the things which try to annoy and
distract me from my purpose: to do, and to be, as nearly right and fair
as I can, in act and thought and word.
Continuity on a singleness of purpose is a valuable thing. Fabre spent
his life studying insect life. His books on the spider and others on the
life of insects are the result of a whole life spent on the one hobby or
study of insects.
My occupation has been full of abrupt changes. Each day is a
kaleidoscope, and so, as I write between times, these chapters may be
like the boy who said of the dictionary, "a mighty powerful book but the
subject changes so often."
I write these chapters as the spirit moves and opportunity allows, and
you may read the same way. But be sure you make opportunity happen
often.
OBSERVATION
Sitting on the Side Lines, Watching the Crowd
There is fun and interest and diversion all around us. All we need is
keen observation and we will see much that passes unnoticed to the
preoccupied person.
What an interesting thing is the great round world we live in. The
people are as interesting as fish in an aquarium.
See the rushing, surging crowd. Man, pushing along searching for
necessary things to be done, he builds cities, harnesses rivers, makes
ships to sail the seas to the uttermost parts of the earth. Man goes to
war, he builds death-dealing devices.
Man makes the desert blossom like a rose.
Here is the scientist in his laboratory, trying to unite certain
elements to produce new substance. Here is the beauty in her silken
nest; here the lover; there the musician; yonder the peanut man and in
the office building is the captain of industry: All busy bees deeply
absorbed in their respective interests, and intoxicated in the belief
that they are important and greatly necessary.
Yet in the broad measure of ages they are mere ripples on the sea of
time, faint bubbles on the eternal deep, and grains of sand at the
mountain foot.
Great man by his own measure, minute man by the great measure of time.
Mammoths to the near-sighted, mites to the far-sighted. Hustle and
bustle, crowd and push. They tramp down the weaker brothers in the mad
race after the golden shekels, which are only measures of ability to buy
and own material things; symbols of power to make others serve you.
These golden shekels which men fret, sweat and fight for, can only buy
physical and material things.
Away from the crowd is the little group who have learned a great truth,
which is, happiness is not to be bought with gold. This little minority
knows that mental pleasures are best, and that mental pleasures cannot
be found on the great highway of material conquest.
The puffy, corn-fed millionaire pities the man who is content to live
with small means and enjoys what he has to the full extent.
The wise man is he who gets the fullness out of life, happiness,
respect, content, freedom from worry, who is busy doing useful things,
busy helping his brother, busy training his children, busy spreading
sunshine and love and the close-together feeling in his home circle.
The corn-fed, hardened, senseless, money-mad, dollar-worshipper knows
not peace. Smiles seldom linger on his lips. Peace never rests in his
bosom, cheer never lights his face. He is simply a fighting machine,
miserable in solitude, suffering when inactive and sick when resting.
The money-chaser is up and doing, working like a Trojan, because
occupation takes his mind off the painful picture of his misspent
opportunity and his destroyed natural instinct. When fighting for gold
he forgets his appalling poverty of the really worth-while things in the
world.
Like the drunkard in his cups the intoxication makes him forget, and he
is negatively happy.
Money received as reward for doing things worth while is laudable.
We cannot sit idly by and neglect to earn money to provide food, shelter
and education for our loved ones, but between times we should seek the
wealth that comes from right mental employment.
The millionaire thinks, dreams and gets dollars and that is all.
The worth-while man thinks kindness, usefulness, self-improvement,
brotherhood, love, and he gets happiness.
The man who discovers means to help his fellowman, does a good act, but
it is the man with the dollars in front of his eyes that commercializes
the discovery and invention.
In the end the man that helped mankind fares better than the man who
made the millions.
It's a great crowd surging by, and very few have the good sense to learn
the value of TODAY. That great crowd I see below my window thinks ever
of tomorrow and forgets TODAY.
Those who think always of tomorrow will never get the beauties and joys
from life that comes to the little group, of Today, who appreciates and
enjoys the real Now, rather than the pictured Tomorrow that never
comes.
It's mighty interesting to watch the crowd go by and speculate on their
movements.
Save up your pennies, measure everything by the dollar standard, think
dollars, dream dollars, work, slave, push for the dollars and you will
build a fortune. You will never have peace or recreation, or joy; you
will live only in hope of a some day when you will retire. That's the
way the millionaires travel life's highway.
Some day the paper will announce the death of those millionaires and
then the dollars will be blown in by reckless heirs, and so the grinding
wheels roll on.
Surely there are many ways of looking at things. Surely there is much of
interest in the crowd. Surely there is an unending fund from which to
speculate, in that crowd way down on the street below my window.
What passions, what hopes, what joys, what sorrows, are in the hearts of
that hurrying, worrying crowd.
What noise this din of traffic makes, what activity man has stirred up.
A picture, a drama, a tragedy, a comedy, all these I see in the human
ants that run along below the hive where I sit and write these lines.
The phone rings and my little Nancy Lou's voice says, "Daddy, will you
please bring me a pencil and a tablet with lines on it."
So I must needs stop this, whatever you may call it, and push through
the crowd to get that tablet with "lines on it" for my Nancy Lou; and
there is some feeling of happiness and content and peace in Daddy's
heart as he lays down his pen, for Daddy is going Home, and that word
means a lot in his little family, where they all say "Daddy" instead of
Papa or Father.
DOING THINGS TWICE
A Common Habit That Saps Nerve Power
It is hard enough to do duty once, but doubly hard when you anticipate
mentally everything you have to do tomorrow.
This doing things twice is a habit easily acquired if you don't watch
out, and it means wasted energy.
I have just read the experience of a housewife who was resting on a
couch reading; her eye caught sight of a book lying on the floor across
the room.
Instantly her mindometer, if I may coin a word, registered, "when you
get up, pick up that book."
She went on reading, but her mind was not on the magazine she held, but
on that book on the floor.
So obsessed did she become that she was miserable until she got up and
picked up the book.
I was talking with a woman who was resting on her porch; her day's work
was over. She was dressed for the afternoon. Everything in the home was
neat, sweet, clean and tidy. All serene but her face, and that was the
window through which I saw worry working overtime.
By strategy I learned the trouble, and here is her story: "Tomorrow a
lot of fruit will be ready to preserve. I am worrying where I shall put
it. My fruit closet is full."
The woman had every reason to say to herself "sufficient unto the day,"
yet she was doing the preserving mentally today and tomorrow she would
do the work physically.
A tired mind is harder to rest than a tired body, so we must nip this
advance mental work in the bud.
We have all had mental obsessions of worrying about the things we were
going to take on our trip; then worrying over the routine of our work
when we return from our trip.
If the housewife looks over her week's work and washes the dishes, makes
the beds, cooks the meals, dresses the children, mends the clothes, in
her imagination, before she does them in reality, she is indeed a hard
working woman.
It's all right to plan your work; that's economy in mental expenditure,
for it simplifies, systematizes, and saves work.
Plan your work in advance, but do not keep your mind on the plans until
the work is done.
When you have planned, then close the mental book of tomorrow's duty,
and turn to pleasures, rest, relaxation and enjoyment of today.
These little round-ups we have each evening are fine to switch the
thought current from tomorrow's duties.
It is to get a definite, different thought habit fixed, that I ask you
to give me these few minutes each day when we may consider various
phases of life, science, pleasure, morals and mental refreshment.
True we can only have a fleeting look at things, but we'll get enough, I
hope, to freshen your minds, change the humdrum, and elicit interest in
things.
Maybe these round-ups we have will help us, and keep us from working
mentally tomorrow's physical work.
If these evening talks interest you, help clear your vision, help cheer
you, help rest you, then they are good for you, and be cause they help
you they certainly benefit me and make me very happy, because happiness
comes from doing something for others.
I write as the mood strikes me, or as a phase of life comes before me,
or as an idea strikes in and just won't let go until I grasp my pen and
let the words flow.
I mean this book is human, and not a studied literary effort.
Just get the human viewpoint and don't criticize the words used or the
sentences I construct.
I want to reach you right there alone in the room where you are reading
this, and I want the suggestions, the good, the help, to soak in and I
want you to pass the good you get to your brother; you won't lose a bit
by so doing.
NERVES
The Doctors' Most Difficult Problem
"She is all right--her only trouble is her NERVES." How often we hear
that and how little does the person with steady nerves appreciate the
tortures of "nerves."
A cut, a bruise, a headache, or any of the physical ailments can be
quickly cured. Nature will mend the break, but tired, worn, stretched,
abused nerves take time to restore. These nerve ailments call for most
vigorous mental treatment.
Neurasthenia means debilitated or prostrated nerves and it shows itself
first of all by worry. Worry means the inability to relax the attention
from a definite fear or fancied hard luck. Worry leads to many physical
and mental disorders.
Left alone this worry stage develops into an acute state and brings with
it nervous prostration, and sometimes a complete collapse of the will
power.
Before the acute stage of neurasthenia is reached there is noticed
"brain fag," and brain fag is nature's warning signal calling upon you
to take notice and change your mental habits.
Worry sometimes develops into hysteria; again it takes the form of
hypochondria or chronic blues. The hypochondriac has a chronic, morbid
anxiety about personal health and personal welfare. Frequently this
state is accompanied by melancholia.
Melancholia is the forks in the roads. One road leads to incurable
insanity, the other to curable melancholia. Right here is where heroic
action is needed by the sufferer.
Here is where the sufferer must exert his will power, change completely
his mental and physical habits and his surroundings. Occupation, changed
habits, taking in of confidence, faith and courage thoughts--these
changes are necessary to the victim of melancholia, or he will shatter
on the danger rocks and go to pieces.
Melancholia is where is offered a good chance for Christian Science.
Mental suggestion, powerful personality of a friend, and the personal
help such a friend can give by counsel, example and suggestion, are all
helps.
I have abundant evidence that melancholia sufferers can be restored to
peace, efficiency and poise, by proper thought direction, and by proper
physical employment.
"Pep," which has principally to do with mental efficiency, definitely
lays down rules and practical suggestions for the employment of the mind
and body. I have letters and verbal proofs in quantity proving the
efficiency of those rules and suggestions.
So wonderful have been the results, so numerous the recoveries, that the
testimonials, if published, would make the fake nerve tonic manufacturer
die of envy.
"Only your nerves." I cannot understand why the word, only, is used. It
makes it appear that nerves are of minor importance.
Nerves are less understood than anything in the human anatomy.
Experience has proved that nerves cannot be restored by dope, patent
medicines, tonics or prescriptions.
The cure must come by and through the individual possessing the nerves
and by and through the individual's power of will and mastery of the
mind.
Get the mental equipment right. Let the mind master the body. Let the
nerve sufferer get hold of himself and fill his brain with faith thought
instead of fear thought, with courage instead of cowardice, with
strength instead of weakness, with hope instead of despair, with smiles
instead of frowns, with occupation instead of sluggishness, and wonders
will appear.
The little shredded, tingling nerve ends will then commence to
synchronize instead of fight, to harmonize instead of discord, to build
instead of destroy.
The building, or coming back to a normal state, is slow; it takes time,
patience and will power, but it can be done. I know. I have been through
the mill, and I pass the word to you and try to stir you to be up and
doing, even as I did.
Your nerves can be steadied, your thoughts uplifted, your health
restored, your ambition re-established, your normality fixed.
Smiles, love and content are to be yours. Poise, efficiency, peace, your
blessings. Health, happiness and hope your dividends. All these I
promise you if you will read carefully this book from cover to cover and
follow its plain, practical teachings.
The curriculum is not hard, it is not my discovery. I am merely the
purveyor of facts, the gleaner of truth, and the selector of helpful
experiences, first of all for my own benefit and having proved the truth
in my own case and by friends to whom I passed the truths and rules.
I made bold to write books, but the writing has paid me well, not alone
in dollars, but from having done a helpful thing in writing for other
humans who have had problems, worries and nerves.
The big books on nerves are discouraging and forbidding by their
immensity and labyrinth of scientific technical terms. They are fine for
teachers, but discouraging for the layman.
The great everyday crowd is the class I want to talk to and so I
endeavor to write in plain human, sincere style from heart to heart,
with understanding, feeling, charity and sympathy.
I have felt the things you feel, and if I can by example, emphasis,
suggestion, rule or good intent, be a help to you, then I have done a
service.
Don't worry or criticize this book. Take my suggestions in the spirit
offered.
PESSIMISTS
Give Them the Cold Shoulder
The calamity howler is found in the midst of peace and plenty. This
pessimist sows seeds of discord, plants envy, generates the anarchist
spirit, and is an all-around nuisance.
A man may spend years erecting a building; a fiend can demolish it in a
minute with a stick of dynamite.
The calamity howler is a destroyer; he doesn't think, he spurts out
words. His words and arguments are simply parrot mimicry and void of
intellectual impulse, as are the movements of an angle worm.
These peace destroyers talk of their rights and they expect and demand
the same privileges and benefits that are earned by the man who uses his
head.
These ghouls are born without heads; they just have necks that grow up
and are covered with hair. These brainless mollusks are now telling the
people that the Sultan of Sulu is to capture Texas and that Japan is to
invade Indianapolis; Germany is to capture Quebec, and France is to
siege Milwaukee.
The howlers spread talk of yellow peril and black plague to follow. They
spread doubt and fear; they tell you the capitalists are awake nights
trying to starve you and that they employ inventors to discover new
methods of torture for the poor working man.
They accuse business men of grinding down the farmer, forming pools,
establishing starvation prices, and ruining agriculture. Yet, as I write
these lines, fat beef cattle sell for $10.00 a hundred on the hoof,
wheat is way over $1.00 a bushel, and good farms in Missouri even are
selling at from $100.00 to $150.00 per acre.
Good farm mortgages are hard to get. The farmers have money in the
banks, honey in the house, and automobiles in the garage.
Our taxes in the United States are lower than anywhere on the face of
the earth. Our wages are higher than anywhere in the world. Our schools
better, our opportunities greater.
And in the midst of better conditions and brighter prospects the
shameless, brainless, fameless bipeds pollute the atmosphere, poison
hearts and plant discontent.
If these howlers are any better than foot-pads, thieves, grave robbers,
or child beaters, I can't see it.
And it is up to you and to me to denounce these peace destroyers,
ridicule them, show our contempt for them; they have no hearts, no
souls, they are only decay spots that spread rottenness, disease,
despair, discouragement, contamination and anarchy, and we do not want
such guests at our quilting parties or husking bees.
GLOOM CONTAGION
A Little Study of Faces in a Street Car
This evening I rode home in a crowded street car. What an interesting
study to watch the faces in that car.
Discontent, discomfort, worry, gloominess on nearly every face. Tired
faces, tired bodies from a hard day's work, mouth corners drooped.
Hopelessness stamped on the countenances.
As the people came in the car some of them had smiles or at least
passable expressions, but when they got crowded together and saw the
gloomy faces the gloom spread to their faces, too.
At a picnic all are smiling and laughing. In the street car at six
o'clock the long procession of workers is a stream of solemn faces.
Contagion, example, surrounding, yes, that's it--contagion and example.
At six o'clock in the cars all is gloom, blueness and sorrow faces. At
eight o'clock many of these faces will be changed; there will be joy,
smiles, rosiness, singing and dancing. Yet the actual conditions of
finance, health, hope or prospects haven't changed since these people
were in the car at six o'clock.
Why then such a change in two hours?
It is this: at seven o'clock these workers sat down to supper, they were
out of that gloom-reflected street car atmosphere. Now they are talking,
they are rounding-up the day's activities; they are HOME with mother,
sister, brother and the kiddies. The home ones greet them with smiles,
the appetizing supper pleases the palate, good cheer permeates, and all
is smiles and joy.
Gloom spreads gloom. Joy spreads joy. Gloom is black; joy is white. One
darkens, the other brightens.
Well, then, where's the moral? What's the benefit from this little study
of the street car passengers?
The lesson is plain: it is that you and I are ferments of joy or acids
of gloom. We are influences to help or to hurt. To hurt others by our
example hurts us. To help others by our example helps us. We become
happier than ever.
In the street car life was not worth living if you judged by the pained
faces. In two hours by changed thought the example of life was worth
while.
What changes the mental attitude makes.
"When a man has spent
His very last cent--
The world looks blue, you bet;
But give him a dollar
And loud he will holler
There's life in the old world yet."
Next time we get on the street car let's plant some smiles. Let's give
that lady a seat and smile when we do it.
We can spread cheer by merely wearing a cheery face. Costs little, pays
big. Let's do it.
HAPPINESS
Hovers Near Us If We Do Not Chase It
Some of our richest blessings are gained by not striving for them
directly. This is so true that we accept the blessings without thinking
about how we came to get them.
Particularly true is this in the matter of happiness. Everyone wants to
be happy, but few know how to secure this blessing.
Most people have the idea that the possession of material things is
necessary to happiness and that idea is what keeps architects,
automobile makers, jewelers, tailors, hotels, railroads, steamships and
golf courses busy.
Do your duty well, have a worth-while ambition, be a dreamer, have an
ideal. Keep your duty in mind, be occupied sincerely with your work,
keep on the road to your ideal and happiness will cross your path all
the while.
Happiness is an elusive prize; it's wary, timid, alert and cannot be
caught. Chase it and it escapes your grasp.
I read today of a friend who walked home with a workman. This is the
workman's story: He had a son who was making a record in school. He had
two daughters who helped their mother; he had a cottage, a little yard,
a few flowers, a garden. He worked hard in a garage by day and evenings
he cultivated his flowers, his garden, and his family. He had health,
plus contentment a-plenty. His possessions were few and the care of them
consequently a negligible effort.
Happiness flowed in the cracks of his door. Smiles were on his lips, joy
in his heart, love in his bosom; that's the story my friend heard.
Then came a friend in an automobile on his way home from the club. He
picked up my friend and to him a tale of woe, misery and discontent did
unfold.
This club man had money, automobiles, social standing, possessions, and
all the objects and material things envious persons covet--yet he was
unhappy. His whole life was spent chasing happiness, but his sixty
horsepower auto wasn't fast enough to catch it.
The poor man I have told you about was the man who washed the club
man's auto.
The strenuous pleasure seeker fails to get happiness; that is an
inexorable law. He develops into a pessimist with an acrid, satirical
disgust at all the simple, worth-while, real things in life.
This is not a new discovery of mine; it's an old truth. Read
Ecclesiastes, the pessimistic chronicle of the Bible, and you'll find
what comes to the pleasure-chaser, and you will know about "vanity and
vexation of spirit."
Do something for somebody. Engage in moves and enterprises that will be
a service to the community and help the uplift of mankind. This making
others happy is a positive insurance and guarantee of your own
happiness.
You must keep a stiff upper lip, a stiff backbone; you must forget the
wishbone and the envious heart.
Paul had trials, setbacks, hardships and hard labors; he had defeats and
discouragements and still the record shows he was "always rejoicing."
Paul was a man of Pep. In the dungeon with his feet in stocks he sang
songs and rejoiced. Paul was happy, ever and always, not because he
strove to get happiness, but because he had dedicated his life to a
service to mankind.
The real hero, the real man of fame, the real man of popularity, doesn't
arrive through direct quest, for any of these things; the result is
incidental.
The real hero forgets self first of all; that is the essential step to
greatness.
Washington at Valley Forge had no thought that his acts there would
furnish inspiration for a picture that would endure for generations.
Lincoln, the care-worn, tired noble man, in his speech at Gettysburg,
never dreamed that speech would stamp him as a master of words and
thought, in the hearts of his countrymen. He thought not of self. He was
trying to soothe wounds, cheer troubled spirits, and give courage to
those who had been so long in shadowland.
Ever has it been that fame, glory, happiness are rewards, given not to
those who strive to capture, but to those who strive to free others from
their troubles, burdens and problems.
THOUGHT CONTROL
"As a Man Thinketh in His Heart so is He"
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.
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.
If we feed our brain storehouse with trash and fear, and nonsense, we
have a poor material to draw from.
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, 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.
If you have read "Pep" and followed its rules, you are now in a state of
poise, efficiency and peace, and realize the truths of this chapter, for
you learned in detail the rules for your daily conduct, practice, and
how to apply suggestions.
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 women. 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.
MEDICINE
Proofs That Mind Control is 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 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 the aches, pains or ailments can be cured by a
dominant mental attitude and 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
confidence that the sufferer is to get well.
Recently I have spent much time in a large hospital visiting a relative
who had been operated on. I know several 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
and watched the cases of scores of patients.