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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. |