PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY BY THE SAME AUTHOR HUMAN ANALYSIS Classifi- cation of Human Beings in the Order of Their Biological Evo- lution Net $10 HOW TO BE A CONVINCING TALKER, IN PUBLIC AND IN PRIVATE The Laws of Successful Public Speaking and Interesting Conversation. . . Net $ 5 HOW TO DEVELOP A SUC- CESSFUL PERSONALITY Capitalizing Your Strong Points and Minimizing Your Weak Ones Net $ 5 PRACTICAL PSY- CHOLOGY .. ..Net $10 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY y ELSIE LINCOLN BENEDICT, M. A. Author of "HUMAN ANALYSIS," "HOW TO BE A CONVINCING TALKER, IN PUBLIC AND IN PRIVATE," "HOW TO DEVELOP A SUCCESSFUL PERSONALITY." Published by J. F. ROWNY PRESS Los Angeles : California 1920 opog^-oo oo-^ooo opog^oo oo-feooo Copyright, 1920 by ELSIE LINCOLN BENEDICT New York City DEDICATED TO MY STUDENTS. PREFACE In every man and woman there are enor- mous untapped resources. Only a small per- centage of yours are being used. You are like a hundred-acre field with only ten acres under cultivation. You are letting Discouragement, Worry and Fear grip you and ruin your life when you could be happy. You are letting yourself get old when you could stay young and attractive. You are doing all kinds of things to your body that make you ill when you could be well and strong. You are timid and self-conscious when you could be radiant with self-confidence. You are a failure, financially and otherwise, when you could be a glorious success. But determination alone will not do it. Knowledge has always been necessary to the accomplishment of anything. The will to solve a problem is useless without the know- ing how. PREFACE There is a key to successful, joyous living, based on natural laws. This volume deals with these natural laws, with special reference to those of biology and psychology. It puts into graphic, vivid form the psychology of the great universities, and applies it in everyday language to the everyday problems of every- day people. It is the psychology of the great scientists made practical. THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS Chapter Page PREFACE v I. HOW TO BE WELL 11 Health the real foundation of all accomplishment Errors common to mankind Your body the car that must carry you to destination Breathing, its physi- ology and psychology Colds, their cause and cure- Eating, America's favorite indoor sport Overweight and underweight and what they mean Longevity and fat Foods for fat people Foods for thin peo- ple Poor food combinations Good food combina- tions Constipation Rheumatism and dentistry Biliousness Headaches Sleeping Insomnia Relaxation Exercise for various types The power of the mind over the body The power of the body over the brain Psychology of health II. HOW TO STOP WORRYING 57 Tests for determining whether you are a "worrier" Man's environment in his head, not his house The psychology of happiness and unhappiness Your mental camera Your own movie show The secret of your memory album Attention the keynote Three kinds of troubles Man's four great fears Laws of worry The real difference between the happy man and the unhappy man Two men in prison Worry a black nothingness Entertaining your enemies Twain's story for worriers Bury your past and don't visit the grave Yesterday and PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Tomorrow, the thieves between which man is cruci- fied Living in the Now Your mental powerhouse Rules for overcoming worry. III. HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT. ... 114 The cost of self-consciousness Self-consciousness and suggestion Two young men The world and your valuation of yourself Every man telling his own story The psychology of timidity Lovemak- ing and advertising Mistakes of parents Children and self-confidence Three laws of self-confidence Munsterberg's advice The timid man and the aggres- sive man Napoleon William James on our unde- veloped personal resources Visualization and self- confidence Rules for acquiring self-confidence Evolution and self-confidence Two pictures Self- confidence and other people's opinions Air castles The psychology of self-confidence at Verdun Cause and cure of self-consciousness. IV. HOW TO STAY YOUNG 159 Ancient and modern opinions about the prolongation of youth "Fountains of Eternal Youth" Susan B. Anthony, LaPlace, Gladstone, Rodin, Ho wells, Barr, Wilcox, Bernhardt, examples of the prolongation of youth The causes of old age Old age and the sub- conscious Popular preparations for old age The story of the bride Clothes and old age Old age and fixity of habits Old age and conservatism Man never more than two years old Life a renewing process "New cells for old" The psychology of age Youth and humor Our consciousness of the passage of time Rules for prolonging youth Mary C. C. Bradford's formula The four mental states producing age The secret of vitality, viii CONTENTS V. HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 188 The importance of memory Identity and memory The "picture gallery of your mind" Social, domes- tic, professional and business requirements of mem- ory Memory and the public speaker What to remember Memory and success The four genera- tions, Desire, Interest, Attention, Memory Self-inter- est and memory Attention and its significance in memory Al Jennings' story The Jester murder case Memory and court testimony The mystery of the girl who remembered Greek The psychology of "lost" memories College debates and memory Three laws of memory The psychology of associa- tion Memory your servant Five rules for remem- bering names and faces The treasure vault of mem- ory and its lost combination. VI. HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER. ... 235 Will power and its value Not more will power but more use of what you have The two great classes of wills The eight subdivisions The inactive will and its consequences Impulsive wills Over-active wills The discouraged will Will power and emo- tion Vacillating wills Penny-in-the-slot wills Pur- posive wills and their psychology Carrie Chapman Catt and the purposive will The power of desire Laws for building will power Non-essentials and will power Concentration and will power Habit and will power Twenty-five rules for building will power Friends and your will Locking your mind Doing the disagreeable A day at a time, not "for- everness" What to do when you fail What to do when you win When to yield. PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY VII. HOW TO MAKE MONEY 273 Universal desire for money vs. the universal pre- tenses to the contrary Being honest about our money ambitions The fallacy of poverty's "lure" The rich man who would "like to be poor again" Evolution and our money-needs Money and martyrs The importance of keeping abreast of your time The psychology of money-making What is an idea worth? Initiative and its place in money-making Capitalizing your strong points Worry and money- making Clothes and money-making Opinions of rich men The psychology of poverty Money-mak- ing and its rules. HOW TO BE WELL "The man with educated bowels will eclipse the man with educated brains, but why not have both?" ELBERT HUBBARD. VERY human being has a right to a strong, healthy body. Nature starts ninety-nine per cent of us with good working capital, and we proceed to do what people usually do who inherit wealth, squander it extravagantly and as a result are physical bankrupts early in life. There are two kinds of diseases, organic and functional. Organic diseases are those like tuberculosis, in which there is actual destruction of tissue. Functional diseases are those like constipation, in which there is no actual loss of tissue, but in which some organ fails to perform its natural function. The average individual pays large doctors' bills each year for having some one with an M. D. help him get over such ailments as constipation, neuralgia, headaches, insomnia, 11 PSYCHOLOGY things that arise simply from slovenly in- ternal housekeeping. By following the sane, simple rules laid down in this lesson, the average man and woman may get and keep good health through a long life. "Be first of all a healthy animal." Your success and happiness depend more upon your health than upon anything else in the world. It is the real foundation upon which the structure of your life rests. If you are thoroughly well, no hardship, no sorrow, no misfortune is great enough to conquer you. If you are sick, no amount of wealth can make you happy. Yet the average man neglects this greatest of all treasures. He eats any- thing that tastes good; he eats large amounts of food at one sitting; he breathes any kind of air that happens to be around him, and uses, on an average, about one-third of his lung capacity. Man can live only four and one-half min- utes without air; he has been known to live forty days without food. Most people almost forget to breathe but imagine they feel them- selves getting weak if they miss "three squares" a day. Exercise in some form is necessary to the health of every individual. Motion must be 12 HOW TO BE WELL made to balance emotion if you are to stay well. But most people do not know this. The man who leads a sedentary life during the day finds sedentary amusement in the evening at the theatre, or by other indoor diversions. The average individual drinks about four glasses of water each 24 hours, forgetting that next to air water is the greatest physical neces- sity, since almost 70 per cent of the human body is water. Instead of getting a sane amount of sleep he goes to bed when there is no other place to go and takes a chance on feeling all right the next day. No one can be blamed for this state of affairs. As long as men and women follow lines of work for which they are not fittted they will hate their work, and the man who hates his work feels that his real life is lived between office-closing time in the evening and office- opening time next morning. He feels that his only chance for happiness is during these hours, and uses them accordingly. That this unfits him for promotion, cheats him out of his chances, robs him of the opportunity to find his right place are facts which short-sight- ed man fails to see until it is too late. Some day the knowledge of how to be well, 13 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY get well and stay well will be disseminated by our government as one of the highest duties the people can perform for their own preserva- tion and efficiency. Children will be taught the rules for healthful eating, drinking, sleep- ing, exercising and breathing before their A, B, C's. What Johnny gets into his stomach will be recognized as of equal importance with what he is getting into his head, because the proper functioning of Johnnie's head is largely dependent upon the proper functioning of Johnnie's stomach. Some day we will recog- nize that what Johnnie drinks is as important as what Johnnie thinks. You can't divorce your body from your brain. They rise or fall together. Your mind manifests itself through your body. It is the house in which it dwells. Because it so vitally affects your mind, this first lesson in psychology, "the science of the human mind," must be devoted to your physi- cal condition. We all want to get somewhere. We each have a destination in view. Your body is the car that must carry you there. You are hi a race, the race of life, in which competition is keen and getting keener every day. No sane driver would run on the rims or (ill the gaso- line tank with adulterated stuff. Yet most of 14 HOW TO BE WELL the failures in this race of life are doing these very things. Then they wonder why they are outdistanced. In this chapter I am going to give you the sensible, scientific rules by which you can keep your car in good running order. BREATHING First of all, breathe. Your lungs are your bellows and you must keep them full of air just as the blacksmith does when he is forging. It takes white heat to forge anything worth while. Your mind is a dull ember when your lungs are half empty. To breathe right all you have to do is to raise your chest. Don't throw your shoulders back violently or make hard work of it. Simply keep your chest up. Nature does everything else. Because your breathing is the most important thing she does not attempt to leave it to you. She keeps your lungs going just as she does your heart. In return for her care the least you can do, and in fact all she asks you to do, is this: lift your chest and keep it lifted, so that the thorax, the little room inside your ribs, is not too cramped for expansion. Oxygen is necessary to the life of every organism, from blades of grass to human 15 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY beings, and oxygen can only be had in fresh air. See to it that the air you breathe is as fresh as possible. I do not mean that you should be fanatical about this or anything else. Don't be freakish and try to live exclusively out of doors. Man has lived for so many cen- turies in houses he is no longer able to cope with the elements barehanded. But circulat- ing air that is not too warm is absolutely es- sential to physical and mental efficiency. This is practical psychology, so do not go to extremes. Do not freeze in order to have fresh air. Have your rooms comfortable but be sure of proper ventilation. Windows slightly open at opposite ends of your house or room will insure this. It is a bromide to say "sleep with windows wide open," but it is necessary to repeat it often. Your health is measured by the proportion of new fresh cells in your body to the diseased and dying cells. Every time you take a lungful of fresh air it produces twenty million new red corpuscles for your blood and carries away as many dead ones. While we are on the subject of breathing, do not overlook the fact that your breathing and your mental state are closely related. Fear, anger, jealously, worry and all negative 16 HOW TO BE WELL mental attitudes are conducive not only to the stooping posture but to deficient breathing. An inkling of this relationship was had by the ancients. For centuries it was believed that the breath was an expression of the soul. Some occult religions of today are founded on this. There is at least this to be said for them: your efficiency as a human machine is largely de- termined by your intake of air, and whether your breathing is or is not related to the soul, it certainly is the infallible indication of the state of your mind. Joy, happiness, exulta- tion are expressed by the long, deep breath, while their opposites instantly cause a short- ening of breath, choking or sobbing. As a mechanical aid to composure and to rid yourself of any negative mental attitude try forcing yourself to take deep breaths of fresh air at your open window. You will be surprised at the change it will make in your feelings in five minutes. Whenever you are in a tight place, when- ever you are facing any critical situation, watch your breath. Keep your lungs full, your chest up, your chin out, your head high, and see what wonders it will do for you. Breathing impure air powerfully and harm- fully affects the mind. Oxygen feeds the fires 17 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY which burn up the poisons of the body. When these poisons are not properly burned up (ox- idized) they remain in the system to depress both mind and body. If you want rapid and healthful mind action you must have oxygen in your lungs. There is an old saying that deep breathing brings deep thinking and shallow breathing shallow thinking. Despondency, the "blues" and melancholia are characteristic of people who breathe only with the upper part of their lungs. Clear thinking is possible only when good blood is circulating at a good rate through the brain. Deep breathing not only purifies the blood but pushes it rapidly through the brain. COLDS The old idea that colds come from draughts is today largely discredited. If your body is in a healthy condition draughts will not give you colds. Outright exposure will, but mov- ing air is healthful, not harmful. You catch some of your colds from sitting in air that is not in motion, air laden with impurities, when your physical health is at a low ebb of resist- ance. Right here is perhaps the best place to tell you exactly what causes most of your colds. 18 HOW TO BE WELL That cause is constipation, and constipation comes from wrong eating. Nothing short of a blizzard or a drenching rain will give you a cold unless you are constipated. If you are constipated, not even a draught is necessary. You "catch cold" from the poison which your clogged-up colon sends throughout your body. Therefore, reverse the process when you get a cold and stop eating; take an enema to rid the system of the poison already banked up, and give the system a chance to clear it- self of debris by not putting any more food into it. Mest food is thirty-five per cent poison, and as such, has to be disposed of. A cold is un- mistakable evidence that your body is already overloaded with poisonous materials. Give it a chance to "clear the decks." Don't let your friends tell you that you "must eat to keep up your strength." If you stopped eating at this moment, did not eat a mouthful for a week, and took nothing into your stomach but water, you would have plenty of strength for carrying on any ordi- nary work. When this is true of the man who works you can see how exaggerated are our notions about the necessity of eating. Any person in average health has suffi- 19 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY cient "strength" already stored up in his system to carry him safely through several days of fasting. The man with a cold, there- fore, does not need more strength, but less poison. Nature is a marvelous restorer. She disposes of unbelievable quantities of poisons when given the chance. But if you eat when you have a cold you are shoveling debris into the front door faster than she can carry it out at the rear. The old saying "stuff a cold and starve a fever" is used in the opposite sense from what was meant originally. The original saying was: "If you stuff a cold you will have to starve a fever," it being well known that a neglected cold sometimes leads to a fever. LaGrippe is a cold in an exaggerated form. The devastating Spanish Influenza is the same thing carried to "the third degree" and is noth- ing more nor less than LaGrippe in a malig- nant form. It is now well known that not a trick of Fate, but the condition of the colon and intestines, largely determined whether or not one had the "flu." That the "flu" was somewhat infectious cannot be denied, but whether or not one "caught" it depended on the condition of his colon and intestines. The time is coming when instead of sym- 20 HOW TO BE WELL pathizing with the individual who has a cold we shall recognize that he is unclean internally and deserving of the same opprobrium as the man who is unclean externally. Sleeping out of doors, exercise in the open air and the avoidance of too much protein food are other means for avoiding colds. EATING Baseball may be the favorite outdoor, but .' eating is the favorite indoor sport of Ameri- cans. It is estimated that the average man and woman in this country eats twice the amount of food necessary for health, while many, es- pecially among the well-to-do, eat five times as much. Until people realize the danger in this procedure they will continue to do so be- cause they have the greatest urge toward it. All instincts are hard to combat because they are so deeply imbedded in the nature of the race. The instinct of assimilation is the first and foremost instinct in every living cell and it takes will power to restrict it when the means for gratifying it are at hand. "We dig our graves with our teeth" has often been said of us. Certain it is that we eat our way to our graves. A long life never comes to the glutton, in fact the "longness" of 21 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY your life is largely dependent on the "short- ness" of your food supply. It is now an accepted theory that many of our diseases arise from putrefaction of protein in the colon. Meat carries a large amount of protein and contains other elements which de- compose quickly. Stop and think what begins to happen to an animal the instant it is killed. It begins to putrefy, doesn't it? All meat, therefore, is nothing more nor less than decaying animal matter and forms debris which is expunged from the system at great expense of energy. Scientists show us the proof that man was not originally a carnivorous (flesh-eating) animal. Man lived on fruits, nuts, grains and vegetables for the first few millions of years that he inhabited the globe. Proof of this is seen in the length of his colon and the nature of his teeth. Dogs and all flesh-eating creatures are created with the short colon adapted to the rapid expulsion of poison from the sys- tem. They also have the fang-like, deep- rooted teeth necessary for biting and chewing meat. The human colon is very long, thus necessitating much roughage in the diet. If much meat and other concentrated foods are 22 HOW TO BE WELL eaten, to the exclusion of fibrous foods, their poisons, instead of being expelled, bank up in the colon, causing various ailments. You may say you "need meat to keep up your strength. " Look at the horse. He is the strongest animal known. He has done more of the world's manual work than all men and all other animals combined. Yet he lives ex- clusively on "greens," fodder and cereals. Overeating is an expensive pleasure, and an even greater expense to your body than to your purse. In addition to the diseases it brings, it steals your energy. It saps your en- thusiasm. It makes you a slow mover and a slow thinker. It makes you lazy mentally and physically. Every ounce of food over the amount necessary to the upkeep of the body is a drain on the entire system. The "sleepiness" you feel after a heavy meal is only your brain's inability to "think." It can't "think" because when your stomach has that big load to dispose of it sends out emergency calls to other parts of the body for their "reserves" of blood. Your head, being one of the extremities, is one of the first to respond to the call. Your brain and stomach can't work at the same time. When your 23 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY stomach is digesting meat and potatoes your brain won't digest ideas. Those who have brain work to do in the afternoons should eat light lunches. All pub- lic speakers have learned that they must eat a light evening meal, or preferably no food at all for several hours prior to appearing before an audience. Many a "heavy speech" is caused by a "heavy dinner." The greatest food scientist of the world was born in Italy in the fifteenth century. His name was Luigi Cornaro. At 40 his physi- cians gave him up to die. He was determined to cheat Death and began to study life scientifically. He discov- ered that the stomach was the crucial point, and he controlled his fate by controlling his stomach. He lengthened his life to 103 years, more than sixty happy, successful years over the allotted time. He did it by eating very sparingly. Twelve ounces of solid food and fourteen ounces of unfermented fruit juice were all he allowed himself per day. Every few months he went on a fast of several days, gave his stomach a chance to rest for a new start, and wrote best during these days when he had no food whatever. 24 HOW TO BE WELL Metchnikoff, the renowned French scientist, declared that 95 per cent of all human diseases come from putrefaction in the alimentary canal; that it is the "breeding ground" for most of our troubles. E. E. Rittenhouse, Commissioner of Conser- vation for the Equitable Life Assurance So- ciety, said in a speech at the Hotel Astor, New York: "The average American would not think of mixing bricks or scrap-iron or gravel with the fuel for his furnace, yet he feeds his stomach with tasty junk, much of which can- not be digested. This seriously overstrains his heart, arteries, kidneys, nerves and digestion." The body may well be compared to a stove with the stomach as the firebox. The fire cre- ates heat and energy, which is exactly what the digestion of food does for your body. But when you stoke your stomach with three or four big meals each day the same thing happens that happens in any stove, the ashes and clinkers accumulate in the form of various poisons and clog the grate. The marvel of it all is that the human body stands so much neglect and abuse. Your body is the most intricate and wonderfully complex machine in the world and yet you expect it to run itself. 25 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Horace Mann said: "In college I was taught all about the motions of the planets as care- fully as though they were in danger of dying off the track if I did not know how to trace their orbits; but nothing about the organiza- tion of my own body. Nothing could be more preposterous. I should have begun at home and taken the stars when it came their turn." It is remarkable what wrong ideas people have on the subject of eating. For one thing, few people know that the stomach is a flex- ible organ, somewhat like a small balloon, which can be distended or contracted as you choose. If you eat small amounts of food it becomes smaller and is satisfied with less. If you eat large amounts of food it distends until only large quantities satisfy it. It is like peo- ple, the more you give it the more it de- mands. Here is a strange and little known fact about your stomach: the feeling of satis- faction of having "had all you want" comes from the fact that food is touching the walls of the stomach. When you have given your stomach a chance to become smaller, a smaller quantity of food gives this satisfied feeling. This is also the reason why you don't want as 26 HOW TO BE WELL large a meal, after decreasing the diet a few days, as you used to require. Just as wrong eating is the cause of most of our ills, so correct eating will create and main- tain bodily vigor and mental energy. By right eating I do not mean freak diets, I mean just good, everyday foods properly combined. Poor food combinations: Milk and sugar. Fruits with coarse vegetables. Acid fruits with starches. Too many kinds of food at one meal. Milk with acid fruits. Good food combinations: Fruits with cereals and nuts. Nuts with all foods. Vegetables with cereals and nuts. Cereals with all other foods. Milk with cereals. Eggs with all other foods. The best foods to select from: Protein Peas Beans Nuts Eggs and milk Cheese Gluten products Fats Ripe olives Olive oil Cream Butter 27 Carbohydrates Cereals Fruits Sugar Root vegetables Coarse "fodder" vegetables PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Include some from each class in each meal. In weight eat one-tenth protein, one-tenth fats and eight-tenths carbohydrates. What you like is not a safe guide. Do not, for the sake of tickling your palate for a few minutes, load your stomach with harmful foods that cost you hours of inefficiency and suffering. Do not eat between meals. Your stomach needs a rest the same as all other organs. Never eat when you are not hungry. A lack of hunger is your stomach's way of tell- ing you that it is not ready for more food. Hunger is its signal that it is ready to digest food. But it is not a signal that it is ready to digest a ton of junk. OVERWEIGHT AND UNDERWEIGHT The statistics of the U. S. insurance com- panies show that for each pound above normal you increase your chances of death one per cent above normal if disease strikes you. The life insurance business, of stupendous propor- tions financially and industrially, is based on just one thing, the law of averages as applied to the length of your life. To run a winning instead of a losing busi- ness on this guess, the insurance companies 28 HOW TO BE WELL had to know what it was that made you "an unsafe risk." They have discovered that fat is the thing that does it. They have found in the statistics compiled upon millions of Americans, that the fat man dies younger than the slender man. The man whom you call "fat and husky" is much more likely to "drop off/' so say the insurance com- panies, than the "skinny" man you sympa- thize with. This is true for several reasons, the first one being that an excess of fat over- taxes the heart. Let me put it this way for the sake of illustration: Your heart weighs less than a pound. It is the one organ that never takes a rest. There it is, that faithful little engine, thumping away every instant from the moment you are born till the mo- ment you are dead. If you live forty years that little engine has chugged away without an instant's cessation for forty years. If you live to be ninety it has chugged away for ninety years. Every other organ has rest periods, takes little va- cations at night, in relaxed moments, etc. But not your heart. Because it is such a little engine we will compare it to a Ford engine. Now a Ford 29 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY engine is large enough for a Ford car, for Ford cars are light weight. As long as you do not weigh too much your engine will do the same for you. It will take you up the hills and down the dales of life at a pretty good gait. But when you take on fat you are doing to your heart just what a Ford owner does to his engine when he loads the tonneau down with bricks. A Ford engine will stand for a good many pounds of excess baggage just as will your heart, but if you load in too much, and attempt to carry it all the time, your car will not be in good running order very long. You will not notice it at first. Along the paved streets of perfect health you will travel with- out anything going desperately wrong. You do your work, you jog along fairly satisfac- torily, keeping up with the procession without apparent strain, but come to a hill such as Pneumonia and Diabetes and the little engine fails to make the grade. Thousands of men and women every year literally "kill their engines" just that way when they might so easily have had a long and happy life. Overweight is an infallible indication (except in dropsy) of overeating. 30 HOW TO BE WELL It is a false idea that you "just naturally fatten up after forty." You don't. Slower movements, less exercise, "the comforts of life," including richer food and more of it are what fatten the middle age man. There is no reason why a man should weigh more at fifty than at thirty. Following is the table of normal weights for men and women according to the U. S. insur- ance statistics as compiled March 1, 1920: Height Ft. In. Pounds 5 126 128 130 133 136 140 144 5 1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 5 5 6 AGE 30 MEN Height Ft. In. Pounds 5 7 148 152 156 5 8 5 9 5 10 5 11 6 161 166 172 Height Ft. In. Pounds 6 1 6 2 6 3 6 4 6 5 178 184 190 196 201 Height Ft. In. Pounds 4 8 112 4 9 4 10 4 11 5 5 1 114 116 118 120 122 AGE 30 WOMEN Height Ft. In. Pounds 5 2 124 5 3 127 5 4 131 5 5 134 5 6 138 5 7 142 Height Ft. In. Pounds 5 8 146 150 154 157 5 9 5 10 5 11 6 161 If you are under twenty your weight may be over or under without danger. If you are between twenty and thirty your weight may 31 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY vary as much as five pounds under or five pounds over this table. This table has been compiled for people of thirty years and over. Fat is a handicap in many ways. It de- creases not only the quantity of life but the quality. The individual who is much overweight finds not only his body less active but his mind also. He requires more sleep and re- quires it oftener than the man of normal weight. He is not as keen, dynamic or alert as he would be were he rid of his excess bag- gage. Hundreds of my students have told me how much more alive were their minds, how much more happy and optimistic their mental condition, after reducing. Those who are overweight should first cut down the quantity of food. No matter how little you are eating if you are overweight you are overeating. When a fat man declares to me that he eats but one head of lettuce a day, I say "cut the head in two." As a matter of fact, the fat man or woman usually overeats. The very presence of fat indicates the same thing that water does when 32 HOW TO BE WELL BILIOUSNESS Biliousness is largely the result of constipa- tion or of a lazy liver. The liver is the body's poison destroyer, the "garbage crematory" of the system, and when it fails to do its work the blood is flooded with poisons. This in turn causes brain fag as well as body fag. A torpid liver always makes a torpid mind. To overcome a tendency to biliousness avoid sweets and starches and eat raw fruits. HEADACHES Most headaches come from constipation. The millions of microbes which inhabit the large intestine are often responsible for mental sluggishness and the "blues." When these poisons are too long retained in the bowel and especially when they are greatly increased by overeating or too much meat in the diet, the increased production and absorption of poi- sons will cause headaches. Headache remedies never cure your head- ache. They merely drug you into not feeling it. Instead of taking drugs clean out the in- testines and colon. Your mind never works effectively when your body is working defectively. Many a giant intellect has been starved and eventually 35 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY killed by the poisons absorbed as the result of chronic constipation. RHEUMATISM Today it is known that rheumatism comes from infection somewhere in the system. In- fection manufactures pus. When this pus has no outlet it is absorbed by the body. Rheu- matism is the howl set up by your body when it has swallowed more of this poison than it can stand. The source of the trouble may be anywhere in the body, but it has been found that the teeth and the tonsils are the favorite breeding grounds. If you feel the warning twinges don't stop at the elimination of "red meats" or the in- dulgence in "frequent baths." Both measures are helpful, whether you are sick or well. Have your teeth and tonsils "X-Rayed." The picture will probably reveal the tell-tale "black spots" tiny abscesses that have been sending out their poisons, sometimes for years. Dentistry is the infant among the sciences and has not yet devised methods for per- manently crowning your decayed teeth suc- cessfully. There is always danger that the pretty exterior "covers a multitude of sins." 36 HOW TO BE WELL SLEEPING Your nerves resemble electrical batteries. Nerve energy is your electricity and the cur- rent is on during every waking moment. Sleep is necessary for the recharging of these batteries. You may feel good for a long time on little sleep, but that is only because your nerves are "extending you credit." You can't borrow on the future indefinitely. The time is sure to come when they will foreclose. Grief, joy, excitement, fear, anxiety, in fact, all emotional mental states increase the voltage and run down your batteries. If you want health don't waste your electricity. From six to eight hours of sleep are essen- tial to the health of the average man and wo- man. Some require as much as nine while others keep well on an average of five hours of sleep. No iron-clad rule can be laid down for all. Much depends upon the temperament of the individual. The only safe rule is this: Do not make a practice of sleeping less than five hours nor more than nine out of twenty-four. Do not spend any more of your lifetime asleep than is necessary to good health but be sure to get all you need. This can be 37 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY determined by noting carefully how you feel on the days after you have had the minimum of sleep. In deciding whether lack of sleep is harm- ful to you physical evidence alone is not sufficient. Watch your memory on the days following the minimum of sleep. This is the best test, for memory is the weakest link in your mental chain. You can safely estimate J your "sleep capacity" in this manner. INSOMNIA Insomnia is not a disease but a symptom, an indication that something is wrong with you mentally or physically. Either your body is sick over something or your mind is worried over something. Many people think they have not slept when they really have. We are not conscious of sleep. We are only conscious of the inter- vals when we are awake. Unless you have a watch beside your bed and time yourself you can never know how long you stayed awake in the night. The desire for sleep and the monotony always make your mind exaggerate the period of wakefulness. It has been found in hospitals and sanitaria where a nurse times the patient, that he sleeps 38 HOW TO BE WELL more than he thinks he has, and the time that seems "hours" to him was only minutes according to the clock. This is the first step toward recovery, to realize that you are nine times out of ten get- ting more sleep than you imagine. The sec- ond is this rather startling fact, which has been proven by scientists: It isn't the loss of sleep that harms you so much as the worry over its loss. A man lies awake a couple of hours in the night. He frets over it. He tells himself how badly he needs his rest and how mis- erable he is going to feel the next day. He gets all ready for a headache and when he awakens in the morning without one he says it will appear pretty soon. He looks for it, expects it, mentally invites it, gets all ready for it, concentrates on it until he actually feels a headache coming on. But he and not the sleeplessness brought it. Experiments have shown that one can lose a great deal of sleep without impairing the health, because when we do sleep we make up for the sleep lost by sleeping three or four times as soundly. * * See the experiments of Prof. Patrick of the University of Iowa. 39 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY But worry is another matter. Worry at any time is dangerous to health. Therefore, when you find yourself wakeful remember the wakefulness won't harm you much but worry will. Tell yourself that you are resting your body for the next day's demands. Relax every muscle. Relax your mind. Don't try to think or allow yourself to think intensely about anything. Let your mind drift as if on a slow, smooth-flowing river. When it fastens itself on those worries or any other one subject detach it and set it to floating again. Sleep will usually come soon but if it doesn't, don't be discouraged. Take ad- vantage of the opportunity to master your- self, and in a few nights you will be able to put yourself to sleep in this manner. Most insomnia comes from letting your nerves and mind run wild. This method for curing sleeplessness also cures you of the source of your trouble by giving mental dis- cipline. But remember, in this as in all things, your body and mind are interdependent. Aid your mind in following the above rules by avoiding all stimulants. You cannot key up your brain during the day by tea and coffee and expect it to subside at night. 40 HOW TO BE WELL You say you have to drink coffee to "brace you up." When you don't sleep you are merely braced up. Go to bed before midnight. If you are troubled by chronic insomnia, be in bed by ten o'clock. It has been proved by scientific experiments that the period of greatest mental activity is between one and four in the morn- ing. Many of the famous writers, including Herbert Spencer, reserved these hours for writing, declaring their clearest thinking and most brilliant thoughts came at that time. Be sure to retire before this "wide-awake" period comes to you. The time varies some- what with the individual. Watch yourself. Note the time when your natural "sleepy feeling" wears off and make a practice of retiring prior to it. This wave of sleepiness will carry you safely into unconsciousness. Then if you are careful to sleep in a quiet, well ventilated room your chances for re- maining asleep all night are good. Avoid rich or spicy foods just before retir- ing. A glass of warm water, warm milk or broth will tend to draw the blood away from your head and induce sleep. 41 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY A tepid bath in which you lie completely relaxed for fifteen or twenty minutes just before going to bed is also excellent. Never take a hot or cold bath just before retiring, as both tend to stimulate heart action. Never, except under a physician's orders, re- sort to sleep-producing drugs. They do not bring sleep but only distorted unconscious- ness. Each dose decreases your tendency to natural sleep while increasing the necessity for a larger dose until, after using drugs, you find it impossible to fall asleep naturally. In addition to these harmful results every drug of this kind is poisonous in itself. The poisoning of the system in this way adds to your wake- ful tendencies and thus you go around in a vicious circle. Better remain awake whole nights than contract the "sleeping-drug" habit. The last warning for wakeful ones is this: Don't take your troubles to bed. They can- not be settled there. They only unsettle you. A well known scientist has said: "Don't just- ify yourself by saying you only think things over. Most thinking in bed is worry." RELAXATION Man spends at least one-fourth of his life- time asleep. Thus the one who lives to 60 42 HOW TO BE WELL years has slept 15 years and the 80-year-old 20 years. If you want to cut down these sleeping years remember this: When you are not do- ing anything else, relax. Let your muscles relax. Let your mind relax. Most people keep themselves tense and taut as a violin string from morning till night. Those who have insomnia get it by keeping themselves that way after they are in bed. This keeps the entire system so keyed up that you are tired continually. It isn't your office work or housework that tires you so much as the hard work you make your muscles do between times. You don't let go. You are geared "in high" as the auto- ists say. Your muscles are like so many sol- diers. They are standing stiff and straight at "attention," ready for instant action. This is a part of the body's general plan of "preparedness" and is maintained by a rapid succession of impulses raining down over every muscle of your body at the rate of about ten reflexes per second. The contrac- tion is so rapid that it produces a sound some- what like the vibration of a guitar string. If you will put the tips of your fingers in your ears and then stiffen every muscle and 43 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY A tepid bath in Which you lie completely relaxed for fifteen or twenty minutes just before going to bed is also excellent. Never take a hot or cold bath just before retiring, as both tend to stimulate heart action. Never, except under a physician's orders, re- sort to sleep-producing drugs. They do not bring sleep but only distorted unconscious- ness. Each dose decreases your tendency to natural sleep while increasing the necessity for a larger dose until, after using drugs, you find it impossible to fall asleep naturally. In addition to these harmful results every drug of this kind is poisonous in itself. The poisoning of the system in this way adds to your wake- ful tendencies and thus you go around in a vicious circle. Better remain awake whole nights than contract the "sleeping-drug" habit. The last warning for wakeful ones is this: Don't take your troubles to bed. They can- not be settled there. They only unsettle you. A well known scientist has said: "Don't just- ify yourself by saying you only think things over. Most thinking in bed is worry." RELAXATION Man spends at least one-fourth of his life- time asleep. Thus the one who lives to 60 42 HOW TO BE WELL years has slept 15 years and the 80-year-old 20 years. If you want to cut down these sleeping years remember this: When you are not do- ing anything else, relax. Let your muscles relax. Let your mind relax. Most people keep themselves tense and taut as a violin string from morning till night. Those who have insomnia get it by keeping themselves that way after they are in bed. This keeps the entire system so keyed up that you are tired continually. It isn't your office work or housework that tires you so much as the hard work you make your muscles do between times. You don't let go. You are geared "in high" as the auto- ists say. Your muscles are like so many sol- diers. They are standing stiff and straight at "attention," ready for instant action. This is a part of the body's general plan of "preparedness" and is maintained by a rapid succession of impulses raining down over every muscle of your body at the rate of about ten reflexes per second. The contrac- tion is so rapid that it produces a sound some- what like the vibration of a guitar string. If you will put the tips of your fingers in your ears and then stiffen every muscle and 43 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY hold it tense you can distinctly hear it. It is estimated that at least 40 per cent of the energy expended daily by us is expended in this way and is equal to walking 20 miles or lifting a 5-pound weight 500 times. This explains why worry and nervousness use up energy so rapidly. When you are in a state of high nervous tension you are burning up your strength at a rapid rate. Avoid this destruction of your strength by relaxing as completely as possible whenever a moment's opportunity presents itself. Let yourself down whenever there is no necessity for strain. By doing this you will be ready with reserve strength when the emergencies arrive. Whenever you are waiting for a car, an ele- vator, a clerk, waiter or any kind of service, remember they are doing it, not you, and take it as an opportunity to rest every fibre of your body. After the street car or elevator comes and you are started relax again till your desti- nation is reached, and give those tight muscles a little vacation. Do this for one day and see what it will do for you. If you are in work where you can com- pletely relax for five minutes each hour you 44 HOW TO BE WELL will require 25 per cent less sleep and come to the end of each day much less weary. The efficiency of the nation's biggest men is main- tained largely by this secret. Only the one- \ cylinder individual keeps chugging every in- \ stant. Relax ! EXERCISE Motion is essential to the healthful condi- tion of all animate things. Man's health de- pends more than we think on his muscular activity. But this does not necessarily mean strenuous exercise. Whether or not intense physical activity is essential to health depends entirely upon the type of the individual. A muscular man or woman, that is, the type whose muscles are highly developed, requires strenuous muscular activity in order to stay well. He should take this kind of exercise. If his work does not provide it he should get it outside his work. On the other hand, the very men- tal person whose chief ambition is to read a book, has less muscular development and re- quires less muscular activity. The safest law as to exercise is this: Three miles of walking in the open air every day for 45 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY all types, with the following simple exercises the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. They "tone up" the system, aid digestion and ward off constipation: 1. Stand erect, with arms hanging at sides. Bend your body at the waist to the right, reaching down toward the floor as far as possible. Then bend your body to the left, trying to reach the floor with your left hand. Do this 10 times at first, gradually increasing to 40 times. 2. Stand erect. Place hands on hips. Twist your body to the right as far as possible without moving your feet, then twist your body as far to the left as possible. This is one of the best liver exercises. Do 10 times at first, increasing to 50. 3. Lie flat on your back. Fold your arms. Raise both legs together to a perpendicu- lar position. Then lower them together slowly. Begin with 5 and increase to 20 times. This is the best stomach exer- cise. 4. Lie flat on your back. Fold your arms. Slowly raise yourself to a sitting position, then slowly lower yourself again to a re- 46 HOW TO BE WELL clining position. Begin with 5 times and increase to 20. 5. If you have but little opportunity for walk- ing you can exercise your feet and ankles by this exercise: Stand erect with feet al- most touching. Slowly raise yourself up and down on your toes. Stand firmly. Start with 10 times and increase to 25. 6. If you spend much time indoors give your- self the following lung exercises at an open window several times a day: Lift your chest, draw in deep breaths, filling the lungs to full capacity. Then slowly expel the air. Force the air deep down into the very lowest portion of your lungs, and expel all of it before taking the next breath. DUMB BELL EXERCISES (Women should use bells weighing from 2 to 4 pounds each and men from 4 to 6 pounds.) 1. Stand erect. Raise arms straight up, then lower straight in front of you until they are at right angles with the body. Raise and lower 5 times, increasing to 10. 2. Raise arms straight up. Lower the right arm down the right side and the left arm 47 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY down the left side until they are at right angles with the body. Raise and lower from 5 to 10 times. 3. Stretch both arms straight out in front of you. Then swing back and forth horizon- tally. Start with 10 and increase to 20 times. This is the best exercise for taking fat off the shoulder blades and for putting muscle on them. 4. Hold right arm straight out at right side. Then swing it from back to front in a circle as wide as possible. Do the same with the left arm. This strengthens the shoulders and removes surplus flesh. Start with 10 and increase to 20 times for each. 5. Hold arms straight out in front of you. Then swing them as high as possible and as low as possible in a semi-circle. Start with 10 times and increase to 20. Outdoor exercises may be according to the preferences of the individual. Nature is wiser than we. If outdoor exercise is necessary to the upkeep of your particular system you will know about it through her wireless your nat- ural inclinations. Roughly speaking, however, the following rules apply: To reduce, fat people need not resort to the 48 HOW TO BE WELL violent exercises sometimes recommended, but should do so by reversing the condition which caused overweight, i. e., by decreasing the quantity of food. They may participate in whatever outdoor recreations are preferred. It is impossible to separate mental and phy- sical reactions. When the mind does not like what the body is doing the maximum of phy- sical benefit is not possible. Florid people should take part in exercises and sports requiring short spurts of energy, preferably baseball, tennis and other diver- sions sufficiently keen to meet the require- ments of their enthusiastic nature. Those of extreme muscular development enjoy and thrive upon the most strenuous physical activities, such as racing, running, football, etc. Those men and women who are tall, angu- lar, "raw-boned", who have a larger propor- tion of bone in the body structure than the average, usually care only for such recrea- tions as hiking, golf and exercises calling for slow movements over long distances. The undersized, dreaming, reading individ- ual, who dislikes all forms of physical ex- ertion, can remain surprisingly well without 49 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY exercise but even he should walk his three miles a day. The brain never works so well as when one is walking in the open air. Walking is a brain stimulant. The reason for this is that clear thinking is only accomplished when the blood is circulating fairly rapidly through the brain. Walking speeds up heart action. In other words, it does for you just what that cup of black coffee does, but without its pen- alties. Keeping in health is largely a matter of ripening the new cells and expelling the old ones. The body is composed of billions of cells and these cells are of three kinds or stages, those just ripening, those in their prime and those that are dying. Keeping well is largely a matter of keeping this evolutionary process speeded up to the point where new cells are not retarded in their growth and dead ones not retained. Walking and other forms of exercise are valuable as a preventative of the clogging-up. Disease is nothing but this clogging up car- ried to the danger point. No lesson on health in these enlightened days can be completed without this warning: Your thinking vitally affects your health. 50 HOW TO BE WELL Worry, fear, anxiety, all negative moods, tear down millions of cells each instant and at the same time tend to so obstruct the normal functioning of the body that these cells, which have been turned into debris, are not carried away. No man of unhealthy thoughts can have a healthy body. If you would be sure of a strong body keep a sharp eye on the thoughts that you permit to take possession of your brain. For centuries it has been acknowledged that the mind influences the body. We know that mental disorders sometimes produce physical diseases. We know that any kind of mental distur- bance decreases physical vitality. An un- pleasant story can cause nausea. The keen- est hunger disappears when you receive a tele- gram bearing sad news. On the other hand the body also influences the mind. Lesions in the brain cause insanity and other mental disorders. Another evidence of the body's influence on the mind is seen in the following: When- ever you are physically tired your memory is not up to par. A cup of black coffee put into your stomach speeds up your mental activities. 51 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY As a matter of fact your body and your brain are married and they will never be di- vorced. What affects one affects the other. Man is a unit; he is a marvelously organized community of some twenty-six trillions of cells. Each little individual cell is a distinct and separate being with a work and a life of its own. The health and happiness of each cell or group of cells affects all other cells com- posing the commonwealth of the body. The feelings of each group of cells, those of the liver, lungs, brain and other organs, in- stantly affect the feelings of all other groups. This is done by means of your circulatory system (the blood vessels) and your nervous system (your nerves). Your circulatory sys- tem from the big trunk lines of the arteries down to the tiniest blood vessels carries the different chemicals necessary for the upkeep of the body, just as a freight train carries many kinds of commodities to many stations. Your nervous system is the most perfect telegraph system in the world. Over its wires is flashed the news of every thought, sound, taste, touch, odor and sight that come within the range of your senses. ' When any of these senses encounters an unpleasant or destructive experience the mes- 52 HOW TO BE WELL sage of it is instantly sent out to your cir- culatory system and injects into the blood the harmful chemicals known as toxins. When something pleasant, beautiful or joy- ous happens to these senses the news flashed over the wires creates life-giving chemicals in the blood stream. Any part of the body thus instantaneously influences every other part for good or ill through the medium of these intricately inter- woven systems. Every cell is equipped with a tiny nerve of its own and keeps in constant touch with everything that is going on in the rest of the body. When a single group of cells can thus in- fluence all other groups think how much more powerful is the influence of the whole mind. The mind presides over the very citadel of the nervous system. It handles all mental mes- sages sent out by the nervous system and modifies the chemical freight carried by the circulatory system. The potent factor in all mental healing is the removal of fear from the mind. It does not so much matter how this is accomplished, whether by faith, hope, argument, reason or even superstition. The primitive Hawaiian, in 53 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY the famous play, "The Bird of Paradise," dies because she believes the priest is praying her to death. The same superstition reversed would work the opposite result. The different types of people in our own country respond to different types of belief concerning the question of mind control. The religious-minded is impressed when it comes to him in the form of a religion; the scientific- minded is convinced by the respective effects of fear and faith on the human body; the everyday practical man and woman accepts it when he sees the different physical condi- tions caused in him by joy and by sorrow. Fear poisons the body. When this pall of fear is lifted a big step has been taken toward the cure. Faith may not cure the body but it does stop the secretion of the fear poisons. This gives nature a chance to go on with her mar- velous healing processes. When she stands ready to do these wonders for you don't you think the least you can do is to give her a chance? Stop shackling her with your fear thoughts. Give her a free rein. If you cannot at first believe in the healing power of faith at least keep a serene neutral- ity. Pretty soon, when you see the wonders 54 HOW TO BE WELL Nature performs in clearing up your troubles, you will realize that faith in her is justified. Maybe you do not believe in "miracles." But you witness one every time a cut on your finger heals up. You can't explain how it is done. It is something man cannot do for himself. But Nature does it. Her one idea is to keep you well. She never for a moment relaxes her vigil over you. No matter how material-minded you are you can't get around the fact that any force which turns your sickness into health deserves your co-operation at least. The body and mind are mutually interde- pendent. But they are not identical. Health lies in the proper functioning of both mind and body. Your body is a part of the world of matter and is dependent for its life upon the material constituents supplied to it. Its happiness and healthfulness depend largely upon the thoughts supplied to it by your mind. The first step is to supply the material ne- cessities of life, right breathing, right eating, right exercising, right drinking, right sleeping. The second is to supply the right thoughts, stimulating, optimistic, courageous thoughts, for thoughts vitally affect your physical condi- tion and the length of your life. 55 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Since your mental attitude affects your physical condition avoid the subject of disease. Avoid talking, reading or thinking about ab- normal conditions of the human body. Above all, do not look for symptoms within yourself of any disease. My parting word to you is: Stop worrying. Keep your mind full of uplifting, vitalizing thoughts. In the next lesson I am going to tell you how to do this. 56 CHAPTER II HOW TO STOP WORRYING "Worry is the cause of more inefficiency, unhappiness and illness than almost any other affliction which modern humanity has to com- bat. It may well be called 'the disease of the age.' " SALEEBY. HE rules set forth in this lesson, if faithfully followed, will free you of the shackles of despondency, fear, doubt and worry. They will free you from the bondage of failure and despair. If any of these rules seem too easy or too simple to be adequate, remind yourself that they are scientifically sound. The psychologi- cal processes behind these rules are not simple. They are intricate and complex, just as the scientific processes behind your electric lights are intricate and complex. But it is not neces- sary for you to be conversant with the ramifi- cations of electricity in order to light your home. You press a button. In this lesson I am going to show you all you need to know to be free of worry. 57 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY I shall show you how to press the buttons that shall flood your life with brightness. All that is necessary to convince yourself is to try them. Press the buttons I shall point out to you and see for yourself. The results will amaze you. You and I are going to make a compact I will keep my promise and you are going to keep yours. My promise is this: In this lesson I am going to tell you exactly what worry is, what it comes from and how to stop it. Your promise to me is this: That for the few moments on this lesson you are going to relax, make yourself comfortable in mind and body, listen carefully to what I say and forget for these few moments every problem that troubles you. You can do nothing about them for these few moments anyhow. You cannot give your attention to two subjects simultaneously, and for these few moments you are going to give your attention to me. After that you may pick them up again and do what you like with them, but for just now you are going to listen to me and let your troubles wait until our little visit is over. I promise that if you will do this with your whole heart, giving me your complete co- 58 HOW TO STOP WORRYING operation, relaxing completely and bidding your troubles wait outside the door, you will be able to meet and defeat these troubles and all your future ones. Are you a worrier? If you don't know, try this test on yourself? Are you in the habit of going over and over and over in your mind the same problem day after day without reach- ing a conclusion? Do you take up a fear of misfortune, tragedy, sorrow, hardship or pov- erty and think about it most of the day with- out deciding what to do, and start in next morning all over again? If you do these things you are a worrier. Worry is different from other forms of men- tal disturbance. When you are merely anx- ious or troubled over a problem you think about it, look on all sides of it, reach a de- cision and then do something about it in ac- cordance with that decision. These crucial situations come into the lives of all of us and must be met. All of us lose our loved ones by death. All of us have prob- lems. In this lesson I do not have reference to these inevitable and temporary crises. They are mental stress in an acute form and must be dealt with as the problem arises, according 59 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY to the facts of that particular problem. This lesson has reference to a chronic mental at- titude. The worrier seldom realizes that his atti- tude has become chronic; he imagines each day's worry business a separate day's busi- ness, not realizing that it is merely a repetition of yesterday's worries and that yesterday's worries were a repetition of the worries of last week. No one likes to admit he is a worrier. We are all convinced that worrying is weakness, but the first step toward curing anything is to confess the fact. Maybe you have been justifying yourself by saying the anxiety you have been feeling was not worry but an attitude necessary to a solution of the problem. But if the anxiety you are feeling today is centered around the same thing you were anxious about last week or last month or last year, it is just plain worry. Worry is like a tread-mill, you work at it strenuously but it doesn't get you any- where. You are in the same spot when you stop as when you started. The happiness of your life is nothing more nor less than the happiness of your thoughts. 60 HOW TO STOP WORRYING You have been thinking your happiness or unhappiness was made by the external fur- niture of your existence your possessions, your friends, your experiences, the events of your life. I am going to prove to you that this is not so. Stop and think of the various places in which you have lived. Some of them were more attractive than others. In some of them you had more property, more of the world's goods than you had in the others. But if you could choose one of these places and live over again all its experiences, you would not always choose the one in which your material posses- sions were the greatest, nor necessarily the one in which your physical environment was most gratifying. You would invariably choose to live over again the months or years in which you had the happiest thoughts, in which youi mind was most at peace. That is because your environment is no hard and fast thing. It is not an aggregate of physical realities. Your environment, insofar as it affects your happiness, is composed, not of the actualities, but of a series of mental pictures. Your environment is within you. It is not an accidental massing of outward conditions but the product of your own mind. 61 , PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY I have had it borne in on me many times and in many places that it is not your actual surroundings but your thoughts that deter- mine your happiness. In my travels across the continent I have shuddered, as we went through the arid west- ern states, at the sight of tumble-down houses whose broken windows, sagging roofs and decayed outlines bespoke a life which to me would be one of unbearable wretchedness. But I have talked with the women who lived there and they have told me, while their ragged children clung to their ragged aprons, that they did not mind it. For they did not really live in the hovels with the broken windows. They lived in their thoughts, the hopes of next year's crop and the fu- tures of their children. I have seen the Chinese serenely at peace in their hovels in San Francisco's Chinatown. I have seen contentment and happiness among the poorest immigrants in the tenements of New York's East Side. Your real environ- ment is inside your head, not your house. Worry is mental auto-intoxication. You are poisoned and poisoned by yourself. You veteran worriers have been imagining the source of your worries was in things outside 62 HOW TO STOP WORRYING yourselves. . This is true only indirectly. The direct cause is your own fixed attitude. You relinquish the chair to Fear instead of keeping it yourself. The events of your life affect your happi- ness only as they color your thoughts. It is not what happens to you that counts, it is the way you take what happens to you. It is never the thing itself that hurts your happiness, it is what you think about the thing. In other words, there is no happiness or unhappiness outside of your mental pic- tures. Every individual makes his own mental pictures. His mind is the moving picture cam- era that does it. He does it exactly as you take any other kinds of pictures. He turns his mind's eye on certain things just as you turn the lens of the camera on anything when you wish to take a picture of it. If you turn it on pleasant things it will make you happy. If you turn it on unpleasant ones it will make you unhappy. Whether the picture is blurred or distinct will depend, just as in the ordinary camera, on the way you focus it. Now, with your mental camera, this focus depends on attention. When you close the shutter of your mind's eye till it is focused 63 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY on just one thing you are giving the con- centrated attention which will make it a clear, distinct picture. And it will be filed away in the album of your memory as such. If your attention wanders, if the shutter is left open so wide that it takes in fringes of the surrounding territory, the picture of the thing itself is less distinct. 41 The happiness of any individual begins and ends with these mental pictures. There is no happiness except the contemplation of these happy pictures. There is no unhappiness save contemplation of the unhappy pictures. Hap- piness comes from seeing yourself as you wish to be. Worry is the picturing of yourself in the sit- uation you fear. Let me describe to you what the happy person does. He has given a standing order to his mental photographer not to take any but pleasant pictures. There are just as many unpleasant subjects within range of his cam- era as there are within yours, but he ignores them and deliberately turns his on pleasing sights. * For further "memory" psychology see Chapter V of this book on "How to Have a Good memory." 64 HOW TO STOP WORRYING The happy man or woman you envy be- cause "they never have any troubles" may have harder ones than yours. If he is an average, self-supporting person it is certain that he has passed through about the same trials, hardships and disappointments you have. Though each case is a slight variation, life is made up of but a few different kinds of experiences. Most of the other people in the world have passed through some phases of each of the main human troubles. There are but three kinds of troubles in the world: Love troubles, health troubles and money troubles. Four great fears blacken man's life. They are: Fear of being unloved. Fear of being sick. Fear of being poor. Fear of being a failure. The person who is worried about love turns his mind-camera on the very situation he fears: He focuses his attention on it. It is a "movie" camera. It makes pictures of him in all the sad situations he can imagine. Per- haps he has no mate. Like all living creat- tures he wants one. Instead of making of 65 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY himself the happy individual that easily wins love, he devotes much of his time to "worry- ing" over his condition. He mentally pictures himself a lonely bachelor. He elongates the picture into the future and sees himself as a lonely, unloved bachelor to the end of his days. He thinks how sad that is going to be, pities himself and dwells on the difficulties of changing the situation. He sees himself grow- ing old with no one really belonging to him and with no one to whom he belongs, alone in the world. He sees himself dining alone, going to the empty home each night through all the com- ing years. He sees himself craving, but never having, congenial companionship. He sees himself a white-haired old man with no wife to minister to him, and dying with no one to mourn for him. When he visualizes these things day after day he is doing what all worriers do, sitting in the movie theatre of his mind and running the same reels over and over again. He is the leading figure of every picture, and he clearly sees himself going through the situations he fears. The duality of every man's nature is clearly exemplified in this, for you are fully aware 66 HOW TO STOP WORRYING that the real you, or ego, sits there in the front row of your mental theatre watching your other self acting on the stage. There is another great law of worry. Worry helps to bring about the thing you worry about. It brings it about in this way: Every thought tends to express itself in action. When you think of yourself as unloved, lonely, sad and tragic you act unloved, lonely, sad and tragic. No one loves that kind of person. So the worry about being unloved brings that very condition to pass. Perhaps you love someone and are afraid they do not love you. You "worry" about it, make all the pictures for this ten-reel trag- edy, and gaze upon them in the secrecy of your own soul. These pictures show you as you imagine you are going to look and feel when you have lost them; you see the humiliated per- son you are going to be; you see the loved one giving attentions to someone else; you can even see the expression of solicitude in his voice and eyes for that other somebody; you picture yourself heartbroken, desolate. This has the same effect on you that worry always has: it makes you act out in your everyday existence the role you played in 67 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY these mental pictures, the jealous, heart- broken, desolate one. This makes you unat- tractive not only to others, but to the very person whose love you wish to have. We all avoid the downcast individual. We have trou- bles enough of our own. We like to be with the lighthearted folks, because they help us forget these troubles of ours without loading their own upon us.* The man who worries is the shunned man. That he needs us more than the cheerful man doesn't make up for the unpleasant feelings we get in his company. So we silence the twinges of conscience and stay away from him. And there is a justice in it after all. For the man who is a drag on his fellows has nothing to contribute to the world. It is the man who helps carry the world's burdens who deserves the world's rewards. The world owes no man anything save what he earns, and the chronic worrier whose countenance puts a damper on the cheer of his friends is a liability, not an asset. The result is that inevitably he gets treated as a liability is always treated. * See further laws on the power of visualization in Chap- ter III, this volume, "How to Be Self-Confident." 68 HOW TO STOP WORRYING Look yourself square in the eye and rea- lize that this is exactly what you are in the eyes of your friends if you are always worry- ing. Our friends are the gateways through which, directly or indirectly, we get every- thing that comes to us in life. What they think of us determines the way they treat us. If you are a worrier you have few real friends and they give you few chances. When you get but few chances to prove yourself you are going to get mighty little out of life. Thus your worry indirectly but inexorably brings about what you worry about The man of average ability who is poor at 40 is usually poor because he has concentrated his best mental energy on the fear of poverty. Eighty per cent of his mind was usually fas- tened, subconsciously, on this fear. Fear shackles. It crushes. It demoralizes. It chokes the mind and incapacitates it for think- ing of the ways and means that would bring money. When only 20 per cent of your mind is given to a project that project won't be much of a success. I believe this fear of poverty is the most devastating of these four great fears. It stares the thoughtful man in the face from child- 69 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY hood to old age. Not knowing the fatal effects of worry he keeps his worry-movie before his eyes every waking moment, a "continuous performance." He watches reel after reel of the distressing pictures, sees himself losing the little he has; sees his struggle to earn more and the failure to get back on his feet; the whole story progresses step by step down- ward. In the "final" he always gives himself three alternatives, dying in the poorhouse, dying alone in a garret, or, worst of all, in the home of his uncongenial relatives. Hundreds of our students have confessed that these are the very pictures they visualized for years, in their terror of "penniless old age." You want to make your imagination work for you from now on instead of against you. You want to be happy instead of unhappy. Then turn your mental camera on the things you desire instead of the things you fear. In other words, persistently give your ATTEN- TION to the contemplation of pleasant possi- bilities instead of unpleasant ones. Whenever you find that mental camera of yours twisting around toward the things you dread, readjust it till it focuses on the things you want to come true. Then center your 70 HOW TO STOP WORRYING attention on them, concentrate on them. Let your mind dwell on the happy scenes; picture yourself as doing what you want to do, get- ting what you want. Then you are happy instead of unhappy, optimistic instead of pes- simistic. Remember, the only thing that makes the happy man different from the unhappy one is that he is constantly turning the eye of his camera on happy possibilities. Habit plays a leading part here as in every- thing we do, and the happy man is helped by habit after he has faithfully turned his camera the right way for a while. You who have been in the habit of worry- ing will be hindered by that same law of habit at first, but you can break the bonds of habit by not attempting to break all of them at once. When you sense the worry feeling com- ing over you, when the unhappy pictures arise in your mind, don't try to abolish all of them at once. Remember, these worry pictures do not come all at the same instant. They are your enemies, but they cannot come in a mob, for the very simple reason that the mind can only give attention to one thing at a time. Each one comes exactly like the separate reels 71 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY of the ordinary movie, one at a time. You meet these thought-enemies singly. Because you are bigger than any of your thoughts, you can defeat each one of them as he sticks up his head if you want to. This is your movie show. You are the owner, proprietor, cameraman and director. You can stop the show any instant and turn on a happy picture. Remember, the only happiness in life is the happiness you get out of your mental images just as you make all your unhappiness by your unhappy mental images. Let us take an illustration: To be a con- vict in prison is considered the greatest trag- edy that can befall a man. This man is con- victed and sent to prison for 25 years. But we don't let him know he is in prison, a branded criminal. We keep these facts from him. We don't let them get into his mind. We convince him that the prison is an institution of honor instead of dishonor, that his friends are proud of him instead of ashamed of him. In short, that it is a dis- tinction to be in prison, that it is the place all of us want to be and all of its phases are de- lightful phases of existence. Do you think that man would be unhappy? 72 HOW TO STOP WORRYING Do you think he would develop the sad ex- pression, the desolate stoop of the shoulders, the cringing attitude? Do you think it would ruin his outlook, wreck his life? No indeed. He would be happy every day of the 25 years because his belief would be a happy one, his mental pictures would be pleasant ones. The actual events of his life would be exactly like those of every other convict. The effect on him would be exactly opposite. He would leave there at the end of the 25 years a proud, upstanding, courageous man. He would carry his chest up, his head high. - It is never the fact that a man's body is in prison which hurts him. Among my acquaintances are the two most famous prison wardens of the United States, Thomas Tynan, head of the Colorado State Penitentiary, and Thomas Mott Osborn, former warden of Sing Sing. Both of these men say it is surprising how quickly the con- vict adjusts himself to his physical surround- ings. But the thing that kills is what goes on in his mind, the mental pictures of himself as an outcast. So it is with the things that actually happen to you. They cannot hurt you. You hurt 73 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY yourself, make yourself unhappy because you let them give rise to the wrong kind of mental pictures. Let us take an opposite case, just to con- vince you that it is your mental movie and not the facts which make the difference between happiness and unhappiness. Here is a man who is not a convict. He is, in fact, a highly respected and much be- loved citizen of his community. But by a series of cleverly arranged pretenses we con- vince him that he has been convicted of crime; we convince him that he is in prison. Now the place where we are keeping him is not a prison. It is a tall building of beau- tiful design. But he does not enjoy its beauty. There are flowers everywhere, birds are sing- ing in the nearby trees. There are no bars across the windows, and no lock on the gate. But we convince him that he cannot escape. He believes it. We allow him to do exactly as he pleases; we let him have family and friends with him precisely as before; we give him everything he asks for. Do you think he would be happy? No. With everything tangible that he desired he would still be wretched because of his imag- 74 HOW TO STOP WORRYING ination that he was a prisoner. His mental images would be unhappy ones, made so, not by the things that happened to him, but by his interpretation of them. And he would leave this beautiful place at the end of even five years a shame-faced, broken man. When we took him outside and showed him how he could have escaped at any time, that it wasn't a prison at all, we would be doing for him what I want to do in this lesson for you proving to him that it isn't what hap- pens to you that ruins your happiness; it is whether or not you keep your mind on pleas- ant or unpleasant pictures. If this simile of the mental pictures seems inadequate to you, just remember that your happiness, the supreme aim of life, is all in thinking, and all thinking is a series of men- tal pictures. If someone else or some force outside your- self made these distressing mental pictures of yours there might be some excuse for your being a "worrier." But you make them. You take them, de- velop them and then watch them unroll before your mind, all because you turned your AT- TENTION on the wrong scenes. 75 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY There are just as many pleasant possibil- ities in you as in anybody. The external world you live in is the same world the happy man lives in. The same actual stretch of hor- izon looms ahead of you both. But he focuses his attention on the agreeable and you keep yours on the disagreeable.* And right here let me give you another great law not only of psychology but of biol- ogy: Nature is against you when you are focusing on the unhappy scenes; she is on your side whenever you are trying to turn your mental lens on the happy ones. Why? Because Nature is a constructive force. In fact, "Nature" is the name we have given to the only constructive force we know, the force that makes the grass grow, the flowers bloom, that cures the soldier's gaping wounds, that makes men and women love, that makes the millions of suns whirl throughout space. The worrier is doing a destructive thing and all nature opposes him. If he keeps trying he can make of himself a chronic, self-starting, self-supporting worrier to be sure, but if he can do this with Nature against him, think how much easier he could be a happy man. * For further extension of the law of mental images, see "The Power of Your Mind," by Elsie Lincoln Benedict. 76 HOW TO STOP WORRYING To prove it to yourself do this: the next time a worry-thought comes sneaking around the door of your mind, instead of flinging it wide open and inviting it in, go to the door and invite in the other guests that constantly hover there, the constructive thoughts, the plans for your future, the things you have to be happy over. You will be surprised to see how gladly and gratefully they will flock in. They do so be- cause they are your rightful companions, the friends Nature intended you to have. God never made any creature to be un- happy or unsuccessful. He intended every living thing to be joyous, buoyant, optimistic, and every time we take the slightest step to- ward them His forces sustain us. I do not know how it is done. I make no pretenses to solving the "unknowable/* I only know that something happens inside a man the instant he begins striving upward instead of down- ward, a something that helps him, that strengthens and sustains him. The next time you feel "blue," gently turn your attention to one little happy thought and see what happens to you. The worrier does the exact opposite. When the happy thoughts come trooping around the 77 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY door of his mind he ignores them. He keys his mind for Worry's tap, and as if that wasn't enough stands outside the door looking for her. He welcomes her with open arms, in- vites the hag into the best parlor and visits with her about all the things he is afraid of. The sun is shining all around him, the world is a good place, most of the things he fears are not on their way to him at all, and those that are coming will turn out to be bless- ings in disguise, but he sits there letting Worry blacken the world for him with her in- sidious threats. Happy thoughts linger around just outside, and one gets near enough to whisper, "Maybe it will come out all right." Worry is such a coward that even at that slight whisper she starts to crawl away. But he brings her back, makes her comfortable, and, to justify himself for entertaining her, says, "You see, Worry, you and I have got to get together and look these possibilities all over. To protect myself against the worst, I must know what the very worst could be, so you just go on. Tell me every awful thing that might happen to me. Describe the de- tails to me. Don't withhold anything." And Worry, that loathsome scandal-monger of the human mind, whispers back, "Well, 78 HOW TO STOP WORRYING here are some of the deplorable things that may come/' and then she goes on as long as you will give her your attention, picturing to you the gruesome tragedies that are pos- sible. You let yourself believe her. To be sure, you know that Worry is a liar. You recall that nine-tenths of the awful things she pre- dicted in the past never came true. You be- grudge the time you wasted listening to her before. You realize all too well if you had used that time to do something worth while you would be far ahead of where you are to- day You despise her for the harm she has done you. You have nothing but contempt for her. You wish she would stay away from you. You wish you never had to see her dis- gusting face again. And you don't have to, if you don't want to. But Worry is just like a human being. She gravitates back to the place where she is wel- comed, and you are so kind to her, you give her so much attention, she hangs around. She is also somewhat human in this: she stays away from the places where she is not welcomed. Only she is such a cowardly, cringing thing she is much more easily re- buffed than a human being. One lifting of 79 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY your chest and she vanishes. Straighten your shoulders, raise your head, and she is gone. To be sure, she doesn't go far away. She watches for the flash to die out of your eye, the droop to come back to your shoulders, for she knows what that means in your men- tal attitude. She knows the stooped man is her prey. All thoughts have their physiologi- cal expression and one always begets the other. The sunken chest is the mate of Dis- couragement. The lifted chest is the mate of Courage. They are like two animals in the jungle: when you see one you know the other is not far away. So when Worry sees your head high she slinks farther away. Try it and see. Don't continue to labor under the delusion that it is hard to stop worrying. You make hard work of it because you go at it wrong. You try to slay all your enemies at once. You forget that the only enemies to your happiness are your thoughts and you cannot have two thoughts at once. All you need to do to get rid of Worry is to let another visitor in. Have you ever seen how a cringing coward acts when a splendid individual joins the group? He slips away. Worry is the worst 80 HOW TO STOP WORRYING coward in the world. The minute you open the door of your mind to the courageous thoughts that hover there, she wraps her rags about her and slinks out. You don't need to order her to go. Don't dignify her that much. Don't recognize Worry as worthy of your consideration. She is nothing but a black Nothingness created by the weak side of your own mind anyhow. She has no existence save as you create and recreate her. Never be afraid that the good thoughts aren't just outside the door. What is it that keeps every living creature battling hopefully to the last minute of life? that sustains the sick, the decrepit, the defeated, and lures them to fight on? It is these encouraging thought-friends. They are always there, re- assuring you, whispering hope into your ear whenever you stop gossipping with Worry long enough to listen. In this lesson I do not ask you to tackle Worry and forcibly eject her. That is not necessary. Open the door of your mind to the tiniest constructive thought and before you can see what is happening, Worry dodges away. This is due to a psychological law and the law is this: thoughts are accompanied by emo- 81 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY tional qualities or "tone." Every thought you have gives rise to a definite, though sometimes imperceptible, reaction. Whenever thoughts of achievement, health, love or prosperity cross your mind you exper- ience a feeling of courage, energy and stim- ulation. Whenever ideas of death, disease or failure flit across your mind you experience instan- taneously a feeling of lethargy, inertia and im- potence. Sad memories, remorse or fear have associated with them disintegrating emotional qualities. Exalted ideas, inspiring hopes have asso- ciated with them energizing and vitalizing emotional qualities. Such is the miraculous mechanism of the human mind. As we have seen, all happiness or unhap- piness comes from your mental pictures. They come because your mental pictures are each mated to an emotion. Unhappiness is the massed emotion from a series of unhappy pictures. Your mind- camera is taking pictures for you every wak- ing moment, and just as long as you turn it on unpleasant thoughts you will have un- happy emotions or worry. 82 HOW TO STOP WORRYING Worry comes from exaggerating the im- portance of ourselves. It is a big universe and what happens to you and me doesn't make such a lot of difference after all. Even to you and me it doesn't make much differ- ence. Think where you will be a hundred years from today. Think where you will be one year from today. A year from today you will say today's worries were wrong, useless, demoralizing. Knowing this is what you will say about them only a year hence, why not push your imaginary clock a year ahead and say it now? Give today to something constructive. Give it to something which you can be proud of a year from today. When you find yourself taking yourself and your little life too seriously, turn to that famous story of * 'Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven," which Mark Twain wrote. For fear you can't get it in a hurry when you need it, I will give you the gist of it here. The Captain found great difficulty in mak- ing clear to the angel at the gate just who he was. He was sure St. Peter would remember him as soon as he mentioned his name. He greeted him familiarly and announced he was Captain Stormfield. 83 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY St. Peter didn't seem to know of any such man. Then he explained that he came from San Francisco. Nobody in heaven had heard of San Francisco. Then he told them San Francisco was in California. That meant nothing, so he informed them that California was in the United States. The United States, he said, were in America. Nobody had ever heard of America. At last he told them he came from the Earth. After a long search through the ar- chives, someone discovered a slight reference to a speck, out among the billions and billions of stars, planets and constellations, called the Earth. The marvels of time are as wonderful as the marvels of space. This is a Big Show. Nobody knows how many billions of centuries it has been running, where it started or where it is going. You and I are infinitesimal atoms. If the worst thing that could happen to an atom happened to us it wouldn't be very impor- tant. About the only thing we can do to prevent being even more insignificant is to be as constructive as we can. To do this you must remove worry from your mind, for worry is destructive. 84 HOW TO STOP WORRYING If you worry about failure just remember that nothing will bring failure so surely or so quickly as worry. Your place in life today is the massed result of the thoughts of yester- day. Your life is made, to an astounding de- gree, by your thinking. If you would realize success tomorrow, think success today. No worrier ever achieved success. You know why. Your success in this highly or- ganized social structure depends to a great extent on other people. What other people think of you determines the chances to be offered to you this coming year. If you are a worrier they know it. Nobody dares trust a worrier. It takes clear concentration to accomplish anything. The worrier can't concentrate on his work because most of his attention is con- centrated on himself turned inward on his petty personal concerns. If you worry about ill health you start ill health. Your worry thoughts create toxins which, as you have seen in the preceding lesson, poi- son the entire system. Your body and mind are closely related. No worrier can stay well. His worry is a fac- tory that works overtime manufacturing dis- ease. 85 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY If you are one of those who have a vague fear of what the future may bring; of what may "happen to befall," remember that you, not Chance, are the architect of your future. You are building toward it today. The plans and specifications are all drawn by your mind. If you are keeping your mind busy drawing pictures of the things you dread, you are not only giving it no time to plan constructively but are allowing it to make the very outlines you don't want to follow. Every thought tends to express itself in ac- tion. This is a fundamental psychological law. You can't think one way and act an- other; you can't think failure and build suc- cess. If you worry over your past, you are like a certain type of the insane. All asylums are acquainted with the inmate who sits re- hearsing the events of his past and refuses even to dress himself for the day. If you are concentrating on unhappy mem- ories, you are refusing to meet today. If you are permitting grief, remorse, bitterness or re- gret to absorb the very source of your crea- tive powers, your mind, you are commit- ting mild suicide. Tomorrow this day will be a part of your 86 HOW TO STOP WORRYING past. If you waste it you add the regret of having wasted it to the long list of regrets you already have. If you would lessen tomorrow's remorse, make Today constructive. Bury your past and don't visit the grave. If you did things or failed to do things that hurt you in the past don't let them stretch their slimy hands into your future and ruin that also. The past is gone. It will never return. You knew this before I told you. The idea is not original with me. If you will thrust your past out of your consciousness whenever it raises its accusing head it can do you no harm. It can only harm you as you give it your attention. Transfer your attention to other things when- ever it approaches and it will eventually re- turn no more. No matter what you have done or left un- done it is over and done with. If you did wrong you are making it worse by burning the incense of memory at its altar. If you com- mitted a sin you are dyeing it deeper every time you honor it with your thoughts, for your thoughts make it live again and nothing else can. 87 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY If it was a real sin the only atonement you can make is to devote your attention to its opposite now. If you think about it you are incapable of doing its opposite for our ac- tions follow our thoughts. The man who worries over his past sins is piling up sins in today. No matter what you have done, no matter of what crime you may be guilty, raise your chest, lift your head, look the world in the eye. I want you to do this because these are the first steps toward accomplishing anything great. If you have done wrong in the past you want to make up for it in the future. You can't do anything to make up for it if you go around with your head hanging. No human being has a right to ask you to hang your head anyhow. All human beings are pretty much alike. We are all of us big bundles of instincts. Crime is the overindul- gence of instinct. With the same instinct equally developed and the temptation equally great, the people who are criticizing you would doubtless have done just as you did, maybe worse. 88 HOW TO STOP WORRYING Stop despising yourself. God made you. He gave you the instincts. He knows your temptations. He knows that every human being does the best he can under every given circumstance, with the nature he has, not necessarily the best he knows, but the very best the combination of his particular instincts plus his particular temptation permitted of at the time. Don't let anyone tell you that God likes to see you ashamed, stricken, crushed to earth. That is man's poor little mean way, the craving to see those who disobey him humil- iated. The Force that rules the universe, that keeps myriads of worlds operating with divine accuracy throughout unfathomable space, must be a constructive Power. The only sure way to worship it is not in self-abasement but in self-mastery. The bigger your sin the greater the need for your doing something splendid today. No man ever did anything splendid whose head hung in shame. Lift yours to the sun. It will tell you more about the real God than all the human beings can tell you in a thou- sand years. 89 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY It will tell you that everything from sun- flowers to human beings must keep their faces upturned toward the light if they would grow. You have a future to build. The more re- grettable your past the more necessary is it that you build a shining, worth-while future. You can't build anything worth-while with your eyes on the past. What would you think of a driver who tried to steer his car up a rocky grade with his eyes on the road behind him instead of the road ahead? What if he kept looking at all the crooked tracks he had made back there and scolding himself for them? What if he said over and over, "Oh, what a mistake that was! I should have known better! That was a blunder, over there was another and away back there several miles I nearly ran into the ditch!" Perhaps he ac- tually had a blow-out or a wreck somewhere back there. Would you expect anything like expert driving from that man if he kept worrying about that wreck? No indeed. You would tell him to forget the crooked tracks, the nar- row escapes. Yes, and the wreck, too. 90 HOW TO STOP WORRYING Nobody is going to take the trouble to trace the windings of your route. It isn't as popular today to be a self-con- stituted detective as it used to be. Human bloodhounds no longer have standing even in the church. The man or woman who today takes it upon himself to pry into the poor, unhappy past of another struggling human atom is no longer credited with virtuous mo- tives. We know him for just what he is, a scavenger. The man who tells anything derogatory to another human being is telling a much worse story on himself. He is telling that he has a putrefying mind. Each of us sees the world through our own spectacles. Keeping rosy glasses before your eyes makes the world a beautiful place. Wear- ing dark ones will not make the world dark, but it will make it dark for you. If you have a habit of seeing evil in others it is because you have evil in you. For we not only wear our own glasses, we make our own glasses out of our minds. You are driving the car of your life up the arduous grade of the future. Every time you look behind you you are missing the best 91 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY place in the road of today. That means more crooked tracks for you to regret tomorrow. If you don't want all the Tomorrows filled with regrets for Today's poor driving, forget the poor driving of Yesterday and steer the best you can from this point onward. The tracks you have made, bad as they may have been, are not very different from those of your fellow travelers, after all. We are all surprisingly alike. Kipling expressed it when he said, "The Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady are sisters under the skin." Alice Duer Miller had Life's roadway in mind when she said, "Democracy is this: To hold that all who wander down the pike In car or cart, on foot or bike, Are much alike, are much alike." You may be riding up this highway of life on the bicycle of a 20-dollar-a-week job; you may be ambling along in a 10-dollar-a-week cart, but don't let these things humiliate you. There is mighty little difference between you and the man who skims past you in the big limousine. Realize this fully and you will have taken the first step toward a limousine of your own. 92 HOW TO STOP WORRYING Don't spend your precious time envying the other fellow near you on the road. Don't salve your wounds with the notion that he stole his limousine or got a "head start." These things have been done but those who do them don't last. They fall behind in the race. For it isn't the car you ride in that counts or even the "start" found in the money some people inherit. The man who inherits a "head start" isn't as well equipped as the one who reaches the same place by his own efforts. When the race ends it is the man who has struggled every inch of the way who makes good. The thing that counts is your driving. It's the way you steer and handle your "bike" that wins you a Ford or a limousine farther up the hill. Life is a relay race. You change to a faster vehicle as soon as you have earned it. The road is lined with all kinds of cars. The kind you will have next year depends on the effi- ciency of this year's driving, and the amount of excess baggage you have in your load. All regrets, remorse and despair over Yesterday are so much excess baggage. Get rid of them. In the famous Marathon races of ancient times the runners stripped themselves of 93 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY everything that could in any way hinder free- dom of movement or impede their progress. Rid yourself of everything that handicaps your efforts. Let go of everything that shack- les you. Strip clean for the big race. Un- load from your car every ounce of chagrin and self -depreciation. Travel "light" as the globe trotters say. Then to win, keep your hand on the wheel, your eye on the road ahead and don't let any- one pass you in your own make of car. You are going to dump out of your car to- day the load of sadness, sorrow and regret you have been carrying. As you throw each one away take a good look at it and find what there was in it that taught you some- thing. Every unhappy experience you ever had concealed a lesson in it somewhere. If you don't know where, scrutinize it till you find it. I do not maintain that all your troubles are sent by a benign Providence as blessings in disguise. Most of your troubles are the result of your having violated natural law. But I do know that you can sift out of each tragedy a grain or two of knowledge that will protect you in the future. 94 HOW TO STOP WORRYING It often happens that the tragedy it pre- vents would have been worse than the one you had. Many a man has said that his suc- cess was built on the knowledge gained from his failures. My own success, which has emancipated me from every anxiety, is my failures capital- ized. I cashed in on my mistakes. I made some of the worst ones; the num- ber and variety of my blunders, sins and fail- ures was alarming. And how I worried about them! I dragged around with me more dead weight of depression than anyone I knew. It is a long story, how I changed my life, but it can all be told in this: I determined to cast off every form of fear. I did it by turn- ing my attention away from past failures and concentrating it on ways and means for pro- fiting by those failures. Today I have those old tragedies to thank for my happiness and achievement. One of the best antidotes for "past" and "future" worries is to let yourself live more in the "now." Live today within today. After all, the only living you ever do is what you do in the eternal Now. Man crucifies himself between two thieves. On one side is the thief of the Past, a dark- 95 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY visaged spectre of lost opportunities, blasted hopes, blighted ambitions. On the other is the Future, glowing, rosy, radiant with the things we hope to achieve, but in reality as dangerous a thief as the other, for he deters you from effort, with his false promises. He justifies your neglected tasks, your wasted hours and slipshod ways by saying, "I am going to make up for it in the future." That lying, luring phantom, the phantom of a Tomorrow that is never here, steak your life. Remember, Today is all you have. Yes- terday is gone forever and Tomorrow will never come. Everything that was ever done was done in the glorious living Todays. Today you are alive. Today is here. Today is yours. You can use it or throw it away. The difference between those who achieve and those who fail is that the achieving ones value their Todays. I saw something once that graphically im- pressed this upon my mind. I was on a train going to keep a Chautau- qua engagement. At a small station an old lady and her son got on and took the section opposite me. 96 HOW TO STOP WORRYING The mother had brought so many bundles that there was not room for the son, so he came over and sat with me. He explained that this was his mother's first railroad journey. She was very old and disliked the idea of going away from her own home even to visit relatives. But they had at last induced her to take this little trip of twenty miles to Springfield, where her other son lived. She was as excited as a child and had looked forward with the greatest anticipation to the journey. But she had insisted on bringing with her as many of her belongings as both of them could carry. She was almost submerged under the piles of bundles, grips, suitcases, packages, bird cages and boxes, and these she kept re- arranging, changing and fussing over. Her son, who wanted her to see all the in- teresting things along the way, would lean over every few moments and say, "Look, Mother," but the old lady, without turning away from her packages, answered, "Yes, son, just as soon as I get these things fixed the way I want them." It was a pretty stretch of country in a New England state. Low hills, carpeted with fresh spring grass, rolled away to the eastward. 97 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY We heard a meadowlark here and there. But the old lady was too intent on her belongings to look up. After a while, just as she seemed to have the last box stowed away and everything ad- justed to suit her, the conductor came down the aisle calling, "Springfield, all off for Springfield," and at his heels the porter, reaching for the old lady's bundles. I shall never forget the dismayed look on her face. "You don't mean this is where I get off! Oh, I just got my things fixed ready to enjoy the scenery! Surely it's a mistake. This can't be our station." The porter assured her it was and hustled her and her possessions out on the platform. There are a lot of people like that old lady. I used to be. Maybe you are. You are al- ways getting ready to live, preparing to enjoy life. You are spending all your thought on the petty concerns of today, the little bun- dles of daily worries, with never an outward gaze toward the beauties on the horizon. And some day, just as you get the poor lit- tle affairs adjusted ready to sit back and live, the Conductor will call your station; the black porter, Death, will turn deaf ears to your wails 98 HOW TO STOP WORRYING and hustle you off the car. The train will go on without you. Today you are still on that train. It is fly- ing faster than the Twentieth Century Lim- ited, which makes the trip between New York and Chicago in eighteen hours. Every day, every hour you are passing through a wonderful country, which you will have no chance to see again. Life is a one-way journey on a Limited, no round trips and no stops. If you want to make the most of it, arrange your baggage by organizing yourself effi- ciently. Then take time to enjoy the journey. No man ever sank under the burdens of today. It is only when we add to Today's burdens the memory of Yesterday's and the imagination of Tomorrow's that the load seems more than we can bear. You are called upon to live only one minute at a time. Control your thinking minute by minute and you have solved the worry prob- lem. The usual way people set about stopping worry is a wrong one. That is why it is so unsuccessful. The worrier tries to cure him- self by the sheer power of his will. This is a mistake. 99 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Worry is never to be beaten by force. You have got to replace it with something else. When your mind gets to dwelling upon some one troublesome matter with feverish insistence, when you find yourself irritable, depressed, overwrought, gently turn your at- tention to something else. At first you will be troubled by your mind slipping off the thoughts. Bring it back each time, not with a jerk, not with force, but quietly, patiently. Do this each time and after a few times it will be less inclined to wander. This is not only the secret of conquering worry but of developing the most valuable of all mental faculties, concentration. Your attention is what determines your happiness. You control your attention. You are its master. You can, at any moment, take it away from one thing and place it on an- other. Unless you are feeble-minded you can do this, and I know you are not feeble-minded because no feeble-minded person would be interested in reading this book. You cannot kill worry by blows or any kind of direct fighting. You can't kill it by sim- ply saying, "I am not going to worry." 100 HOW TO STOP WORRYING If you went into a dark room and wanted it light you would not try shoveling out the darkness, would you? You would turn on the light. Worry is a mental darkness. Picks and shovels won't remove it, but turning on the light will. Here is another natural law: No two things can occupy the same space at the same time. No two thoughts can occupy your mind at the same time. Whenever you want to be rid of a worry thought, deliberately turn on the light by turning to a pleasant thought. You can think only one thing at a time and if you think courage or joy you can't think worry thoughts at the same time. The cure is for you to make, through your own will power. I am only the messenger of truth, the purveyor of this knowledge. No one can make you stop worrying. I am show- ing you in this lesson just how you can cure yourself. The foundation upon which this lesson is based is the great law that no two objects can occupy the same space at the same time. I repeat it here for it is the most important thing in this lesson. 101 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY When worry is occupying your attention all good thoughts are shut out. When con- fidence is in possession, worry is out. That is all there is to the law of worry, a big law but simple to operate just as the greatest ma- chinery is operated by the pressing of a but- ton. The fact is that the real responsibility rests upon you. And that is just, for the man who wouldn't brace up enough to apply these sim- ple rules hasn't earned peace of mind. Whether or not you are worth saving is somewhat determined by whether or not you have the little bit of backbone necessary to follow these few rules in your daily life. Start today with the fixed conviction that worry is a mental condition; that it is unreal and like all unreal things cannot hurt you un- less you are afraid and even then it is only your own fear that hurts you. Worry may make horrible pictures in your mind; she may distort and magnify your prob- lems. But if you will put a little starch into your jawbone and your backbone you can expel her instantly. She may come back, that is true. But if you can throw her out once you can again. 102 HOW TO STOP WORRYING You can't cut down a tree with one blow of the axe. But many blows and it falls for good. Your brain is a garden. In it there are roses and weeds fighting for possession. If you let the weeds get ahead the roses will die. But if you will snip off the weeds as fast as they appear above the ground, the roses will thrive. You must be vigilant. You must nip your bad thoughts in the bud. Whenever a worry weed pops up in your mental garden, call on your will power for its scissors. Say to your- self, "This thing is negative, unreal; it is a bugaboo, a black nothingness. And I, a hu- man being, a living, thinking creature, am not going to be downed by a thing that does not exist." You are free. You have your place in the world. You, and nothing else, are master of your thoughts. You have enough will power at this moment to carry you through, and you are going to have more when you have read Chapter VI of this book on "How to Build Will Power." You must fear no evil. The worst evil that can befall you is worry and you can forestall that. The weeds in your brain garden will 103 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY die of neglect if you spend your attention on nourishing the flowers. The next time things are discouraging to you, instead of weeping at the shrine of Fear, try this: At first, if it seems hard to smile or transfer your thoughts, walk to your open window; raise your chest; lift your head and breathe deeply for just two minutes. You will be amazed to see what happens to you. You are not as worried as you were two min- utes before. No one can be desolate when his lungs are full of good fresh air. All worry is some- what physical, and when your lungs are full of good air all your physical processes are vitalized. Now if air was something only millionaires could get there would be some excuse for you. But it is the freest thing in the world. It is our greatest necessity and God put it every- where for us. One good lungful of it and you are a changed man. You see Nature is your friend, the guardian angel that hovers over you every moment, ready to help you the instant you will let her. For Nature, you know, has her big purpose of life preservation in view, and the weakling thwarts that purpose. The moment you start 104 HOW TO STOP WORRYING being strong she puts her forces behind you. If you keep trying she will see that you don't fail. Hereafter, when worry thoughts creep in, when depressing mental pictures begin to get hold of you, take the deep breaths that start your blood racing. This gives you pleasanter thoughts for the simple, scientific reason that no brain can have "the blues" when the blood is circulating rapidly through it. Depression is always associated with slug- gish physical processes and especially with lazy blood circulation. Every deep breath speeds up heart action and thus stirs the whole circulatory system to keener activity. But don't stop at deep breathing. Turn on the current of your will power and let happy thoughts assume vividness in your mind; talk to some one whose presence reassures you; listen to cheerful music; read a Booth Tar- kington story, an Irvin Cobb article or a Walt Mason jingle, anything to throw the switch on your train of thought and send it down another track. There are hundreds of things you can do to send your thoughts into pleasant channels if you try. The trouble with the chronic wor- rier is that he won't try. He says, "I'll try 105 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY it, but it won't do me any good." Of course it doesn't. For he hasn't really tried. When you start with a negative attitude you are not trying. Worry, like Memory and Will, is a mental faculty. These faculties react somewhat like human servants. They don't do a thing if they know you are not expecting them to. Your mind is a "maverick," an unbroken colt. It rebels at training at first, but pretty soon, if you keep the reins in your hand and follow these rules, it will be the servant of your will. You can guide it wherever you wish. You can guide it into the habit of right thinking, optimistic thinking, constructive thinking. The man who has mastered his thinking has mastered his life. If people only knew what they are doing when they allow themselves to think they are failures, when they picture themselves as down and out nobodies! If they could only see how these images of weakness etch themselves into their brains, usurp the reins and take charge of their affairs nothing could induce them to harbor them for an instant. They would drive them out as they would expel a robber from their homes. 106 HOW TO STOP WORRYING We carefully lock the door of our offices and homes against thieves, but leave the doors of our minds open to the thieves of worry that rob us of happiness, health and efficiency. No matter how priceless may be the val- uables in your office or home, the loss of them all would be nothing compared to the loss of hope, courage and confidence. Your success depends, not on any of the material belongings you may have locked up in the safe, but on the state of your mind from day to day. Fear is the worst enemy you have. It is the only enemy that can down you. It can only do so if you let it. It is powerless to harm you except as you bow down to it and relinquish yourself into its hands. What would you think of a man who per- sisted in keeping his bitterest enemy near him all the time? You would say he was a fool. This is exactly what the chronic worrier does. If Worry wanders away for a moment Habit runs after her, brings her back and the worrier gives her his attention. As I have pointed out before, the thing that has your attention has the richest gift you have to be- stow. 107 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY It is for this same reason that I don't want you to worry over any of your human enem- ies. Many people worry because they have been wronged. Doubtless people have wronged you. Everyone has been wronged, mistreated, misjudged, misunderstood. Anyone who ever did anything worth doing has been misunder- stood. Anyone who ever mingled much with others has been hurt sometimes in the shuffle. But that is all the more reason why you should not let people hurt you any more. When you worry about the wrongs done to you you are laying at the feet of those who hurt you the most precious gift you can give, your attention. Now if he wronged you unintentionally you have no right to judge him. If he wronged you intentionally that man certainly does not deserve these priceless gifts of yours, your thoughts. The only way to vanquish an enemy is to grow so big you forget he ever existed. If you are inclined to be sensitive to what people say about you, to worry over what people may think of you, there is just one way to silence them. Moreover it will make them admire you. That is never to let them know you are sensitive. 108 HOW TO STOP WORRYING The "survival of the fittest" is an unwrit- ten law that has almost as much power in the human world as in the animal world, and everyone knows what happens in the animal world when a creature shows fear. Did you ever notice what happens to the dog that goes around with his tail between his legs? Every little terrier snaps at him. He is usually a rather nice dog, just as sensitive people are often higher up, evolutionally, than those whose criticisms they fear. But he will never go far till he schools himself to ignore the carpers. There is only one way to ward off criticism: be nothing, say nothing, do nothing. Anyone who accomplishes has mud spat- tered on him occasionally but he pays no at- tention to it. If you want to escape with the minimum of mud let people know their mud neither interests you nor harms you. The world does homage to the man who isn't afraid of it. It snaps at the one who is always on the lookout for its opinion. Never worry over what people are saying about you and they will never say anything very bad. On the other hand, the man who is always worrying about what the world says of him 109 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY will never give it reason to say anything very good. If you had a big manufacturing plant run by electricity do you think you would leave the power house, where all the current was generated, wide open to thieves and vandals? Do you think you would go so far as to en- courage them to come in and pilfer? Would you keep your most valuable servant, Atten- tion, stationed at the door to welcome them in to destroy? You would not think of doing such a thing. You would keep that power house guarded day and night, you would let no one into it who could harm the priceless machinery, and you would employ in it only the most effi- cient assistants. Your mind is your power house, the sta- tion that generates the current by which everything you do in life must be accom- plished. Worry, fear, anxiety and doubt are the vandals that wreck its delicate mechan- isms. Yet your worriers let them plunder around in there at will, sapping your vitality, destroy- ing your initiative, demoralizing your greatest forces. 110 HOW TO STOP WORRYING And not this alone: These thieves turn the current of your power against you, and burn down your property. Many diseases and most failures are the direct result of this great power being turned against you. Learn to lock them out. Re- fuse them your attention and they are help- less to harm you. If you have followed me closely up to this point you now realize that all worry is merely a series of unpleasant mental pictures; that when you sit in the movie theatre of your imagination, gazing at those unpleasant pic- tures over and over again, you are worrying. As I have pointed out, these pictures are made by the turning of your attention on the unhappy subject. I have shown you that all you need to do to free yourself from worry is to turn your attention to a happy subject in your life. To do this, let the happy subject assume greater vividness than the other and then hold it there. This is the secret of attention. This can be done for a few seconds at a time by anyone of average intelligence. And when you have done it for a few sec- onds at a time you can soon do it for a few moments at a time. Soon you will be able to 111 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY sustain this happy mental attitude over a per- iod of half an hour, then an hour and grad- ually to whole days. "Be free of worry for days at a time?" you ask. Certainly. To be sure, Worry will come near the door of your mind often at first, for you see, she has the habit because you have been so good to her. But when you ignore her and give your at- tention to uplifting thoughts she acquires an- other habit, the habit of tapping on your door less often. After a little while she will come only occasionally, and then there will come the time when she troubles you only at wide intervals. By that time you will have mastered your- self so well that your subconscious will turn her away without interrupting you. You will be so completely the ruler of your life that you will scarcely be aware of her presence. Start today. When you fail don't be dis- couraged. Try again. Remember the hap- piness of your life depends on the happiness of your thoughts and you make your thoughts by the placing of your attention. You are a free agent. You are the captain of your own mental ship. You can pilot it where you will. You can think only the 112 HOW TO STOP WORRYING thoughts that are agreeable to you. You can, at any moment, produce in consciousness up- lifting, inspiring thoughts. By so doing you can build an uplifting, inspiring life. You are going to start right now to build the kind of future you want. You are going to set your great forces to working for you instead of against you. You are going to de- vote your mind to drawing the kind of plans you want to come true instead of the ones you dread. You are going to right about face and start up the road to Success regardless of what anybody thinks or says. You are going to apply these simple, easy rules and remake your existence into a happy, healthful, joyous life. Let me give you my parting secret, the secret which, as we used to say as children is "just between you and me." It is this: Don't explain your plans, don't announce your new regime to anyone. Soon they will be wanting to know what has made the beau- tiful change in you. Then will be the time to tell them. Pass this lesson on to them so it can help them as it has already helped thou- sands of men and women. 113 CHAPTER III HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT INVICTUS Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods there be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud; Under the bludgeoning of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this vale of wrath and tears Looms but the horror of the shade; And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me, unafraid. It matters not how straight the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul. WILLIAM HENLEY. AVE you ever gone into a situation with all the materials for winning and lost just because you lacked self-confidence? Have you been tortured by the chagrin of knowing that due to your self -consciousness you cut a sorry fig- ure before someone whom you especially 114 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT wished to impress? Have you stayed awake nights imagining how much more creditably you could acquit yourself if you could only try it over again? Have you made plans for retrieving your lost ground with that person and invented ways and means of meeting him again to show him your strong, true self? These things have happened to billions of people. Countless men and women of brilliant qualities suffer humiliation, despair and fail- ure merely for the lack of self-confidence, while others of less ability walk off with the world's prizes because they possess this qual- ity. High places are full of mediocre Individ- uals who got there almost solely on their self- confidence. Many a superior soul hasjjraxsL itated to a lowly station and been compelled to stay there solely because he lacked it. Perhaps some day the fairy tale we were taught at school, to the effect that "merit always wins" may come true, but nothing could be further from the truth today. Today the world is organized of the self-confident, by the self-confident and for the self-confident. The standard by which people are measured is not "How much pure gold is there in you?", but "How much brass have you mixed with it?" 115 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY To be sure, you must have some gold in you. If you haven't, the acid tests of our competitive society will soon show it and you will be thrown out on the dump. But gold alone won't do. Everywhere the demand is for the individuals who have not only a good stock of goods, but whose "front windows" show off to advantage. You are all acquainted with this in the business and professional world. But it is getting to be true also in the realm of romance. The girl who was modest, self- depreciatory, the kind they said had "a heart of gold" used to be the kind men wanted to marry. But the modern Lothario knows that kind of girl won't make the showing he needs. So he marries the girl with snap and self-con- fidence. And you can't blame him. A man's wife must be a helpmate today just as always. She must be an asset. She must, just as always, meet his friends, associates and superiors with the manner betokening his success. Self- depreciatory, self-conscious people can't do this. Less confidence is had in you the min- ute you are known to be allied with timid peo- pie. 116 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT In the good old days when a man's wife was considered somewhat as a bit of his personal property that modest, shrinking manner was fine. Naturally, one didn't expect anything else of one's furniture. But a change has come over the times. To- day a wife is known to be a man's partner and timid partners are liabilities. Not only from this material standpoint is the self-confidence of women being taken into consideration, but it is being recognized that from the viewpoint of woman's highest mis- sion, motherhood, it is vital. It is a well known psychological law that the mental attitudes of children are largely the result of parental training. A self-conscious, timid mother trains self -consciousness and tim- idity into her children, and no father in the world wants his children to be that. So from money to motherhood it pays to be self-confident. Not conceited, not vain, not arrogant, but filled with the consciousness of strength. I am always being asked in my lectures how I differentiate between conceit and self-con- fidence. This is the difference: The con- ceited man tries to make himself seem larger by making others seem smaller; the self-con- 117 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY fident man expresses faith in his own ability to meet any situation while giving everyone else his chance. It is his belief in his power to win in the open rather than any attempt to take advantage, which characterizes the self-confi- dent man. It is in this sense that I refer to self-confidence in this lesson. The "I-am-the-captain-of-my-soul" attitude, the "unbowed," "unafraid," "master-of-my- fate" conviction is what I mean by self-confi- dence. Because it is what you mean also, and what every human being craves, the world has, for this one poem, placed the name of William Henley among the immortals. Before I tell you how to become self-confi- dent perhaps you would like to know what causes self-consciousness. It is suggestion. Regardless of what form self-consciousness takes or on what subject the victim is most sensitive, suggestion is always the cause. I once heard William James say, "No crea- ture is born timid. Look at the naturalness of all animals. Human beings are made timid by suggestions from external sources, peo- ple or things. These suggestions literally make the individual 'conscious of self and there his troubles begin. Spontaneity, one of the most attractive 118 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT qualities, is impossible to the man who is con- scious of himself. His mind is always turned inward upon himself instead of upon the thing he is trying to do. Consequently he never does it effectively." Suggestions which make people self-con- scious come through various channels. The extent to which any suggestion affects us is determined by three elements, our respect for the person or thing making the suggestion, the clearness with which the suggestion is made, and the degree of our own sensitiveness. The latter element is most important. The very "tough-skinned" are almost impervious to suggestion, while the extremely sensitive in- dividual registers the merest suggestion. These naturally sensitive men and women are doubt- less the most wretched of beings. To them the world is a hostile place bristling with in- imical, or at best, unpleasant forces. They are constantly being wounded, embarrassed, hu- miliated. Many of my students have told me they would rather have any affliction in the world than their self -consciousness. They came nearer to the truth than they knew. Self-consciousness is an affliction amounting almost to a mental ailment. It is 119 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY a fixed, predominant mental attitude which, after a few years, becomes embedded in the subconscious. Let us look at two of your young men friends, both well born, well educated, well in body. One walks down the street with his chest up, his shoulders back, his head high. He walks as if he were going somewhere, as if he knew where it was and what he was go- ing to do when he got there. He sees you coming and has a real smile at the bursting point by the time you get there. He speaks to you dynamically, cordially, and if he is an old friend and has the time he will shake hands. He probably won't slap you on the back. Jarring your friends' lungs out of place is not as popular as it used to be. When he shakes your hand you will notice something. He won't crush the bones, that isn't good form any more, either, but you will know something has hold of you. He does it as though he liked you. His eye has a sparkle in it, his voice has a ring to it that seems alive. Alive, that's it. The self-confident man or woman simply seems more alive. That's why 120 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT you like to trust them to do things. You be- lieve they can meet emergencies, you have faith in their powers. And whether it is a heart or a job you have to offer, you select this kind of chap to receive it. What about the other young man? Re- member, he has just as much of every ma- terial thing as the former, money, clothes, education, looks. But he walks with his chest down, his head slanted a little and a slightly ashamed look in his eye. Has he done anything to be ashamed of? No. He is a fine, clean, honest young chap with nothing at all against him. But he walks and stands and shakes hands as though he owed the world an apology. Now about this time something has begun to happen in your mind. Your mental pro- cesses have operated at such lightning-like speed you are not conscious of each step, but this is what happened: You saw apology written all over that young man; you would like to like him, you would like to give him that job, but he seems to be afraid of himself. You can't see why he should be, but, your mind argues, "He knows himself better than I, and he ought to know." 121 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Also, you know that whether he is weak or not, as long as he acts weak he will never get a hearing. You know he wouldn't do for a job requir- ing initiative for initiative takes a little daring. You would dislike to have your daughter marry him because you have a mental pic- ture of him getting the worst of it from every- one. If you are the daughter yourself you wouldn't want him for a husband unless you feel you have enough self-confidence for two. The fact of it is that the world does take us at our own valuation. It is too busy with its own affairs to take the trouble to investi- gate us. It prefers to accept us at face value, at least until events shall prove the contrary. So the young man with the self-confident manner gets the chances. Enough chances are all that any of us need. The man who gets them wins. The one who doesn't get them, no matter how great his natural abilities, falls behind. Now what was it that made you distrust the second young man? It was his poor ad- vertisement of himself. You are your own advertisement. Every- thing about you is advertising you all the time, your facial expression, your walk, 122 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT your posture, the way your hands act, the way your head sits on your shoulders, the direction your chin points, the tones of your voice, the grip of your hands, the way your feet hit the ground, etc. Every person is telling what he thinks of himself every waking moment. It is impos- sible for him to disguise it. He may camou- flage one or two elements, such as the tones of his voice or the shake of his hand, but he cannot camouflage them all for there are too many. Every muscle in the human body expresses states of mind. Every thought, however tran- sient, has its corresponding muscular mechan- ism which reacts instantly and automatically whenever that thought flits through con- sciousness. In each individual there are millions of these outlets. Each one is a little headgate in the intricate system, and the instant it is un- guarded, out flows the betraying expression. A clever man may become adept at guarding the main gates, but they are always being off- set by the opposite testimony from the little ones. In short, you are advertising your own es- timate of yourself every waking moment, in 123 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY signs so glaring that every friend knows what you really think of yourself. Strangers who pass you on the street know whether or not you believe in yourself. The timid person is full of fear. He may have unlimited moral courage and often has, but he is afraid of himself. This settles into a fixed attitude, the attitude that he is un- equal to the occasion; that he is going to ac- quit himself poorly; that he is beaten before he starts. With this thought uppermost it is impossible to win. As long as it forms the background of his thoughts it will influence every act of his life. An anonymous author has put it this way: "If you think you're outclassed you are. You've got to think high to rise. You've got to believe in yourself Before you can ever win a prize. Life's laurels don't always go To the stronger or swifter man; But soon or late the man who wins Is the fellow who thinks he can." No power on earth can save you from de- feat if you expect it. Because the man who thinks defeat acts defeat. The man who acts defeated is defeated before he starts. But he is not defeated by external things as he imagines. He is defeated by himself. 124 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT The self-conscious person is defeated by his self-consciousness. Everyone is aware of it. Some pity him, some despise him, but none dares trust him with responsibility. Respon- sibility and self-fear can't work together. So all the good places go to those who have the self-faith attitude. Ex-President Eliot of Harvard said: "There is no measuring the extent to which other peoples' opinions of us affect our lives. The impressions others have of us determine, to a great extent, the opportunities offered to us, and these, in turn, determine the heights we achieve." Did you ever stop to think how everything you want out of life is within the hands of other people to give you or withhold from you? To be sure, no one person or small group of persons can turn the tide of your life per- manently, but if we could bring together all the people with whom a man came in contact from the cradle to the grave we would find that his life had been a failure or a success according to whether these people had opened or closed the avenues of opportunity to him. If we could go a step further and interview every person who had used his influence for or 125 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY against that man each would tell us he acted according to the impression he had of the man. Now the impression you make on others is due almost solely to the impression you have of yourself. If you are afraid of yourself others are afraid of you; if you trust yourself others trust you. Confidence begets confi- dence. Having seen the contrast between the self- confident and the self-conscious, let us look into the law of suggestion whose workings bring it about. That law is this: You tend to follow every suggestion made to you un- less inhibited by a stronger suggestion in an- other direction. It is not necessary here to go into the rami- fications of suggestion, that most powerful combination of forces in our lives, except to point out that every act is, directly or indi- rectly, the result of a suggestion from some- thing or somebody. Everything from love-making to advertis- ing is based on the law of suggestion. The most important factor, as before stated, is the sensitiveness or suggestibility of the individ- ual. Close to this is the element of respect f o the person or thing making the suggestion. 126 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT Right here comes one of the most deplor- able facts concerning the big question of self- confidence: Most self-conscious people are made so by their parents or others with whom they grow up. The child is taught that he is "too little" or "too young" to do this or that. He is taught fear of the dark, fear of policemen, fear of his playmates, fear of his parents, and hundreds of other things. Rollin Wallingford, the noted Personality Specialist and Child Psychologist, says, "If you wish your child to be thoroughly self-con- fident see to it that you suggest to him only those things which you wish to see come true in his life." With no realization of the wrong they are doing, parents who feel unequal to the task of disciplining their children call to their aid the worst enemy of every creature, the instinct of fear. The extent to which this meets with success depends, as before stated, on the sen- sitiveness of the individual child and the finesse with which the suggestions are made. The source from which the suggestions come is not questioned. As we grow older we are saved from many dangerous suggestions by our distrust of the 127 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY person making the suggestion. Even the child learns at an early age the groundlessness of some of these parental bugaboos and there- after takes everything his parents tell him with a "grain of salt." But the self-confidence of the sensitive child is often hopelessly ruined by this time. He has been told so many times "he mustn't at- tempt what the others do/' "he might fail and then what would people say/' "he hasn't the ability" to do this or that, "children are to be seen, not heard/' "those people are looking at you/' etc., till he feels that all eyes are glued on him, that he is the center of the uni- verse. The damage is soon done. These sugges- tions, like all early suggestions, sink deep into the subconscious and there form the main- spring of conduct for all later life. Parents are committing crimes when they suggest weakness, incapacity and self-distrust to their children. All these mistakes are made with the best motives in the world, but natural law is nat- ural law and operates without regard to "good intentions." Parents bring up their children under the pall of self-fear, and then wonder why they 128 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT do not blossom out self-confident and self- reliant at twenty or so. Last year the parents of a seventeen-year- old boy brought their son to us for a personal analysis. "We want you/' they said, "to give Wil- liam your psychological and other tests and tell us why it is that he doesn't get on better in high school. He is all right as far as we can see, per- fectly healthy, lots better looking than the rest of those young fellows, if we do say it; has had the very best home training, and has no bad habits whatever. But he lets the rest of them go clear ahead of him; he always takes a back seat; he won't put himself for- ward as a strapping boy like that ought to; just won't take part in anything. Why they had some oratorical contests last month and the boy that got first prize doesn't compare with William. But do you think William would enter? Not for anything. We begged him to, and promised a gold watch if he would, but it didn't do any good. Now we want to know what ails him." Self-consciousness was all that ailed Wil- liam. He passed every test ahead of his years. 129 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY He was far above the average iji physique, health, general points and personality. But when it came to the question, "When you were young were you encouraged by your parents or pushed into the background?" He wrote: "Pushed into the background. Dis- suaded by father and mother from almost everything I wanted to do." Further examination revealed that his par- ents had never permitted him to engage in competitive sports as a little boy. Out of several thousands of private students more than half have come to us to be cured of self-consciousness, and of these over sev- enty per cent have answered that they were "pushed into the background" as children. The picture each one of them carried of himself in his mind was that of a person un- equal to emergencies, one certain to go down before opposition. Staying in the rear and giving front places to others had become a habit. Though each case differs somewhat accord- ing to the personal experiences of the individ- ual, every person can greatly increase his self- confidence by following the rules laid down in this lesson. The first step is to realize that your self-con* 130 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT sciousness is an unnatural condition; that you were not born self-conscious, but have been made so by a series of false suggestions. In other words, the law of suggestion has been used against you. Your problem henceforth is to reverse that law and make it work for you. Here are the three stages by which the law of suggestion operates: Suggestion Visualization Action The suggestion that you were unequal to the situation brought a mental picture of yourself to fit it, a visualization of yourself as weaker than the others in that situation. Every thought tends to express itself in ac- tion. Immediately this thought or mental pic- ture of weakness brings forth your actions in accordance with it. These actions of yours betray the state of your mind to others and they, taking you at your own valuation, ex- pect you thereafter to act self-consciously. They show that they expect you to act this way. This suggestion from them starts the vicious circle all over again. You do not consciously figure all this out. You are merely aware that you have acted in 131 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY a way that did not do you justice. You know you didn't express yourself well, didn't make a good impression. You are sure others are measuring you accordingly and expect you to play the same role next time. They show this expectation in various sub- tle ways. The task of overthrowing their pre- conceived impressions now seems so great that you do not feel equal to it and fall into the re- tiring, self-depreciatory attitude permanently. To pull yourself out of it, reverse the law. It is easier than you think. You have two big advantages. First, you have your real nature on your side when you start after self-confi- dence, for self-confidence is natural to all liv- ing creatures. Second, you have this advantage: That there is one person to whose suggestions you are more susceptible than those of anyone else. That person is yourself. Every sugges- tion you give yourself affects you more surely and swiftly than those from any other source. Therefore, to reverse the law, suggest to yourself that you are self-confident. This is true. You are by nature. You were created that way. But you have been deceived into acting otherwise. Look back on your experi- ences and see how unreal, unnatural and false 132 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT to your true self you always felt when you were acting self-consciously. Recall how self- confidently you perform all acts when abso- lutely alone. This is the ultimate proof that man was born self-confident. Only when he feels the presence of others does anyone feel awkward and embarrassed. You learned in the previous lesson on "Worry" that you could change the state of your mind at any moment by changing your attention. Transfer your attention for a moment from the idea of self-consciousness to the idea of self-confidence. Hold that idea for one in- stant by your watch, and note what happens to you. I want you to do this one second the first time, two seconds the second time, three sec- onds the third time and so on many times to- day until you get on "speaking terms" once more with your real self. Tomorrow decide what you most want to accomplish, what you wish to become. Then, in the silence of your own mind, say to your- self, "I shall accomplish that. I shall make this come true." When a doubt comes creep- ing into your mind don't let it disturb you. Use the law of attention which you learned in 133 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY the previous lesson, to turn it away, and go on with your affirmations. I want you to be a victor in life, and you shall be if you will follow the instructions I give you. But you must get away from the ragpick- er's vision you have been holding of yourself. You are not a worm, a crawling thing. You are a human being, created to stand erect and look the world in the face. Start today to lift your chest and do it. If you want people to believe in you you must believe in yourself. You must express that belief by your voice, your walk, your handshake, your bodily posture, by keeping your chin out and your head high. You must put vim, energy, "go" into all your actions, for these will convince others of your ability and they will give you opportunities. Keep- ing up the same actions will enable you to make good on those opportunities. The victor, the winner in life's battles, wears an air of confidence, assurance and su- periority. His bearing is one of force, his very presence imparts a sense of power. You spot him as the leader, you would pin your faith to him in a contest. The vanquished wears 134 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT the air of defeat, he lacks assurance, aggres- siveness. Which face do you want to wear? There is but one answer. You wish to wear the face of the victor. Well, it is for you to acquire. Today I ask you to put it on whether you feel equal to it or not, somewhat as the masquerader dons his for the ball, but with this big difference: You put yours on with the determination not to take it off; to keep it there till its shining visage shall become your own. Every time you think of yourself think of your highest ideal of yourself, strong, re- sourceful, influential, successful in just the work you want to do. If this sounds superficial to you remem- ber what Munsterberg said to the Harvard stu- dents in his class in Psychology: "Young men, whatever you wish to become begin today, this very hour, to live that ideal. Act it, think it, talk it, visualize yourself as that and that only. Never let a picture of your- self as anything else stay in your mind. "If you wish to become a great lawyer start this moment to think of yourself as already a great lawyer. Make every action one befit- ting a great lawyer. Make every tone of your voice, every gesture, every posture, every 135 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY statement you utter, worthy of a great lawyer. Refuse to admit that you are only a student perhaps earning your way through this great institution. See this institution rather as the alma mater which gave this great lawyer to the world. In this way you can achieve the impossible." x If you fail to see the necessity for this, re- mind yourself that the actor who grips you by the realism of his art has achieved it only after long rehearsals in private. Your life is like that. You have played the self-conscious role because you saw a mental picture of yourself as a self-conscious individ- ual. You can reverse it and hereafter play a self-confident, victorious one by reversing the picture inside your mind. Under no circumstances allow yourself to think of yourself as a weakling or a failure. Never make derogatory remarks of yourself any more than you would make them of oth- ers. Don't criticize yourself to others; don't tell your faults; don't depreciate yourself. Every time you do these things you are tend- ing to fix upon yourself the weaknesses of which you accuse yourself; you tend to be- come what you say of yourself. When people 136 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT give you compliments or praise, don't apolo- gize, or blush. Accept them. If you think they are more than you de- serve, determine to catch up. Determine to become worthy. Take it for granted that you have the self- confidence and enthusiasm to do what you want to do, and soon you will find yourself in possession of these qualities when the need arises. They are there, inherent in you, but they will never come to the surface unless you expect them to. Train your mind deliberately, day by day, to demand of these qualities that they come to the top. Expect them to rise to the surface. Put yourself into situations where you must have them. Then you will see them develop over night and come to your rescue. The trouble with most of us is that we save ourselves from emergencies, we avoid crucial situations, we sidestep responsibility, and thus keep submerged the greatest powers we have. Nobody ever learned to swim on dry land. You have got to plunge in order to find your powers. Nature comes to the aid of him who needs her, trusts her and throws himself on her mercy. She has no use for cowards. She 137 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY gives all her prizes to those who plunge in and try, to those who dare. History is full of the proof of these things. Everyone knows that the Spanish Armada, which Philip II fitted out to conquer England, was a miserable failure, not because it lacked material strength but because its commander had no confidence in his ability to win. This commander was the Duke of Medina Sidonia. He wrote the king, in answer to his appointment, saying he knew he would be beaten; that he knew nothing of naval mat- ters; that he knew none of the officers who were to serve under him. He concluded by saying that he was always seasick on the ocean and that if the king in- sisted upon sending him at the head of this expedition it would surely fail. Philip did insist, in the false belief that the physical strength of his fleet could offset the fear in its leader. He manned 130 ships with more than 30,000 men, and over 2500 guns. The expedition was the marvel of the times. The English fleet didn't compare with it in equipment, ships or men, but the English fleet won because it was commanded by Lord Howard, who believed in himself. Faith in yourself is the supremest factor in 138 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT your life. It will attract people to you ; it will influence others favorably; it will draw and command the affection, confidence and ad- miration of the world. It is a force before which the world bows and in return for which it bestows its choicest gifts. Not only does this faith in yourself impress others and powerfully influence them in your behalf, but it strengthens and develops you. It brings out the best in you. Fear of yourself crushes, deadens, de- presses. Self-confidence is a stimulant. Self-fear is a deadly narcotic. You are injecting one or the other of these into your consciousness every waking moment. Get every doubt about your ability out of your system. You are not a victim of cir- cumstance except as you think so. When you think you are, your own fear thought is making the circumstances. People who go to the top do not stand around waiting to see what is going to hap- pen. They make it happen. They have a conviction of their own ability. Look at any famous man or woman and you will find every one of them believes in 139 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY himself. Every one of them has confidence in himself, in his power to do. Once a colonel came to Napoleon just be- fore a battle. "Are we going to win?" asked Napoleon. "We will if circumstances per- mit," answered the colonel. "Circumstances!" exclaimed Napoleon, "I make circumstances!" The world might well be divided into two classes, those who let their lives be made by circumstances and those who make their own circumstances. The first step in the mastery of your own life is taken when you have fully decided what you wish to accomplish. Then picture yourself as you will talk, act, dress, walk and conduct yourself generally when you have accomplished it. This is visualization, the second great step in the law of self-confidence. Visualization deals with action, it makes you the leading character in your own drama. It sets the stage and gives the other characters their respective roles. Picture yourself doing what you want to do, and because your life follows your thoughts, some day you will be doing it. If you find it difficult to form these pictures of yourself it is probably due to your not hav- 140 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT ing a sufficiently definite idea of what you want to do. Go back then to the first stage and make your decision. From that time on expect yourself to accomplish this. In every human being there are enormous untapped resources, undiscovered possibilities, far greater capacities than he has dreamed he possessed. Place yourself where they must save you, where you must sink or swim, and what happens will astound you. Deep in the inmost recesses of your soul are untouched mines of energy. If you blast deep enough you will find them. But the only thing that ever goes deep enough to bring out the greatest ones is jeopardy. The most priceless thing that can ever come into a life is that book, that event, that ser- mon, that experience, that emergency, that catastrophe, that something which sounds the depths of a man's nature and flings wide the doors of his own great within. It is not the man you are which is most im- portant to you, but the man you are capable of becoming. Place yourself in the situations that will bring out that possible man. This best part of you may be submerged under all sorts of debris fear, timidity, doubt, 141 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY uncertainty and self-consciousness but it is there. You can bring it out and place it at the helm of your life if you try. You were born to conquer, to play a leading part on the world's stage. But you will never play it, you will never do anything superb until you believe in yourself. The story of David and Goliath is not far fetched. The pebbles of self-confidence in the sling of aggressiveness have enabled many a little man to vanquish a giant. Show me any great accomplisher and I will show you a man of great confidence in him- self, in his aim, and in his own ability. If there is a link between God and man it must be this thing of self-faith. Start today toward the realization of the things you desire. Look upon them as pos- sible of attainment. Make your visualization of them concrete, practical, and then believe you can get them. Many people fail because they look upon their ambition, their life's dream, as a fanciful fiction. They think of it, but only as some- thing which can never be realized. They do not take their ambitions seriously. I hav* heard many gifted men and women gentl ridicule themselves for their ambitions. 142 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT You have got to believe utterly and ser- iously in your ideal before you can ever make it real. No matter how unconventional, un- usual or impossible seems your ambition, don't lose faith in it. The thing you call im- possible will be done by someone else tomor- row. Disraeli, a young English Jew, was sneered at one day by a political opponent. "You will be sorry for that/' he said, "when I am Prime Minister of England." That any man of his despised race could achieve the highest political office at the command of proud Brit- ish nation would have been laughed at as the impossible. But Disraeli, by his supreme self- confidence, did become Prime Minister of England. If you lack this faith in yourself there is one certain way to acquire it. The way is to follow the three steps, suggestion, visual- ization, action. Remind yourself every hour of the day that you are a human being and no human being was ever born timid. Visualize yourself in the place you wish to be, doing what you wish to do, having what you wish to have. Then act in accordance with your ideal. 143 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY It is not difficult to act in accordance with your ideal if you faithfully live up to the first two stages. Keeping the thought of your am- bition before your eyes automatically com- pels you to act in harmony with it. When- ever you find it difficult to live up to your ex- pectations it is because you have not etched the picture with sufficient clearness in your own mind. Let me beg of you not to yield to the temp- tation to pass lightly or doubtingly over these great truths. If you do you are cheating your- self. There is no irony comparable to that of a man doubting his own divinity. One of the greatest difficulties in the world is to get people to realize their own bigness. They are their own jailers. They keep themselves in prison. Perhaps it will help you to see that these statements are not mere vaporings of an op- timist, if I quote to you something America's greatest psychological thinker, Professor Wil- liam James of Harvard, once said: "Each of us," he declared, "has resources of which he does not dream. If we could only turn an X-ray on ourselves most of us would find powers in the great within of us which may not have gotten even to the germinating stage. 144 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT There is probably not a living being who would not be amazed if he could see all of the potentialities within himself. If he could he would probably say, These remarkable qualities belong to someone who has achieved, not to an unknown person like me.' " The real problem is to know how to get at these gold mines within yourself. You can solve that problem if you will follow the in- structions in this lesson. First of all, refuse to recall the failures you have made in the past. Whenever the mem- ory of yourself in a humiliated, dejected state comes to you say to yourself, "That is gone. I shall never appear that way again." Keep your mind on the pleasant memories if you must reminisce. But if you really want to accomplish some- thing great remember this: memories, whether pleasant or unpleasant, are thieves of the mind. The past can never be lived again. The future is what counts. Every thought you give to the past steals the mental energy you should be devoting to the future. Let me tell you at this point about your chief handicap when you are attempting to act self -confidently. It is this: you do not act as you really feel. If you would conquer 145 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY self-consciousness, overcome timidity and ac- quire perfect self-confidence, never attempt to say things or do things in which you are not absolutely sincere. In other words, be yourself. Most self -consciousness comes from the at- tempt to make people believe you feel or think something you do not. I do not mean by this that you are to be blunt, discourteous, or selfish, quite the re- verse. I mean that if you really want to "put yourself over," be sure it is yourself and not someone else you try to put over. Don't assume unnatural accents. For in- stance: If you are a Westerner in the Blast, don't try to copy their broad A's or slight your R's. You may feel conspicuous at first, but people want you to be natural, not necessarily like themselves. In fact, a secret contempt, more or less subconscious, is aroused by the person who tries to imitate others. Imitation is undesirable for many reasons, but chiefly because it is always detected. Any attempt on your part to copy the mannerisms, poses, or attitudes of others is sure to make you self-conscious, and this self-consciousness makes you much more conspicuous than your own would. 146 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT The very first element of true self-confi- dence is sincerity. The second is spontaneity. No one cares to hear what you say if they imagine you do not believe it yourself, but the whole world will listen when you say what you earnestly believe. Nothing can be so foolish, so ridicu- lous, that you cannot get a hearing for it pro- vided you believe in it with your whole heart. The next time you meet anybody, the next time you face any situation, act out your real self. If you will do this you will never ap- pear self-conscious, for your real self is not self-conscious. It is self-confident. Your self -consciousness is the result of the veneer which has been laid over your real self by outside influence. Mingle as much as possible with other peo- ple. Seek opportunities for meeting new peo- ple, and when invitations are extended to you by your friends, accept them. Force yourself to say you will come. Then that promise will help you to silence your weaker self when, as usual, it comes whispering to you not to go. I know a young woman not at all indus- trious who never feels the urge to work until a social engagement is demanded of her. She usually refuses, declaring she has so much to 147 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY do she doesn't see how she can arrange it. If by any chance she is lured into accepting she almost invariably cancels the engagement later, describing at length the pressing duty which has intervened. Now this young woman imagines she is telling the truth, but her friends know the real reason is her timidity. She recoils from con- tact with others. She shrinks before even her best friends. She withdraws into herself and stays there, with the result that she is becom- ing more and more self-conscious. That self- consciousness is ruining her life. You must not only mingle with people when they invite you, you must invite them occasionally, not for etiquette's sake, but be- cause taking the lead will force you to take responsibility and this will bring out your in- itiative. After all, it is up to you to do your share in the world. Timid people are constantly feeling neg- lected, humiliated and desolate. They usually repel advances, yet are hurt when the ad- vances are not continued. The sensitiveness which accentuated their timidity in the first place makes them poignantly aware whenever they are left out. But this is the inevitable result of timidity. 148 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT If you want to be sought after, loved and admired, remember you must "do your bit/' The world doesn't owe you anything except what you earn. If you contribute nothing to the happiness, progress and inspiration of others, after a while no one will contribute these things to you. Right here I come to what I believe is the highest, and to many the most impelling, mo- tive for conquering timidity, the desire to help humanity. Most timid people, as I have said before, are more mental, more sensitive, more sympathetic on the whole, than others. These qualities make the retiring man a lover of mankind, a sympathizer with the woes, hardships and tragedies of his f ellowmen. He often longs to serve mankind, to be an in- spiration to the world. But the timid man never inspired anybody. In the presence of timidity we are always de- pressed. The timid man cannot lead. He cannot even lift because his timidity makes us doubt his strength. The world's homage, the world's salvation are in the hands of the strong, the courageous, the people of sub- lime self-confidence. If your own salvation is not sufficient incentive to induce you to f ol- 149 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY low the other rules laid down in this lesson, perhaps the desire to help humanity can. Self-confidence does not mean that a man should be boisterous, bold or scatter things right and left like a bull in a china shop. He must never intimidate others. It means the frank, democratic, sincere expression of him- self. It means showing the world that he is a human being, not an excuse. God made you. He made you to stand up straight, to look the whole world in the eye, to be a credit to that force which created you. Some animals walk on all fours, but for sev- eral million years now, man has been walking on his two hind legs. Don't let those millions of years of evolution be lost on you. Don't cringe. Don't crawl. Don't apologize. Don't take a back seat. Don't make excuses. Don't whine. Don't cower. And if you do any of these things here is another don't: Don't justify yourself with any self-righteous ex- cuses. If you are timid it is not for any of the reasons you have been giving yourself. It is because you are scared. Fear is at the bottom of all timidity. If you have been salving your sore of self -con- sciousness with the idea that humility is right- 150 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT eous, start your emancipation today by getting honest with yourself. Humility is pride under a cloak. Most of the people who prate against pride are secretly proud of their humility. They make a virtue of their vice and it is the worst vice in the world fear. God must love courage or he would not give His richest rewards for it. Certain it is that the courageous man brings God to your mind, expresses godliness and reassures you of your own divinity. "The survival of the fittest" seems to be God's law. It is no accident that the fearsome, retiring, self-effacing, self-depreciatory fail to win even the love that insures reproduction. It is no accident that everything, from a stalk of wheat to a human being, grows with its head up, not down. Whenever you meet anyone, let him see by your tone, the poise of your body, the expression of your eye, the enthusiasm of your words and the earnestness of your hand- shake that you are no worm of the dust. Be sure at the same time to show him that he too is one of God's creatures. Never take another man's share. Never cheat. Never impose. These things are done 151 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY by the man who does not trust himself in the open, who doubts his ability to win under the rules of the game, and are therefore not the earmarks of the courageous, but the brands of the coward. Give every man his chance. Give every man his due. Give every man a boost. Give every man tolerance, even the timid man. But never let any other man take your chance. Never infringe on his territory, but never let him infringe on yours. Let him see that you are fair and square but not "easy." Let him see that you will never encroach on him and that he better not try to encroach on you. I will illustrate what I mean by two pic- tures, one concerning the insignificant things of life and the other the most vital. The first one is a moving picture of a street car. A group of people are waiting for it. The first one in line is a timid woman. Every- one knows she was the first one there. She knows it herself better than they do, but be- cause of habit she steps back and lets every one else in ahead of her. The last seat is taken just as she gets inside and she hangs to a strap. The other is a picture of a home where the parents are always taking a back seat for 152 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT their children, always giving up, always sac- rificing, always going without necessities that they may furnish their children with luxuries. As those children begin to grow up, father and mother begin to dwindle in their estima- tion because they wouldn't take the time, the clothes or the energy away from their children to cultivate friends. Father and mother sel- dom go out. Now people who do not go out among others frequently fall behind the times. Father and mother realize they are behind the times and hesitate to express opinions to these pre- cocious young men and women of theirs. In a little while father and mother are unmistak- ably timid before their own children. Their admonitions, advice and suggestions have lit- tle weight. The children go their respective ways. The morale of the home is broken, as well as the lives of the parents. These are two widely different pictures. One deals with the little things and the other with the biggest things in human life. The woman who lets everyone else have her place on the street car, and the parents, did the same thing, they gave the chance which rightfully belonged to themselves to those to whom it 153 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY did not belong, who could not profit by it, and who despised them for doing it. In every event of your life, from the small- est thing to the greatest, hold your own. Don't push in ahead of the other fellow. Take your place in line; don't take the other fel- low's; but don't let even your children take yours. Developing self-confidence is not a difficult task, but it does require patience and intelli- gent efforts. Don't hurry. Don't be anxious. Don't strain. Don't attempt to change your- self overnight. Don't be like the man who tried to jump over the hill. He went a long way back and ran so hard that when he got to the hill he was obliged to lie down and rest. Don't lose time or discourage yourself by being over-strenuous in following the rules of this lesson. Begin at the bottom and walk over the hill. Do something each day in accordance with the rules of this lesson. Start with the easy things and work up to those that are hardest. Let your self-respect show in your eyes, in the triumphant attitude toward every situa- tion and every individual. Stop thinking of yourself as a nobody, a weakling and a failure. Whenever this picture 154 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT comes into your mind, substitute for it the picture of yourself as you long to be. Hold it there. Don't let anything or anybody make you change the slide, and some day you will be that person. Some day that picture will come true. Failure is like worry, a bully. The mo- ment you show you are not afraid of Failure, that instant failure becomes afraid of you. He is a bluff, a phantom created by your own imagination. No matter how many times you have gone down to defeat; no matter how many times you have been conquered, lashed by humilia- tion; no matter how these things have affected peoples' confidence in you, take a new grip on yourself, give yourself a chance and in six months you will have reversed their opinion of you. As a matter of fact, other people are not as conscious of you and your mistakes as you imagine. They are busy with their own trou- bles. They are not thinking of you at all, they are wondering what you think about them. If you have lost your money, that means that you have really only lost time. You have gained experience which should make your 155 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY time from now on worth double. You have not lost your life or your manhood. Every- thing else can be retrieved. Already you are learning to think right. When you think right you can fight right, and the man who can fight right wins. Don't yearn for strength, earn it. The mind is the instrument with which you accomplish any purpose. If you will keep, the picture of yourself as a conqueror before your mind, the picture of yourself as a timid man cannot get in. To do this will not be easy the first day, but it will be easier the second, and after you have practiced it a week you will be surprised at the ease with which you conquer in the little things. I once heard a man, whose life had been a failure, boasting of the fact that he had never fooled himself by building castles in the air. As he was a man of real ability, I had some- times wondered why he had failed, but I did not wonder after that remark. Every man who ever achieved anything did just what I am asking you to do, built his castles in the air first and then put foundations under them. Your belief in yourself tells your story, pre- dicts it years in advance, predicts it so clearly 156 HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT that every psychologist can tell about where you will land with any given mental attitude. The men and armies that triumphed against great odds have always been found to have had confidence in themselves. When Henry Ward Beecher went to Eng- land he once rose to speak before a large meet- ing which was so opposed to him that it hooted, hissed and yelled. But it did not down Beecher. He looked that great audience straight in the eye, not with pugnacity nor de- fiance, but utter self-confidence. He literally cowed it into subjection. Then he proceeded to preach for two hours. He was one man. He faced thousands of other men and their hostility, and won. Clemenceau of France, Gladstone of Eng- land, Wilson, Roosevelt and Bryan of our own country illustrate the power of self-con- fidence. It was not the strength of the French that stopped the Germans at Verdun, it was the might of mind. For days before, the gen- erals sent the affirmation, "They shall not pass" down the line, asking each man to pass it to the next and to repeat it every moment until the battle should come. 157 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY That conviction, flaming in the minds of the French, gave to them, through the law whose mysteries we have not solved, the power that brought victory. It is not necessary to solve the mysteries of this great law in order to use it, any more than it is necessary for you to understand engineer- ing in order to drive you own car. We are discussing practical psychology. I do not pretend to explain how affirmation and visualization give you the power to do what you affirm. I only know they do. I do not know why this law works nor just how it works, and no one else knows. I only know it works. I want you to put it to work in your own life. Put it to the test. Try out what I have taught you in this lesson. It will remake your life. 158 CHAPTER IV HOW TO STAY YOUNG 'The minute a man ceases to grow, no mat- ter what his years, that minute he begins to be old." WILLIAM JAMES. N the past people went to two ex- tremes in their ideas concerning the prolongation of youth. There were those who foolishly believed in "charms" and miracles for restoring lost youth. As children we all learned in our his- tories of the expedition of Ponce de Leon, who claimed to have discovered the "Fountain of Eternal Youth" on the Western hemisphere, and of the pilgrimages of those who believed him. To the other extreme have been those who took it for granted that the prolongation of youth or youthf ulness beyond a certain ar- bitrary point was impossible. Neither of these extremes was right. Today all thinking people recognize the pos- sibility of extending the period of youthful- less far into the years of later life, and the 159 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY methods for doing so are in practice. It is these means and methods which I am going to give you in this lesson. If the idea of extending life and prolonging youth seems fantastical to you, turn to the laws of nature, to your biology. There you will find that in all mammals except man the period of life is five times the period of growth. A dog gets its full growth in two years and lives ten; a horse in five years and lives twenty-five. Man, who does not attain his full physical stature until twenty and his complete physical development not until twenty-five, should therefore live from one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five years, normally. One of the greatest tragedies in life is that just as we learn how to live we die. Just as we have learned the value of life it is taken away. Just when the great men and women have proven their right to lead us and gained our confidence, they pass on, and each gen- eration makes all over again most of the mis- takes of previous generations. All great men and women leave their work unfinished. Susan B. Anthony, the great founder of the Woman's Suffrage movement 160 HOW TO STAY YOUNG in America, said on her death bed at eighty- six, "I have done so little." The gain to the world when we learn how to keep youth cannot be measured. Even these great people who did so much for us could have accomplished more had they real- ized the possibility of extending the period of their service. That it is possible to do this has been proved. Titian painted up to the time of his death at ninety-nine. LaPlace, the astron- omer, made one of the greatest discoveries just before his death, at eighty-eight. Glad- stone was Prime Minister of England at eighty- three, and the year before mastered a new language. Rodin, the greatest sculptor of modern times, died at seventy-seven, and pro- duced some of his greatest masterpieces in the last months of his life. William Dean How- ells, who is nearing the ninety-year mark, has not only a young body but a mind so young that he is still in charge of a department, 'The Easy Chair," in one of America's leading mag- azines. Ella Wheeler Wilcox and Amelia E. Barr wrote brilliantly up to their last days, though advanced in years far beyond the sup- posed "limit" of three score and ten. Sarah 161 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Bernhardt, at 76, still holds not only the stage, but the laurels as the world's greatest actress. All of these obeyed, consciously or uncon- sciously, most of the laws laid down in this lesson. If you will obey them you can add from five to fifty years to your life. Before I tell you these rules let us see what it is that makes people old. The processes are both mental and physical as are all pro- cesses of thinking creatures. The mistakes people make concerning their bodies are manifold. If you want to keep your body young, obey the rules of Chapter I, this volume. In this lesson I shall explain the part that the mind plays in the ageing of an individual. In this more than anything we have discussed up to this time the subconscious plays a lead- ing part. As we have already seen, the 90 per cent of the mind which is subconscious, forms the mainspring of our conduct. You think and act, not in accordance with your reason, as you have fondly supposed, but more or less automatically in response to the habits of this submerged nine-tenths. This may be likened to the cargo of an ocean liner which lies be- 162 HOW TO STAY YOUNG neath the surface. The most important part of you is under the surface. The direction in which you go, the port at which you arrive, depends on how the machinery works down there in the hull. As we have already found, the subcon- scious is made largely by suggestion. It takes on its tendencies from suggestion, and in ac- cordance with this nature directs your life. How does this affect youthfulness? From early babyhood we are taught that we will grow old at a certain time. We are informed when we ask why other people have gray hair, stooped shoulders and wrinkles, that these things are the result of age. When we ask what is meant by age we are told that all people at forty or so begin to look like that. We are told that when we have lived forty years or more we too will begin to look like that. The certainty of it sinks into our minds, and from that day we invite, expect and pre- pare for old age. We think of the years up to forty as the only years in which we can accomplish. We think of everything after that as a general fading-out. We consider ourselves of middle age at fifty, and expect nothing of ourselves after sixty. The parents who have property 163 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY decide early in life how they are going to divide it among their children. They get ready to relinquish it. Father, who is as good a man as any of his sons, divides the farm or the business; mother passes her pretty things, the real lace, her jewelry and other treas- ures, on to her daughters, saying, "I shall not need them any more. I am getting too old for them. I will not live to wear them out." They make all preparations save those of the undertaker, for laying themselves on the shelf. If they do not have property they wonder which of their children they will inflict them- selves upon when they are old. They have gone along to a certain age the age when people are supposed to grow old and they think it is time to droop, time to sag, time to begin the process of decay. They resign themselves to it, talk about it, think about it, write to their friends about it, and look for it in others. The first question a woman usually asks of another woman after she passes her thirtieth milestone is, "Don't you think I am looking older? Tell me honestly, now!" Men don't ask it of their friends, but they would if they dared. Pretty soon they walk, talk, sag, droop and act like old men and old women. The 164 HOW TO STAY YOUNG man who walks, talks, sags and thinks like an old man is soon in very truth an old man. They keep themselves reminded of their ad- vancing years. They are conscious every mo- ment of their age. They call attention to the fact that they are getting old by having birth- day parties which remind not only them- selves, but all others of "how time is flying." Father watches the mirror for baldness and mother for double chins. They say they must not spend this or that because they are going to need it for their "old age." They do not attempt new projects because they fear they will not be able to finish them. This feeling that one's time is limited is re- sponsible for the loss to the world of many great achievements. A psychologist whose knowledge and ac- curacy could not be doubted, once said, "The consciousness of the passage of time has a great influence in printing wrinkles in our faces and graying our hairs." In substantiation of it he told a story, for whose authenticity I cannot vouch, but which I will ask you to accept for the grain of truth which it contains. The story goes that a beautiful girl of twenty years was engaged to be married. At 165 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY the hour for which her wedding had been set and just as she was dressed for the ceremony, word was brought that her fiancee had been killed. The shock robbed her of her reason. She never regained it, though she lived to be 81 years old. Every day of her life thereafter she dressed herself in her trousseau at the wedding hour and waited for her bridegroom. The wedding gown turned yellow with age. The veil became tattered shreds, but the face of the woman remained that of a twenty-year- old girl. Her hair did not turn gray. The plumpness of her cheeks was but slightly diminished and her form was as girlish as it had been sixty years before. The psychologist who vouched for the story declared he believed the retention of her youth was due to the fact that she had no conscious- ness of the passage of time. To her she was always twenty years old. Every day was her wedding day. This story may or may not be true, but there is a lesson in it nevertheless. If you want to know whether or not you are making yourself old ahead of your time try these tests on yourself: 166 HOW TO STAY YOUNG Are you living in the past? Do you think of the times that are gone as the best times? Do you live over the triumphs and successes of the past? Do you give more thought to re- membering the successes of yesterday than to planning successes for the future? Are you beginning to tell fibs about your age? Are you habitually comparing yourself with younger people, regretting that you have lost your youthful charms? Are you beginning to look for ill health? Are you keeping an eagle eye out for the break in your physical condition? Are you always wishing you could start over with the knowledge of today? Are you constantly reminding yourself that there would be some chance for you if you could start all over five, ten or twenty years back, and are you taking it for granted that because you can't do this you cannot amount to any- thing? Do you dislike to see the seasons roll around because each one ticks off a segment of your life? Do you spend time regretting, hating, envy- ing other people? Are you in the habit of ex- cusing yourself for not accomplishing as much as other people on the ground that you are older than they? 167 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Are you getting careless about your per- sonal appearance, the way you do your hair, the fit of your clothes, and slackening a bit in your walk? Do you say, just because a garment is of light color, "Oh, that is too young for me"? If you are doing these things you are be- ginning to slide down the grade to old age. If you are getting habitual about anything, if you are getting "set" in your ways, less open minded, if you find it hard to laugh at things that are really funny, you are getting old. If you are doing things just as you have done them for years in spite of all our modern inventions and better methods, you are get- ting old. If you dislike to make new friends, you are getting old. If you think you have to do anything just because you always have done it, you are get- ting old. If you can't have your plans upset without feeling that the world is in a jumble, you are getting old. If you can only do cer- tain things on certain days, or under certain conditions, you are getting old. If you are voting the same old ticket your father voted without knowing why, you are 168 HOW TO STAY YOUNG getting old. If you are voting the Republican ticket because you didn't approve of Bryan's 16 to 1 ideas, you are getting old. If you are voting the Democratic ticket for no other reason that that you happened to believe in the free coinage of silver, you are equally out of date. If you call all Socialists "anarchists," and all radicals "alien enemies/' you are forty years behind on the first conviction and al- ready two years behind on the second. Catch up with the procession! If you are still going every Sunday to the same old church for the same old reasons that led you to affiliate with it thirty years ago, without investigating once in a while whether or not it is meeting the soul-needs of the peo- ple of today, you are getting old. If you can't understand why anybody else should belong to a different church or a differ- ent party from yours, you are getting old. If you can't get enthusiastic about anything to the point where you are just a little bit crazy, you are getting old. If you haven't had a real thrill over something within the last six months, if you haven't been thoroughly aroused for something, against something, by something or despite something, you are get- ting old. 169 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY If you haven't changed your mind about some fairly big world question during the last four history-making years, you are getting old. If you haven't laughed till the tears came to your eyes several times in the last year, you are getting old. If you have not felt those same tears spring to your eyes lately at the sight of suffering, you are getting old. If your children make engagements to go out in the evening saying, "I'll get mother to come over and take care of the babies," you are getting old. If you turn up your nose at psychology; if you deplore the movies; if you declare that the successful acting of tragedy died with Mansfield and comedy with Nat Goodwin, you are getting old. And here is the last and perhaps the cru- cial test: Do you look with impatience, sar- casm or superiority on the activities, foibles and madnesses of young people? If you take a "holier than thou" attitude whenever you see two young things spooning in the park and mutter, "There's one born every minute," you are getting old and you are getting there fast, and incidentally hastening the minute when your place will be taken by one of them. 170 HOW TO STAY YOUNG But take this consolation, you are not hope- less. The ways to stay young are simple ways, ways so simple that we are inclined to under- estimate them. The ways for staying young are Nature's ways and therefore normal and easy of com- prehension. But man has always, in seeking the solution to a vital problem, looked afar off when the real answer usually lies at his very feet. It is like the story of the man who wan- dered around the world in search of a four- leaf clover and who, when he came home to die, discovered one growing at his own door- step. First of all, if you would stay young, lure out, reason out or blast out of your subcon- scious mind the notion that you have just naturally got to wither and die when you have lived a certain number of years on this earth. Do you know that at no time are you more than two years old? Not a cell in your body is two years old. The body and the brain are in a constant state of building up and tearing down, of creating and casting off cells, and the oldest cell in your body at this moment 171 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY has not been there more than 18 months. To- day you do not have in your lungs one cell that was there four months ago. People get old because they imagine the ma- terial of which they are made gets old like cloth. The difference between you and the piece of cloth is that you are constantly chang- ing. The stuff you are made of is alive. Twenty million red globules are manufactured in your blood every time you breathe. The new cells, as they ripen, take on the shape and attitude of those they are succeed- ing, and each is so deeply impressed by the subconscious with the feeling of age that to all outward appearances it is an old cell. If this sounds unscientific let me refer you to an even more advanced statement in de- fense of it by the most scientific man of our time, Thomas A. Edison. This is Mr. Edi- son's theory and he carries it so far as to de- clare "Every cell in us thinks." In the place of your old delusion that you must die after a certain number of years, charge your subconscious with the realization of the ever-changing materials of which your body and brain are made. I do not say that this will enable you to live forever, but I do know that it will tend to 172 HOW TO STAY YOUNG make every cell take on the youth-attitude in- stead of the age-attitude. I do know that those men and women who have lived longest all had this attitude of mind. Let yourself realize that you are entitled, according to the laws of biology, to from one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five years of life the same as all other mammals. Stop looking for the signs of age. We al- ways find what we look for. Stop worrying about getting old. As we found in a previous lesson, worry tends to bring about what you worry about. It is more true in connection with old age than almost any other one thing, for the reason that all worry brings wrinkles, negative processes and ill health. Every fear thought tears down tis- sue and that dead tissue becomes debris. Also, all worry thoughts slow up the improving processes to such an extent that you never quite catch up again. But worry about old age is more disastrous in bringing old age than any other worry for the scientific reason which I have noted before and which is known to all physiologists and psychologists, that every thought has its cor- responding muscular mechanism. That mech- anism reacts with every thought. 173 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Whenever you worry about wrinkles, wrinkles respond. Whenever you are sad, the corners of your mouth go down. When you are happy those same corners turn up. Keep the corners turned up. Read Irvin Cobb, Ring Lardner, Alice Duer Miller, Walt Mason, George Patullo, Octavus Roy Cohen, and oc- casionally browse through Twain's "Innocents Abroad." Read two newspapers. If you have long been a subscriber to the most conservative sheet in your neck of the woods, give yourself a chance to know the other side by taking a radical one. The same holds good if the most radical paper is all you have been seeing for the last five years. Unlock your mind. No matter how rusty the key is it will work, for remember, you are not quite dead. In addition to these, take the best maga- zines. If you feel you can't afford to, cut down on your food and save the money that way. Inasmuch as the chances are that you are eating twice the amount you ought to for longevity, you will be killing two birds with one stone. Don't talk of the past. Talk of the future. Think of the future. Work for the future. 174 HOW TO STAY YOUNG Believe there is a future for you. You are justified in believing this because believing it will make you act in such a way as to live longer and make a future for yourself. Never let anyone have another birthday party for you. If that is the best hint you can think of for getting presents out of your friends, let the presents go. Stop telling your age. Forget right now how old you are and never allow yourself to think of it again. Refuse to talk age or let others talk it to you. Don't let your children think you have so little to do in your own life that you can be called upon at any time to act as nursemaid to the grand-children. Get some engagements of your own. Get some evening engagements. Do not begin to divide your property. Make a will if you have any property and then for- get it. Don't dress in dull colors and things be- speaking age. The reason for this is that we are all powerfully influenced by our garments. We always tend to act the role for which we are dressed. We play the part that goes with the costume. If you do not believe it, recall that time you went to the masquerade as 175 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY "Cap-and-Bells," "The Spanish Dancer," "Me- phisto" or "The Colonial Maiden." Will you ever forget how you felt yourself the char- acter for which you were dressed? Remember this in selecting clothes: I do not recommend that every woman, regardless of her age or complexion, wear cerise, tur- quoise blue or paddy green. But no woman, however old, should wear dark colors exclu- sively. At ninety pastel shades, lavenders, palest pinks, yellows and white are more be- coming than any somber shade. There are the colors of youth, of spring, of freshness. In them you feel younger, and when you feel younger you are younger. When you are in drab colors you feel drab and act drab. Take pains with your hair. If you are a man don't get careless about the crease in your trousers. If you are a woman, guard against that dumpy, matronly figure. Regardless of sex inquire into your own mind, find out why you believe as you do on the questions of the day. If there are big, vital questions concerning which you have no opinion whatever, investigate the merits and get one. Take an interest not only in your own chil- dren, but in other young peoples' children. 176 HOW TO STAY YOUNG Cultivate their friendship. This does not mean being kittenish, it means sympathizing with their viewpoints, hopes and ambitions. Attempt new things with the determination that you are going to win, and you will be sur- prised to see how easily they can be accom- plished. Start new projects with the firm conviction that even though they take ten or twenty years you will live to finish them. Never say, "It is too late for me to start this or that." Never say, "If I could have done that five years or ten years ago that would have been different, but it is too late now." Stop bemoaning the fact that you can't be- gin all over at the beginning. You can do that very thing if you will start today. The past years will merely stand you in hand with their harvests of experience. Refuse to look for or expect the "break- downs" other people have. Stop turning the microscope of your mind inward whenever you have a stitch in your side, a twinge in a muscle or a slight dizziness. Never think of yourself as old. If you are unmarried find some one with whom you can fall in love. Whether they reciprocate or not, it will stir up your liver and do you an endless 177 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY amount of good. If you are married, fall in love with your own partner again. Give yourselves some vacations. Take some trips, if only in the Ford, away from everybody who knows you, your past, your age and your ailments. Make new friends and cultivate them. Try to live in harmony with all Nature, from the elimination of meat in your diet to a sympathy with the first meadow lark you hear in the spring. In other words, keep each of those 26 trillions of cells thoroughly alive. Make up your mind to keep the undertaker waiting just as long as possible. Keep abreast of the movements in your community, state and nation. Know some- thing of what is going on everywhere, from the little house next door to the Russian Revo- lutions. Get out of yourself. All those who have lived to a great age were unselfish, outgiving natures who were interested in others. I asked Mary C. C. Bradford, when she was president of the National Education Associa- tion, how she kept, through her strenuous pro- fessional activities, her buoyant youthfulness. "By keeping alive my interest in all big 178 HOW TO STAY YOUNG things/' she said. "What one thing would you say was most important to one who de- sired to perpetuate his youth?" I asked. "To participate in as many worth-while public ac- tivities as possible/' she answered. As is well known, any machine disinte- grates with idleness. The old saying that "Rest is rust" is as true of the human machine as any other. A perpetual renewing process is always going on within you. Physical and mental activities speed up this process. There are four mental states which produce age, the serious attitude, the depressed atti- tude, the superficial attitude and the excited attitude. Just as depression slows down the renew- ing processes to the point where debris piles up, so excitement speeds up those processes till the belts fly off the wheels. The superficial or frivolous attitude, if car- ried to an extreme, means that no matter how long you live you are never going to grow up. On the other hand, the attitude of taking life too seriously makes you "a little old man" or "a little old woman" from childhood. The cure for these age-producing attitudes 179 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY is poise, self-control. Let yourself feel deep- ly, determine to live fully, but control your- self. Moderation in all things has been the rule of all who achieved long life. Treasure your vitality. It is the secret of youth. Avoid everything that could dissipate it, over-eating, under-nourishment, idleness, too hard work, extremes of any kind. "If youth could be retained, why is it/' you ask, "that we have not been taught these things before?" The answer is simple. We are never taught the most vital and necessary truths of life. We are taught our ABC's when we ought to be finding out about food values. We are taught algebra, calculus and other higher forms of mathematics which we never use, and are left in ignorance of the body's effect on the mind and the mind's effect on the body. We are taught languages though we may never get out of our own home town. We are taught how to conjugate verbs, and to differentiate between the penult and the ante-penult, but are kept in the dark as to the deepest desires of our natures, the sex in- stinct, the craving for a mate, and love. We are taught everything except what we need to know. Everything that is impracticable, theo- retical and ethereal is put into the curriculum. 180 HOW TO STAY YOUNG The things we need to know to save us from terrors, tragedy, shame and failure are left out. Every human being longs to stay young. Yet the simple, certain rules by which he could do so are never given to him. The world was a long time in formulating these rules because the law by which youth can be perpetuated is both physical and meta- physical. Many things stay young. Why not you? Last summer I saw in the Redwood forests of California thousands of trees that had stood there since before Christ, trees that had seen the seasons come and go before Nero was born, that had waved their branches toward the Golden Gate before Cleopatra's time. Is it unreasonable, in the face of such facts, to anticipate the time when man, the highest thinking creature, shall control to a great ex- tent the length of his own existence? The average person who breathes deeply of fresh air gets three new pairs of lungs every year. A stomach that is not overloaded nor abused renews itself at least twice a year. This is true of every other abdominal organ. The skin is completely renewed every 181 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY month, the heart, brain and nervous systems every ninety days. When the law of perpetual renewal is not violated, when we think right, expect youth and live up to the laws of health, there is no knowing to what length man may not perpet- uate his youth. The feeling that we are growing old comes from the belief that we have that much less time in which to live, whereas science has proven that the years do not produce age. The consciousness of age is therefore nothing more or less than a consciousness of the pass- ing of time. Conditions which have produced age are abnormal instead of natural, and can only be removed by the development of a new con- sciousness. This new consciousness must be based upon the realization of what is really true in nature and its processes in the human system. The most important of these are the proc- esses of perpetual renewal and of present cre- ation. The first rebuilds the entire human sys- tem during every ten or eleven months, thus keeping the body physically young. The sec- ond process creates in the system all those con- ditions of which the mind is conscious. When 182 HOW TO STAY YOUNG your mind is conscious of this second process you know that there is no other time in na- ture but the now. To live absolutely in the now is to be conscious only of what is true in the now, and it is true that every cell in man is momentarily being recreated. By living in the belief that we are growing older every year, man has given a standing order to his subconscious to keep him re- minded of his advancing years, to make him look older and feel older every year. Every person is doing this through the force of habit race habit. He has been training his sub* conscious mind toward producing old age. The entire universe is constantly renewing itself. Nothing is fixed, nothing is the same today that it was yesterday. All is change, and the purpose of this change is to make all things new at all times. Every force in nature is working to counter- act old age. Every movement of every muscle has youth and progress in view. You must train your mind to perpetually renew itself. This may be promoted by train- ing every process of thinking to form new thought, better thought, greater thought about everything. 183 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY That is why I urge you to keep up with the times. Today's thought on any subject should be new as compared to the thought of yesterday. Every idea should be an improve- ment upon the corresponding idea of last week. Every conception formed by youi mind today on any subject should be finer, higher and better than the previous concep- tion. People get old because they think "old thoughts", the same thoughts they have thought for years. No new brain cells are vitalized under this procedure. No new asso- ciation centers are organized. This means brain-atrophy. Nature's workings do not produce the con- ditions of age. These conditions are pro- duced by man's refusal to lend himself to the renewing processes of nature. People who have passed through many experiences of many kinds consider themselves old and worn because we look upon experience as a wear- ing process instead of a renewing process. To stay young train your mind to use every experience, that is, every association center, for the awakening of more mental power. When we have trained ourselves to think of every experience as a developing, enlarging 184 HOW TO STAY YOUNG process we will no longer grow old from ex- perience, but will rather capitalize it and let it teach us how to stay young. Every experience tends to produce an im- pression on the mind. Whether that impres- sion is ageing or revivifying depends on the mental attitude toward the experience while the impression was being made. Simply to "pass thru" an experience is to impress your- self with the idea of wear and tear, but to look on every experience as the gateway to larger and larger growth will tend to make that ex- perience, no matter how intense it may be, leave development instead of decay. You must not allow yourself to settle into grooves. Never permit yourself a final con- clusion on anything. Always keep your mind open. No one has any right to final conclu- sions; everything is comparative, nothing is absolute. The fixed ideas of most people are merely thoughts gone to seed. If you have prejudices your mind is ossified. To stay young is natural. We know that because everything in nature is being con- stantly renewed, and is therefore always young. Every condition that is adverse to nature produces age. Whenever your body or mind 185 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY are not working with nature they are working against it. From the time a child first hears about old age his mind begins to work against nature, to take it for granted that he will look old, feel old and be old when he has had a certain num- ber of birthdays. When the inter-dependence of body and mind are better understood, when we have discovered more of nature's physical and men- tal laws, the average life of the individual will be several times what it is today. In order that you may prolong your own life let me give you this final word: Have an absorbing aim in life. If there is something you want to do begin it today regardless of how many years have elapsed since you were born. Expel from your mind the notion that there is a deadline at fifty, sixty, or even ninety. Don't give up your professional or financial ambition just because of your age. Read the biographies of successful men and women and see how many of them made their fame and fortune after middle age. Mark Twain was "dead broke" at sixty and owed more than one hundred thousand dol- lars. In the sixteen years which elapsed after that before his death, he not only repaid every 186 HOW TO STAY YOUNG penny but left a large fortune. Walt Mason, who writes the rippling rhymes you read every morning at breakfast, says: "At forty-three I was a jobless misfit." For some time he has been receiving twenty-five thousand dollars a year for doing the thing he always liked to do, but which he had never before tried to cap- italize. You are never too old to start over. If you start at what you like to do, it alone will per- petuate your youth. Seneca said, "Man does not die, he kills himself." 187 CHAPTER V HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY "The difference between you and the well- informed man you envy is that he remembers things and you don't." THORNDYKE. HE subject of memory is fascinat- ing because so much depends upon it. Without memory all the knowl- edge of the ages would be worth- less. Without your own memories you could not know who you are. You would not know your name. You would not know how to find your way home or recognize your own children. You would not know, but for this faculty, how to walk, how to read, how to speak, how to carry food to your mouth, how to dress yourself. Memory is the thing that determines identity. Without memory you would be helpless, ignorant, hopeless. The success of each hour depends to a great degree on profiting by pre- vious experience. Without memory you 188 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY would make the same mistakes indefinitely. Without memory you could never learn any- thing. But for memory you would appear to be an imbecile. The importance of a good memory can scarcely be exaggerated. Socially, the man who can tell a good story, relate the details of an experience and give illustrations, is always sought after. In domestic life the failure to remember birthdays and anniversaries has pre- cipitated more than one divorce. Every house- wife knows to what a surprising extent suc- cessful home-making depends on remembering the little things that must be looked after. In business, references, dates, statistics, facts, conversations and legal points, must be stored in the memory if a man would succeed. He must keep his appointments. He must know not only his own business but the business of his competitor, and remember all manner of details in the running of his own business. In the professions it is equally important. Phy- sicians, dentists, lawyers, engineers, lecturers and others, succeed largely in proportion to their ability to remember. What do we mean by memory? We mean a mental picture. These mental pictures hang- ing in the gallery of your mind are all that 189 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY connect you with the person you were yester- day. The things you remember from today are all that can identify you with the person you will be tomorrow. Memory may be likened to a preserving fluid which correlates the various elements of the personality and keeps them aware of each other. But for the memories you have of yourself yesterday you might have been a piece of furniture, a horse or a street car. It is this cord called memory which ties to- gether the billions of thoughts and experiences of your past and organizes them into groups called association centers. Around each event of your life it has grouped the various inci- dents related to it; around the most important ones it has built memories of everything and everybody who was connected with it at the time. With such perfection has the intricate system been constructed that the mention of one of the smallest elements will bring to mind the central figure. Step by step the wires of memory's marvelous telegraph system trace back in the order in which the events oc- curred, and in an instant they are at the source. Whenever you recall anything, this has happened in your mind. 190 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY The problem in memory training is to learn how to start the associations which will awak- en the desired memories. You see the truth of this a dozen times a day. The sight of so insignificant a thing as a pin may suddenly bring back to you the recollection of where you placed an impor- tant parcel weeks ago. Because it all hap- pens so quickly, you imagine your mind jumped from the pin to the parcel in one leap, but if you could slow down the wheels of your mental machinery as the movie man slows down the picture when they put to- gether again the house that has been blown up, you would see that your mind took dozens of logical steps back over the ground. The pin subconsciously reminded you of some- thing which in its turn reminded you of other things, and these reminded you of others, and so on, back to the parcel. It almost seems in such cases that something breaks through the obstruction, and from there on the path is easy. Most speakers declare they select a word as a key to whole paragraphs and pages. By keeping this key word in mind everything else follows in a procession. 191 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Trying to recall by the force of will is never the best method. When you have need for remembering something, relax the body and mind as completely as possible. Avoid con- centrating on anything. Not always, but in most instances, it will find the scent and fol- low it back to the thing you want. Going back to the place where you last re- member having a thing will often start the train of memories of what you did with it from that point onward. It is now known that the best way to help a witness remember accurately is to take him back where the events transpired. People who in the court room remember nothing, sud- denly remember all the details when they re- turn to the spot. The notion that to have at one's tongue's end masses of dates, numbers, statistics and facts in order to prove his intelligence is not only erroneous but dangerous. We all have today many more of these than we have any need for. The aim of this lesson, therefore, is not to teach you how to become a human encyclo- paedia, but to give you the rules whereby you may cultivate the kind of memory which will be of practical aid to you in your life. 192 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY If you could learn and remember all the facts of history, science, art, everything that has ever occurred since the beginning of time, it would be of no service to you save as you applied it to your own problems. No amount of information is valuable to you unless it enters into your thinking, unless it can be used in the form of judgments and conclusions. Therefore, the first rule I have for you is this: Do not try to remember everything. Never try to remember anything which you cannot use or which you can see no oppor- tunity for using in the future. You have only a certain amount of mental energy. When this is being centered on re- membering unnecessary things, you do not have as good a memory for the things which are important to you. The first step in gain- ing a good memory is to gain a good "for- getter." Deliberately refuse to open your conscious- ness to irrelevant, isolated or unessential things. When they come into your life in spite of this, deliberately forget them. Don't allow them to stay and clutter up your mind. The average mind is like a huge attic, filled with the debris of the past, jammed with 193 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY broken furniture, the cracked dishes, the tat- tered accessories of the years behind us. In- stead of building a bonfire of them, eliminat- ing them from our lives, we strain to retain them, and when some valueless remnant is missing, if you fail to recall a date or a name from those dead years, you consider your memory is failing. Make up your mind that you are not going to allow yourself to remember the things which can do you no good; that you are go- ing to reserve all of your mental capacity for storing away the information, facts and data that are necessary to your individual needs and to your particular line of work. Life is short. To make yours a success you have got to be a specialist. But concentrating your actions on a certain specialty will never make an expert of you, unless you also con- centrate your thoughts on it. I do not mean that you should become nar- now. But this will not make you narrow. The ramifications, highways and byways of knowledge, into which every specialty will lead you, will preclude narrowness. But I want you to organize your life. To do that you must make every mental faculty work toward your big aim in life. 194 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY One of the most important is memory. Your memory is the servant that must gather together all ingredients of your knowledge, training and education on your specialty. If she spends a large percentage of her time gathering data on matters you will never use, you will not go as far in your line as if you kept her at work on the one big subject. The man who wishes to become a success- ful lawyer does not spend half his time in a medical school. To be sure, he finds it neces- sary sometimes to know something about the science of medicine, but when that time comes he studies only those phases of therapeutics which he needs in his law practice. He does not waste time delving into the whole science. Whether you have such a profession in view or not, you have a specialty. That specialty is to make a success of your life. To make a success of your life your mind must lay successful plans. It cannot do this if you make of it merely a card index system, if you reduce it to the position of a file clerk. Make up your mind what you are going to do with the years that are ahead of you, then make everything in your life, directly or in- directly, serve that one aim. Think of your life as a wheel and make everything build to- 195 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY ward your one aim as the spokes run into the hub. One of the first essentials in this direction is the right kind of reading. Never, except for relaxation, devote your precious time and your priceless brain cells to reading what you cannot use. Acquire the best books and magazines on your chosen specialty. Keep your eyes open as you pass news stands for special articles in other magazines. Having done this, learn the second step, how to get everything important out of an article, a chapter or a book in the shortest time. If you are thoroughly interested in this specialty of yours you will soon develop a sur- prising alertness for relevant material. Your eye will soon be able to gather the kernel from a page at a glance. For every grain of wheat there is much chaff. Learn to lift that grain of wheat the instant you glance at a page. While we are on the subject of Interest, I will give you the four stages, or ancestors, of Memory. They are: Desire Interest Attention Memory 196 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY What we truly desire, we are interested in. We are interested in everything concerning it. Desire, therefore, is the mother of Interest; Interest is the mother of Attention, for we give our attention to that in which we are in- terested. Attention is the secret of Memory. You remember the things to which you give concentrated attention. The lack of attention , is responsible for what you call your "poor memory." But it is not that you have forgotten. You cannot forget a thing you never knew. If you fail to give it your attention you never know it. I know a woman in an unusual profession. Owing to the fact that it is a new profession. little is printed concerning it. But this woman manages to find all the articles, stories and pamphlets on that subject. She does not do this by giving all of her time to searching for them. She is busy 12 hours of every 24 in the actual performance of her profession, but so intense is her interest in it that she spies titles and headings instantaneously as she dashes past news stands, the windows of book stores or any other places. She has trained her interest upon that one subject for so long that 197 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY it ferrets out and draws to her masses of in- formation, statistics, etc. Not only her eyes, but her ears, have been trained as under-servants to Interest. She may be sitting in the last row of a great audi- ence, but if the speaker happens to make even the slightest mention, in the most indirect way, of anything pertaining to her work, she catches every word, the author's name, the subject of the article and everything else which the speaker refers to in connection with it This woman makes a practice of keeping her mind clear for the things necessary to her progress as the head of her profession. She does not fill her mental house with neighbors, friends, distant relatives and skeletons. She keeps plenty of spare rooms ready for visit- ors, the new thoughts and ideas of her pro- fession, which may happen along. Tune your attention to catch the things that are vital to you. Self-interest is the mother of Desire. You always remember best that which is to your interest. You can in fact teach yourself al- most anything if it is of sufficient importance in your scheme of things. This was amus- 198 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY ingly illustrated to me in Chicago a few years ago. A boy stood at the entrance of a huge din- ing room and took every man's hat. He gave no checks and employed nothing to aid him in remembering to which man each hat be- longed. The men did not come out in the order in which they went in. They wandered out by ones and twos during the course of the next two hours. Though there were over 200 hats he did not make one mistake. Every man was given his own hat. I asked him how he did it. He told me that he did not have more than an average memory when he became a hat boy. "But," he said, "I tried trusting to my memory just to see what I could do. It's lonesome standing around here with nothing to do but take hats. After a little while I told the other boys what I could do. They made bets with me that I couldn't. I had to win the bets and after that I began to have a reputation as 'the boy with the wonderful memory.' To live up to it I had to improve my memory, and when I casu- ally mentioned to a man the date on which he was here last, he was flattered and gave me a larger tip. The more I remember the more I make." 199 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY This boy's case is a simple illustration of how self-interest is back of memory. In the case of the woman it is more complex but equally true. Freud, whose writings have advanced the science of the subconscious during the past few years, says, in his "Psychopathology of Everyday Life/' page 45: "I observed that of a great number of professional calls I never forgot any that I was to make on colleagues." Our interest in friends and contemporaries is always greater than that in strangers. It is also closely linked with self-interest. Dr. Ernest Jones maintains that we all have a tendency to forget whatever brings unpleas- ant associations. "In my own life/' he de- clared, "I have on numerous occasions forgot- ten appointments with patients who were very tedious and uninteresting." If you doubt that interest produces atten- tion and attention produces memory, notice with what vividness you recall the dress, the colors and every detail worn by one of the opposite sex after you have become interested in them. Note also your inability to remem- ber what he or she wore on the occasions be- fore your interest was aroused. 200 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY You give your attention to that in which you are truly interested. You will remember that to which you have been induced to give concentration. Edgar James Swift in his "Psychology and the Day's Work," relates a story told by Al Jennings, about how he forced a district attor- ney to fix his attention upon a wrong date in order to establish an alibi for one of his crimes. Jennings and his gang robbed a train on October 1. The next day, October 2, Jen- nings walked into the office of the district at- torney and said: ' 'I've been hearing a lot of fool talk about my robbing trains and going on the dodge. I'm tired of it. I intend to sur- render, face the music, and clear myself. I've a few things to settle up first, then I'm coming in. This is October 1st; two weeks from to- day, October 15th, I'll return. Have your officers ready.' And as I left his office I re- peated: " 'Make a note of it this is October 1st, and I'm coming back on the 15th.' " ' 'According to expectations, Pittman was so excited at seeing me and hearing of my in- tentions that the date impressed itself on his 201 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY mind only as an inconsequential detail. He never thought to look it up at the time, and when I had use for him it was fixed in his mind wrong. "Going to the saloon of Ike Renfrew, I got him to send for Bob Motley, the sheriff, my father, and my brother John. Motley was my friend; I knew he wouldn't arrest me without a warrant. To them I talked just as I had to Pitt man, getting the false date October 1st into their minds. No one thought to verify my statement of the date. This made a per- fect alibi, for the robbery had occurred eighty miles away on noon of October 1st.' ' Some scientists maintain that nothing we have ever known, heard, read or experienced ever passes entirely out of the mind. They maintain that everything you see or hear is filed away in the storehouse of the subcon- scious. Swift relates the three following cases, which go far to substantiate this theory: "A young woman of four or five and twenty, who could neither read nor write, was seized with a nervous fever, during which, ac- cording to the statements of all the priests and monks of the neighborhood, she became pos- sessed, and, as it appeared, by a very learned 202 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY devil. She continued incessantly talking Lat- in, Greek, and Hebrew, in very pompous tones and with most distinct enunciation . . . The case had attracted the particular atten- tion of a young physician, and by his state- ment many eminent physiologists and psychol- ogists had visited the town and made cross- examinations. Sheets full of her ravings were taken down from her own mouth, and were found to consist of sentences, coherent and intelligible each for itself, but with little or no connection with each other. Of the He- brew, a small portion only could be traced to the Bible; the remainder seemed to be in the Rabbinical dialect. "All trick or conspiracy was out of the question. Not only had the young woman ever been a harmless, simple creature, but she was evidently laboring under a nervous fever. . . . "The young physician determined to trace her past life step by step. . . . He, at length succeeded in discovering the place where her parents had lived . . . and learned from an uncle that the patient had been charitably taken by an old Protestant pastor at nine years of age and had remained with him some years. . . . 203 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY "Anxious inquiries were then, of course, made concerning the pastor's habits; and the solution of the phenomenon was soon ob- tained. For it appeared that it had been the old man's custom for years to walk up and down a passage of his house into which the kitchen opened, and to read to himself with a loud voice out of his favorite books . . . "Among the books were found a collection of Rabbinical writings, together with several of the Greek and Latin fathers; and the phy- sician succeeded in identifying so many pas- sages with those taken down at the young woman's bedside, that no doubt could remain in any rational mind concerning the true origin of the impressions made on her ner- vous system." "One of the amazing features of this case, if correctly reported, is that the woman could not have understood any of the sentences which she heard and afterward repeated." Your subconscious is the treasure vault of memory. In it is doubtless stored every ex- perience thru which you have ever passed. But you have lost the combination. In this lesson I am going to teach you that combination. A good memory is yours for 204 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY the making, but no one can make it for you. I shall show you how; then you must do it yourself. The "flash of inspiration" as the lawyer calls the brilliant thought that wins him his case, does not come from something outside himself. It rises to the surface from the depths of his subconscious ocean. Swift goes on to say: "There are various ways in which lost' memories may disclose themselves. Not infrequently those accus- tomed to follow trails through dense woods are unable to recall the paths or direction that they took to reach their destination. Yet, several years later, when they again set out upon the same trip, the journey is a contin- uous succession of familiar objects and vistas. Here half a dozen trails cross; but a stone or tree, or some other familiar object, indicates the route, though so far as the traveller is aware he gave no unusual attention to these landmarks when he first took the trip. But more striking instances are sometimes ob- served. "William B. Carpenter has given an inter- esting case which shows how experiences of childhood may be impressed and conserved though the 'memory' reveals nothing of them. 205 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Later, when a part of the same childhood's experience is again witnessed, the entire scene, in all its details, is reproduced as a vision. " 'Several years ago,' says Carpenter, 'The Reverend S. Hansard, now rector of Bethnal Green, was doing clerical duty for a time at Hurstmonceaux, in Sussex; and while there he one day went over with a party of friends to Pevensey Castle, which he did not remem- ber ever to have previously visited. As he approached the gateway he became conscious of a very vivid impression of having seen it before; and he 'seemed to himself to see' not only the gateway itself, but the donkeys beneath the arch, and people on the top of it. His conviction that he must have visited the castle on some former occasion although he had neither the slightest remembrance of such a visit nor any knowledge of having been in the neighborhood before going to Hurstmonceaux made him inquire from his mother whether she could throw any light on the matter. She at once informed him that, being in that part of the country when he was about eighteen months old, she had gone over with a large party, and had taken him in the pan- 206 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY nier of a donkey; that the elders of the party having brought lunch with them had eaten it on the roof of the gateway, where they would have been seen from below, while he had been left on the ground with the attendants and donkeys.' " In all courts much depends on the testi- mony of witnesses. Many a man has been hanged on the testimony of another whose memory was inaccurate. Numberless men and women have been disgraced for life by the stories of those who thought they were telling the truth, but whose memories were not good. For the best illustration of this in psychological literature, it is necessary to turn again to Swift. He says: "A few years ago the writer's attention was directed to a rather remarkable criminal trial. In 1871 Alexander Jester started east from Kansas in a light spring wagon with canvas top, drawn by two small pony horses. While fording a stream near Emporia, as the horses were drinking, he fell into conversa- tion with Gilbert Gates, a young man who was returning from homesteading land in Kansas. Young Gates was travelling in what was then known as a prairie-schooner drawn by a pair of heavy horses. Jester had three 207 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY young deer in his wagon, and Gates a buffalo calf. They decided to travel together and give exhibitions with their animals to meet ex- penses. When they reached Paris, Missouri, Gates had disappeared. "Jester's explanation, at the preliminary hearing, was that he became homesick and sold his outfit to him that he might hasten home by rail. "Jester was seen leaving Paris driving Gates' heavy team with his own lighter team tied behind. Later he sold the heavy horses and various other articles known to have be- longed to Gates, but which he claimed were purchased. "It is not the purpose of the writer to decide the merits of the case, but rather to call atten- tion to certain exceedingly interesting psycho- logical features. "Jester was soon arrested but escaped, and was not brought to trial until 1901. Thirty years had therefore passed since the events concerning which witnesses were called upon to testify. Besides, there was a blinding snow-storm at the time when the crime was supposed to have been committed; and, of course, this would have interfered with ac- curate observation. Further, when the wit- 208 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY nesses 'saw' the things which they related they were not aware that a crime had been committed. "Two preliminary questions thus suggest themselves: First, would any one note, as carefully as the subsequent testimony indi- cated, the peculiarities of a chance traveller on the road, especially in a blinding snow- storm, and at a time when no reason existed, so far as known, for unusual observation? Second, would observers, under these circum- stances, be likely to remember, after a lapse of thirty years, the minute details of what they had seen? The incidents were of the unimportant, uninteresting sort that were fre- quently experienced at that time. Even the prairie-schooner could hardly have been ex- ceptional enough to attract special attention, since, as will be seen later, one of the wit- nesses was taking his wedding-trip on horse- back, with his wife behind him on the same horse. But let us turn to the testimony. "When the trial was held, two women de- scribed the size and color of all the horses, the harness of the heavy team, the figure and appearance of Jester height, a little over six feet, weight about one hundred and eighty 209 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY pounds, with a hook-nose, gray eyes, power- ful physique, and large hands. "They further testified that, looking into the first wagon as it approached, they saw lying in the bottom the outlines of a human form with a buffalo-robe thrown over it; and they gave this testimony confidently, thirty years after the crime, notwithstanding they were twelve and fourteen years of age, re- spectively, when the events transpired, and though they were riding at a canter in the face of a heavy snow-storm, with veils tied over their faces, and the horses which they met were traveling at a fast trot when they passed in the storm. "A farmer swore that the buffalo-robe was covered with blood, and still another witness that, while helping Jester start his wagon, the canvas blew back and he saw the body of a man with his throat cut. The description of the body was that of young Gates. "A man who had just been married, and was taking his wife behind him on his horse to their new home, described the horses attached to each wagon, the wagons, and the dog; and this in spite of the fact that his own horse was going at the 'single foot' gait, that Jes- ter's horses were trotting past, that it was 210 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY snowing hard, and that, being on his honey- moon, other thoughts and interests would seem to be occupying his mind. "A man of thirty-six, who consequently was six years of age at the time of the crime, tes- tified that later, during the thaw and heavy rains of spring, he and his father saw the body of a young man of eighteen or twenty years of age floating down the stream. He de- scribed the color of his hair and complexion, and said that he had on a blue-checked shirt and blue overalls. His description of the shirt agreed with that of Mrs. Gates of a shirt which she had made for her son. "It is interesting to note, in this connection, that neither the father of the six-year-old boy nor the girls who saw the outlines of a human form in the wagon, nor the man who helped start Jester off, said anything about their ob- servations until Gates' disappearance and Jester's arrest had been published. "It is quite evident that, whatever the merits of the case, the testimony of these witnesses, after a lapse of thirty years, was amazingly exact. Yet it would be unfair to assume that they were dishonest. All of those from whose testimony we have quoted 211 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY were people of good standing in the com- munity. They could be relied upon both in word and deed. The attorney for the defense, in the case speaks in the highest terms of these witnesses. They were among the best peo- ple of Monroe County/ he says. They want- ed to be truthful, and they were very friendly to me, entertaining me over night when I was looking up evidence preparatory to the trial/ "What then was the explanation of their remarkable exactness, even in the smallest and in some instances least noticeable and least interesting details? The key to the mys- tery lies in the way in which the case was worked up, in the publicity that it received, and in human psychology. "After Jester's final arrest, Pinkerton de- tectives were employed and seven or eight leading criminal lawyers of Missouri and Chi- cago were engaged to assist the prosecution. The detectives, as they secured one fact after another, culminated the information by sug- gestive questions and statements to those with whom they conversed. When, for example, a prospective witness said that there was a buf- falo-robe in the wagon the detectives would ask if it covered the outlines of a human form. 212 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY The man would think it likely, and soon that it did. "Of course the case was featured in the county newspapers. It was a first-class news story. Pictures were published, pictures of Jester and Gates, pictures of the horses and wagons, pictures of the dog, and pictures of scenes in the chain of events leading to the alleged crime. The pictures were based on what witnesses said they saw, and what the detectives said they must have seen, and no reportorial imagination whatever was lacking. The clothing of Gates was described, the ar- ticles he had with him enumerated, the facts to which certain witnesses would swear were told to other witnesses and reported in the newspapers. Indeed, all the events of the crime as it was conceived by witnesses, re- porters, and detectives were portrayed and described with much the effect of a moving- picture representation, until fact and fiction were indistinguishable. "It is a well-known principle of psychology that if you tell a man something often enough he finally accepts it; and as he continually repeats it, even as a possible fact, it ends by becoming firmly fixed. Then he believes that he saw or heard it. 213 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY "We must not forget that all this happened thirty years after the events. The undetected vagueness of memory-details of the .witnesses furnished a fertile soil for the growth of imag- inary pictures. The attempt to see faces in the moon is comparable to their experience. With a dim outline, or a sketch with several possibilities, there is always a strong tendency to fill in the outlines, usually with what is in one's mind. As an illustration, ask a group of persons to indicate the kind of a figure six which is upon their watch-dial. They will be found to divide between VI and 6. A few, whose memory is more accurate than that of the others, recalling that the figures take their line of direction from the center of the dial, will write the figure upside down. All, ex- cept those to whose attention the peculiarity has already been called, will 'remember' see- ing the figure. Yet, in watches with a second- hand there is no six. "Despite the best intentions of truthful peo- ple, there are many ways in which the mem- ory may be disturbed without the individual being aware of the alteration; and a brief ref- erence to some of the causes of these memory distortions will reveal the fickleness of this reproducer of past experiences. These altera- 214 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY tions of memory have a bearing upon reports of events given either as sworn testimony or in social intercourse, and all are intimately re- lated to the psychology of the day's work. "One of the causes of unintentional per- version of memory is the constant talk that an exciting occurrence produces. There is al- ways a tendency to say what we wish might have happened. This is especially true when we ourselves participated in the events. 'The most frequent source of false memory/ says James, 'is the accounts we give to others of our experiences. Such accounts we almost al- ways make both more simple and more inter- esting than the truth. We quote what we should have said or done rather than what we really said or did; and in the first telling we may be fully aware of the distinction. But, ere long, the fiction expels the reality from memory and reigns in its stead alone/ It is not necessary, however, that we be partici- pants in the events. The tendency to enlarge upon a story is human. So strong is this in- clination that if there is nothing unusual in the occurrence the story-teller transforms the common into the uncommon. This is especi- ally true when the marvelous is involved. Man is saturated with the mysterious.' " 215 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY The explanation of the exaggerated testi- mony given by these witnesses in the Jester trial is one which applies more or less to every one. We are all inclined to let memory trick us into believing we really saw what we wish we had seen. If we see only a small part of a great catastrophe, such as a fire or an acci- dent, the desire of the mind to have seen it all will incline even the most truthful person to believe next day that he saw a little more of it than he really did. If he recounts the oc- currence, adding the scenes which he failed to see but which he heard others describe, the day after that he will almost believe he saw them himself. If he has occasion to repeat the narration many times, a week later the aver- age person will be telling the whole story as though he saw all of it. This will be especially true if no moral issue is involved and no harm done to any one by the exaggeration. A month later you would have a hard time con- vincing him that he didn't see it all. The gaps between the scenes he actually did see would be by that time so perfectly filled in by the mental pictures which his own talking had painted, that he could not distinguish clearly between them. 216 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY A young man of my acquaintance saw a runaway horse dashing down the street with no driver in the wagon. Around the corner, a block away and entirely out of sight, the driver, who had been thrown from the wagon, was describing in a sensational way his col- lison with another vehicle, how the horse be- came frightened, how he tried to keep con- trol of him and how he was finally thrown out. The young man who had seen only the horse, came up just in time to hear the man giving these descriptions. So vividly did he describe them, and so much did the young man regret not seeing them, that next after- noon he told a group of his friends about the affair, beginnng at the beginning and making himself a witness to the entire accident. He was not ordinarily an untruthful young man, but he was young. In youth we all long to participate in thrilling, sensational, myster- ious adventures. Desire, which figures prom- inently in all memory, was so great in this young man that he believed he actually had seen the runaway from the time it started. In recollecting anything, we are inclined to think of what we wish had happened, to place 217 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY the interpretations we prefer on events. In a little while we find it impossible to dis- tinguish between what actually occurred and our thoughts about what might have occur- red. To be sure, wishes, desires, preferences con- trol our interpretations of every event of life to a far greater extent than we realize. What psychologists call a retroactive memory some- times steps in and fulfills these hopes in our minds. Thinking of what we wish we had done on a certain occasion, we think that action into our series of memories. The mind also has a habit of transposing our experiences and inserting them in the chronological order in which we wish they had transpired. For instance, witnesses often testify to having examined the spot where the murder was committed. In their testimony they insert their examination after the crime, for that lends a more dramatic element to the story. Bias, prejudice, preference of all kinds blind us to details opposed to those prejudices. Often we do not intentionally shut out these details. They are shut out for us by that little doorkeeper of our subconscious mind, "At- 218 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY tention." Let two people hear a lecture, one disliking, the other liking the speaker. On the way home the one who was fond of the speaker will refer to the pleasing manners, the attractive dress, the charming personality and distinct voice which won him in the first place. The other will be unable to remember these points, even though the efforts of the speaker in these directions were so great as to be apparent to everyone else. The same is true of the arguments brought forth. De- bates and political rallies significantly illus- trate how we see what we wish to see, hear what we wish to hear, and forget the rest. A Republican and a Democrat go together to a Democratic meeting. Next day the Dem- ocrat will recall only those points and inci- dents which aided the Democratic side. The Republican will have forgotten them, but will distinctly remember any misstatements or de- rogatory incidents. Hearing these two men describe the evening's events you would never guess they were describing the same rally. To a man who wishes to believe a thing, every small incident is significant evidence, just as, to him who does not wish to believe it, nothing is sufficient to make it seem true. The psychology of college debates years 219 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY ago convinced me of this. Whether our team won or lost, we remembered only the good points it had made, those places where it dis- tinguished itself, those refutations in which it was most brilliant. If one of our speak- ers achieved a moment of real victory we recounted it with such fervor that to our lis- teners it out-weighed the adverse decision of the judges. In fact we almost forgot that the decision went against us. How hard it was to recall the telling points made by the oppos- ing team! For the life of us, and in all sin- cerity, we couldn't remember one of them! Memory keeps green the pictures of our tri- umphs, unless the individual is inclined to morbidity, and then it keeps alive the inci- dents in which he failed. In either case, how- ever, it is the same law of desire in operation. The morbid individual prefers to recall the unpleasant. He gets a kind of pleasure from his own suffering. The forgetting of anything to which one has given attention at the time of its occur- rence is often due to a subconscious desire to forget it. No matter how much you con- centrate your attention on the name of a man at the time he is introduced to you, you are likely to forget it if, after being introduced to 220 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY him, you form a dislike for him. If, in the back of your mind, you prefer not to know him you probably will not know him the next time you meet him. If you are given unpleasant tasks to per- form, such as mailing your wife's letters, no impression she can make on your mind will be as vivid as those connected with pleasant tasks. Everything which evokes painful feel- ings is more easily forgotten than those which bring pleasant ones. An engagement you pre- fer not to keep is the one you actually forget. I will now give you the three fundamental laws of memory in their order: Attention Association Repetition When you have decided that you wish to re- member a thing, that it is conducive to your interests to keep it in mind, give it your un- divided attention. Turn the lens of your men- tal camera, of which I told you in a previous lesson, directly on the thing you wish to re- member. Close the shutter until your mind is focused directly and exclusively on that one thing. Keep it there for the space of an instant, then tie it up mentally with some- 221 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY thing else associate it with something, re- late it to something already in your life. For instance, if you are reading an important fact in a trade magazine, get the fact clearly in mind. Then do not leave it isolated, but de- cide then and there in what connection you will probably make use of that idea. It may be of help to you for me to use here a personal illustration. I have in my reper- toire over sixty lectures. Not a sentence in one of these sixty lectures is memorized, yet I am never at a loss. I am always being asked how I accomplish it. It is not difficult, I was not born with more than average memory powers. In fact I was often im- pressed as a child with the deficiency of my memory. After several years of newspaper work in which I relied on notes exclusively, giving my memory little to do, I found my- self unable to remember names, faces, dates or events. At about this time I entered pub- lic work, the two chief requirements of which were that I remember names and faces and make interesting, accurate, extemporaneous speeches. Later in this lesson I will tell you how I mastered the memory for names and faces, but just now I want to tell you how I mastered the lectures. 222 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY Knowing that my future success in life de- pended largely on the success I made of this work, the first element, that of self-interest, was present. The second element, desire, was there because I very much wanted to do that particular work. This, as always, gave rise to the third stage, interest in my sub- ject. No matter where I was, what I was doing, with whom I was talking, that interest was never out of mind. To get new angles on my subjects I induced people to talk about them and I read every- thing I could find on such subjects. When a remark or a sentence struck me as being val- uable I gave it such white heat concentration that I literally burned it into my mind. But I did not stop at that. I decided then and there in which lecture I would use that idea. Not only that, I decided under which heading in the lecture that particular idea belonged. I visualized myself saying it; I pictured the effect on my audience. I heard in my mind the sentence with which I would introduce it, and something of the words with which I should clothe the idea itself. With that I left it, trusting my memory absolutely to remind me of it at that particular point in that lec- ture. On the day of the lecture I went over 223 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY in my mind the respective sections. These ideas invariably came to my mind and came out in my speech that evening as smoothly as those I had expressed before. Remember that all memory is a series of related pictures, and to be sure of remember- ing anything you must connect it arbitrarily or otherwise with something you already have. The content of your mind is like a commun- ity in which every person is related directly or indirectly to some other. Whenever you wish to remember a new idea you must marry it to some of these friends or it will get away from you. If there is something you wish to remem- ber to do connect it with something by decid- ing the time or place when you will do it. Tell your mind to remind you, when you reach a certain spot opposite the postof&ce, to turn in and mail the letters. When you get opposite the postoffice the sight of that par- ticular spot will usually remind you of the errand. The importance of association is proven in this: That your knowledge about anything, no matter what it is, is merely a knowledge that it is like something else or different from something else. 224 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY One of the most important laws of memory is that of habit. In obedience to this law, the first idea to enter your mind after you see a certain thing will be the one you have most frequently associated it with in the past. The sight of a flower will bring to your mind the fragrance of that flower. The fragrance will bring the thought of perfumes, and this will bring to mind the perfume you are in the habit of using. The word "coffee" will sug- gest to each individual the particular cup of coffee he is in the habit of having. The men- tion of buying a home would bring to your mind the particular addition or neighborhood which you have been in the habit of visualiz- ing as the site of your future home; "shoes" will bring to the mind the particular make you have been buying lately; "tires" will remind you of the brand you are in the habit of using. It is well known that typists or pianists who have learned one system of fingering find it difficult to change because each letter or note is associated with a certain movement of a certain finger. Habit has so welded them to- gether that when one enters the mind the other responds automatically. The law of association expresses itself to 225 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY you a hundred times a day. "Henry Ford" brings to your mind the picture of a little automobile. The word "home" brings to each of you a different picture, the picture with which it is associated in your mnd. When I say "Cream of Wheat" you see the smiling face of a negro waiter. When I say "Y. M. C. A." you see a red triangle, and when I say "Y. W. C. A.," a blue one. Because all of these have been associated in your mind you cannot think of one without thinking of the other. Here is an exercise which will show you what I mean: Memory and brains brains and head head and headache headache and doctor doctor and medicine medicine and bottle bottle and wine. You can remember instantly that I used the word "medicine." You also recall whether or not I used the word "woman." Repetition under the right conditions is the third step in perfecting the memory. I say "right conditions" because it is now an ac- cepted fact that mere repetition, unless cou- pled with interest, does not make one remem- ber. Do not attempt to cultivate your memory 226 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY by "memorizing a few lines each day." It has been shown that no amount of such me- chanical gymnastics improves the memory. Save your mental strength for the many things for which you will have some actual use in your daily life, and to which you find it easy to give attention. That children have better memories than adults is an exploded theory. Many investi- gations have been made by the most careful scientists with the result that it is now main- tained that the capacity to remember every- thing of importance in an individual's life im- proves throughout his life up to the time when his mental powers in general begin to decline. Children excel in rote-learning only, and this because they are accustomed to that par- ticular kind of memory work. Adults remember with greater facility than children for several reasons. First, they have greater ability for concentrating their atten- tion, second, their self-interest is keener, and third, their knowledge with its wealth of asso- ciations, is wider. The capacity for reflection, concentration and ambition varies with the individual, but adults have on the whole greater memory powers. 227 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY In cultvating memory it is of the greatest importance to know to what kinds of sensa- tions you respond easiest and quickest. It goes without saying that the particular thing which gets your attention comes to you via the avenue of your most responsive senses. Many people remember best what they see; others remember more clearly what they hear, though the latter are decidedly in the minor- ity. The first are called the "eye-minded," the second, the "ear-minded." I have a friend who can never remember what she must get on a shopping tour, no matter how many times she tells her friends or herself what it is she wishes to purchase; but if she once writes the list of them, she can forget to take it with her, and remember every item. The explanation of this is that she is "eye- minded." No amount of telling or being told can make a clear impression on her mind, but the mental picture of the list is so vivid that the items recur to her in the exact order in which they were written. I have another friend who remembers best what he hears. All people who learn to play musical instruments "by ear" are "ear- minded." 228 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY In reciting a poem which one has memor- ized he usually has each stanza photographed in his mind and reads it aloud to his audience line for line from the page in his memory. This fact explains the ineffectiveness of memorized speeches. The audience is aware of being read to out of the speaker's mem- ory instead of being talked to out of his heart. If you do not know whether you are eye- minded or ear-minded, here are some tests: Can you remember how the breakfast table looked this morning? Can you imagine a street car in motion? Can you picture the distance between the postoffice and your home? If you answer "No" to these ques- tions you are deficient in eye-mindedness. Can you picture a hurricane in motion? Can you remember distinctly the different scenes around your childhood home? After reading an article in the newspaper, have you a keen memory as to where it was located on the page? If you answer "Yes" to these ques- tions you are above the average in eye-mind- edness. Can you, in imagination, hear the telephone bell ringing? Can you remember the voice of a relative you have not met for six months? 229 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY If you answer "No" to these questions you are deficient in ear-mindedness. Can you mentally hear the breathing of a sleeping child? Can you in your mind hear thunder? Can you recall the tones of a selec- tion of music played on the violin? If you answer "Yes" to these questions you are above the average in ear-mindedness. To know whether you are more "ear- minded" or "eye-minded," recall which you remember best, printed words or spoken words. Your memory as explained before, is one of your mental servants. Treat it as you would any other servant of which you ex- pected good service. Your memory is your private secretary, file clerk, office boy, your mental library, all in one. If, upon securing important papers, I sent for my secretary, handed them to her and said, "Here are these papers. I shall want them some time; I do not know when, but some day I shall need them. Here they are. You are inefficient; you always fail me; you never can lay your hands on things when I want them, so I don't suppose you will be able 230 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY to find these when I call for them." In addi- tion to this if I mentioned to a friend sitting beside me, "You know this secretary of mine is worthless; I can't depend on her at all" ... do you think she would produce those papers when I needed them? She might, but the chances are she wouldn't. Memory, like other mental faculties, is re- sponsive to suggestion, and especially to auto- suggestion. If, on the other hand, I said to my secre- tary, "Here are some important papers. I have no idea when I shall need them but the time will come. Put them away and I will let you know. You are such an efficient secretary I know I can depend upon you to produce them when the time comes." If I also said this to my nearby friend in the sec- retary's presence, it would act as a further incentive. Your memory must be treated in exactly the same way. Give it clear, distinct infor- mation. If you are eye-minded, get a clear mental picture of it. If you are ear-minded associate it with sounds or whatever auditory images you prefer. Say to yourself, "I will remember that when I need it. When the 231 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY time comes my memory will know just where to lay her hands on it." Here are the five laws for remembering names and faces: 1. Remember that the memory of names and faces is vital to your success in any line of work, socially or financially. In other words, realize that your self-interest will be greatly subserved if you can recall, on sight, the names of people you have met. This fact is based in a psychological law. Everyone likes to be remembered; it flatters his vanity, it appeals to his ego, and at the same time increases his respect and admira- tion for you. That ego never quite forgives you if you fail to remember his name. 2. When a man is being introduced to you be sure you not only hear his name clearly but know how it is spelled. If there is any doubt in your mind, ask the man himself to pronounce his name for you and spell it for you. Never ask this of the man who has done the introducing. That is a reflection on him. The other man will be glad to tell you because you are discussing the one subject in which he is most interested himself. Of course if his name is Brown it will not 232 HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY be necessary for you to ask him the spelling, for the minute you hear it the little printers in your brain set it up in type and hold it be- fore your mind's eye. But if his name is a long or complicated one, do not consider that you have been introduced to him until you know how he spells it. 3. With the spelling clear in your mind, give your concentrated attention to his face. Look at him, speak to him while you are looking at him and connect the name with that face. If you are ear-minded, it will help if you make him speak to you. Then you will have a voice to associate with the name. 4. Do not keep reminding yourself of his name. Simply file it away in your memory, knowing you will remember it the next time you see him. 5. Whenever you meet him make it a point to address him by name at the begin- ning of your conversation. Your ability to memorize will increase with the demands you make upon it. Rely on your memory. Place yourself in positions where it must save you, and it will do it. Memory is like every other faculty, it de- velops with use. It grows with the demands 233 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY made upon it. It comes to your rescue and reveals its highest powers only in emergen- cies. Two important general laws of mem- ory are: 1. Don't worry about your memory. 2. Never say to anyone, "I have a poor memory." 234 CHAPTER VI HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER The human will, that force unseen, The tribute of a deathless soul, Can hew the way to any goal, Though walls of granite intervene. ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. F I were a fairy godmother and told you I would increase whichever one of your powers you named, you would probably say, "Give me more will power." Most of us feel that we know what we ought to do but think we lack the will power to do it. This is a mistake. Every person who is not feeble-minded has all the will power he needs to accomplish what he sets out to do. What he lacks is the habit of exercising his will power. Every individual of average intelligence has enough will power to accomplish almost any- thing, but he doesn't know it. Will power is human electricity. You have enough of this electricity generated in you to 235 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY achieve the greatest things in life if you would keep the current on. The trouble with us all is that we fail to watch the current. We press the button oc- casionally and have moments of exultation when we feel that nothing is impossible, but we allow our minds to relax. The transcend- ent moment passes and we relapse into the dull feelings of the commonplace. In this lesson I am going to show you how to keep the current on all the time and how to increase it, when necessary, to the highest voltage. If you will follow these instructions you can do what you want to do, you can have what you want to have. You can make the trans- cendent moments permanent. You can be- come a leader, a dominant figure in the place in which you live. You can remake your life. Let me make clear at the outset that I do not promise you can do this in a day. I do not say you can have these rewards for noth- ing. You must pay a price for them. You must pay a big price. But what you will get for that price will be worth to you a thousand times more than it costs. Anything worth having costs. Nothing but 236 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER the undesirable comes free. I will give you the rules; it is up to you to do the rest. Fol- low them with even fifty per cent of faithful- ness and a year from today you will be a changed individual. You will have advanced several rungs in the ladder of success. There will be a conquering gleam in your eyes, more money in your purse, more respect in your soul, and your progress will be noted by all who know you. If you will give even half your application to these laws I promise you that ten years from now you will have made a name for yourself. We all want to be able to apply our will power. The man of strong will is more truly a man than all others. The woman of strong will is a superwoman. They are the rulers of the forces in their own world. They do what they set out to do. They know they have power. They use it to accomplish their aims. They are loved and admired above all others. When you come into contact with them you can fairly feel the force emanating from them. Before giving you the laws for building will power, let me tell you some interesting things about will power. 237 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY All the people in the world can be put into two classes with regard to will: those whose wills are overdeveloped, the impulsive, dare- devil people with an over-supply of will pow- er, and those of under-developed wills. The former have wills so strong they run away with them. The latter have weak wills. The wills of the former are too energetic. The latter are known as the "lazy willed." To be successful you must generate your will power to the point where you have as much as those of the over-active will, but con- trol it instead of letting it control you. You must learn to drive it instead of being driven by it In these two classes are eight different kinds of wills. Read this carefully and decide at the outset which is yours: INACTIVE WILL: Some people glide along through life without taking any real part in it. They do not seem able to stim- ulate themselves or to be stimulated. I have in mind the people who let others decide things for them, who have no fixed purpose and who seem incapable of making decisions. As decision is the first step in will making, these people seem never to have will power. 238 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER Have you noticed that some people evade every critical situation, refuse to accept re- sponsibility? Their aims seem to point in no direction; they refuse to take a stand even with regard to their own affairs. Have you noticed how this kind of person evades, how he sidesteps, how he seems to have no definite ideas or attitudes about things? Have you noticed the kind of person who lets his parents, wife, children or friends de- cide for him, or who waits for circumstances to decide? This is the inactive- willed individ- ual I know of one such young woman who is being pushed here and there like a chessman on the board, first by this person, then by that, because she refuses to assume responsibility. Like all people who wait for the trend of cir- cumstances instead of "trending circumstan- ces" themselves, she never gets anything she wants. He who relies on "circumstances" to bring him what he desires will get from those cir- cumstances only the things he does not de- sire. Very few desirable things happen to the man who waits on chance. To get anything 239 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY worth having you must go after it, keep after it and hunt it down. The crumbs of life are all that fall to him who sits under the table instead of taking his place at the head of the table. If you have a child who is inclined to let you make his decisions for him, start today to compel him to decide some things for him- self. I recently heard a mother say with pride: "I am glad Harold is so obedient. He never decides anything. He leaves it all to me. He does just as I think best in everything. He is a great comfort to me. He is so unlike Mrs. Gregory's boy who can't be dissuaded from what he wants to do." Doubtless Mrs. Gregory envies Harold's mother the peace and comfort she is deriving from her amenable son. But fifteen years from now, if these two boys follow the paths on which they have started, this mother will be envying Mrs. Gregory. Unquestioned obedience and lack of definite opinions are attractive in babies, but in no one else. Life is ruthless. It rides over and grinds into the dust every person who cannot stand up for himself. 240 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER Doubtless Mrs. Gregory's boy is the bane of her existence today, but he has ten chances to Harold's one when he leaves her side for the world. It takes definiteness, knowing what you want and when you want it, to win a place for one's self in this world. The boy who passively submits every ques- tion to his parents is a source of comfort as a baby, but a source of humiliation as a man, while the parents of the headstrong baby us- ually live to see the world bow to him as he made them bow. It is interesting to note that the big men and women of this world were all more or less incorrigible as school children. The submis- sive youngsters in their classes who used to get high marks in "deportment," are not heard of. If you find it easier to let anything or any- body make your decisions for you; if you are always asking to be told what to do about this or that; if you dislike to assume the bur- den of a decision, you belong in the inactive- willed class. This tendency, if unchecked, will bring you the remnants, the leavings, and the tail-ends of life. To overcome it, force yourself to see 241 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY how colorless and uninteresting an individual you are getting to be. Start with the little things, such as deciding for yourself today where you will eat lunch, instead of waiting for your companions' ad- vice. Gradually work up to the big things in your life. I do not mean that you should refuse to listen to the advice of others, but I do mean that after hearing that advice you must decide on its merits. Beware of the weakness of always seeking advice. Remember you must live your own life. Remember also that no one can see your life as you can see it if you will look. After you are twenty years of age, if you keep your eyes and ears open, and your mind working, you are a better judge of the little things than anyone else. After you are thirty if you let others make your big decisions you are sliding down the toboggan to oblivion; you are going to be a nonentity. Most of those who are living at home after thirty are paying in unhappiness for their in- active wills. We know ourselves very little. Our real motives, desires and tendencies lie submerged 242 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER in the depths of our subconscious. The wo- man who at thirty-five is still living at home usually believes in all sincerity what she tells you, that "she has never been able to get away because father and mother needed her." The truth of it usually is that she needed father and mother. Nine out of ten such wo- men belong in the class of the inactive willed. They cling to home and parents out of the subconscious fear of making decisions, facing responsibility or plunging into the maelstrom of life. They go to their graves without rec- ognizing this fact. They make a virtue of their vice. The world calls them "self-sac- rificing," forgetting, as Mark Twain said in his essay "What is Man," that "Every act of every human being is for the purpose of con- tenting his own spirit." If you are over thirty-five and find it easy to wander back home occasionally to spend a year or two, you are in danger. Your sub- conscious is secretly looking for something to lean on. Come home occasionally to visit, take care of your parents if necessary, by all means, but don't let them take care of you. You will never develop a great will living with your father and mother. Of course I am not speaking of those whose fathers and 243 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY mothers live with them, who blaze the trail and face the world to shield their parents. I am speaking of those who frequently take up their position behind father's and mother's front trench. IMPULSIVE WILL. The second are those of the impulsive wills, who seem to "do things without thinking," who have sudden attrac- tions and repulsions, who obey all of these attractions and repulsions, darting down this road and that without making headway on the main highway of their lives. I mean those who decide everything instantly on the im- pulse and who, for this reason, are always being compelled to rescind their decisions and make new ones. I mean those who throw prudence to the winds. If you are one of these, promise yourself you will not make a decision next time on the moment but will compel yourself to think it over. Even if you are sure you will ultimately make that decision, hold it in abeyance for a few minutes or hours. In this way you will train yourself to more sober judgments. OVERACTIVE WILLS. The third is the class called the over-active-willed. These are like the impulsive-willed but more diffuse. 244 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER They make decisions on everything and begin the action on those decisions. They are the people whom we think of as having a "whirl- wind of plans" all the time, who have many irons in the fire, who lay out too many kinds of activities for themselves. The remedy for these is to realize that life is short, that the man who attempts too much gets nowhere. They should focus. If you belong to this class and will specialize, you will accomplish great things for this is one of the most powerful wills and one of the most desirable when properly directed. DISCOURAGED WILLS. The fourth is the "discouraged will/' the will of the indi- vidual who has tried so many times and failed that he says now "I can't. I have no will power. It is no use. I have tried and. failed so often and so completely there is no use trying again." These people see and know what they should do but refuse to try again. They are superior to those of the inactive wills, for they have made efforts. They deserve credit for their attempts. If you belong in this class, read the instructions in this lesson, adhere to them, and you can do what you want to do. 245 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY EMOTIONAL WILLS. In the fifth sub- division are those known as "the emotional- willed." They are characterized by their in- tense feelings. These are the people who feel more than they think. They decide every- thing on their feelings and moods. Usually the mood or the emotion is so intense that they let it go at that. It is a well known psychological fact that we act only to rid ourselves of pent up ten- sion. When the emotional-willed finds a tempor- ary outlet for his feelings, he is inclined not to act on his decision. He is going down the street, sees a man injured, decides with tears in his eyes, to do something to help him, gets the man's name and determines to call at the hospital next day to find out what he can do for the man's family, but before the next day arrives he has so completely vented his emo- tion in telling the story to his friends, that he never goes to the hospital. If you are of an emotional will, don't make rash promises on your feelings, for feelings have a way of oozing out. Look yourself in the eye and realize that too much emotional tensity will prevent your putting anything through. 246 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER The next time you find yourself deeply sympathetic, furiously angry or exultantly happy, don't let that emotional self in tem- porary control trick you into deciding things. It is always better to avoid making the de- cision you are not likely to carry out, because the failure to live up to it has a tendency to rob you of your self-respect. VACILLATING WILLS. The sixth class is closely allied with the emotionals and is called the "vacillating-willed." These people change their minds so often before action takes place that they accomplish very little. They waste their energy making decisions which they never carry out. The man who says, "I will see Jones today and make those arrangements," and who ten minutes later says, "No, I won't do that, I'll wait and see Brown," usually lets the day go by without seeing either. I know a young man who has this kind of will. He plans on giving Thursday evening to attending a serious lecture on a subject in which he is interested, but when Thursday evening comes he says, "I don't feel in the mood for that tonight. I want to do some- thing else. I want to be cheered up. I want a thrill. I am going to see some vaudeville." 247 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Before the performance is half over he leaves, regretting that the lecture is also over. If you classify yourself with the "vacillat- ing-willed/' put the brakes on when you find yourself making decisions wholesale. Train yourself to look the ground over every morn- ing; to decide what is best to do. And then don't allow yourself to make too many changes. PRACTICAL WILLS. The seventh are the "practical-willed." These people see everything from the practical standpoint. They are the other extreme from the emo- tional and vacillating, but in the end get no more out of life. These are the people who live in the ruts and grinds of daily details and routine, who never have one grand overpowering purpose. These are the people who must do a certain thing on Monday, another on Tuesday, an- other on Thursday, another on Sunday, be- cause they decided, perhaps years ago, that it was advisable to do these things on these days. They pride themselves on their "will pow- er," forgetting that the will should be a ser- vant to reason, and if the reason has changed, 248 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER the will current should be turned to fit the new conditions. These people are inclined to be narrow. They are the human penny-in-the-slot ma- chines. If you find yourself adhering to the sched- ules of five years ago without making im- provements in it; if you cannot adapt your- self to the exigencies of new situations ; if you refuse to bend to the plans of others occas- ionally, you do have will power. But you are paying more for it than it is worth. Its cur- rent will not carry you far unless you learn to direct it according to the needs and merits of each situation instead of to preconceived conditions. PURPOSIVE WILLS. The eighth and last subdivision is the one in which we all hope to be classed and in which to a great extent you may put yourself if you will follow the rules of this lesson. These are the "purposive- willed/' those who decide what they want to do after looking over the merits of the case, who gather their forces and get there. In this class are those who make up their minds as you make up a train, turn on the steam and go ahead to their destination. It is 249 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY this kind of will which all great men and wo- men have, to some extent, possessed. Among the leading women of America whom I have had the honor of knowing per- sonally, I have found this purposive will strik- ingly exemplified by that great leader of the woman suffrage movement, Carrie Chapman Catt. That her purposive will has been to a great extent responsible for the emancipation of American women is a fact too well known to need an echo from me. But the following sidelight on will power in general is too sig- nificant to leave untold. A few years ago I had occasion to spend a few days in the little Iowa town whose chief pride is that this international figure spent her girlhood there. Inasmuch as a leading American magazine had, the month previous, printed a symposium of the opinions of prominent Europeans and Americans to the effect that Carrie Chapman Catt was the leading woman of the English speaking races, I was much interested in the psychology of her girlhood friends. One evening at a gathering of these I asked them in what way, if any, she seemed differ- ent from them when they were all children together. 250 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER "Nothing," they said. "Carrie was just like the rest of us as far as we could see, ex- cept this: whenever she made up her mind to do anything she always did it. She put through whatever she started." "How is it possible to build will power?" you ask. The answer is simple. It is also scientific. Your mind is living protoplasm and all living protoplasm can be trained. If I told you I could teach you how to de- velop your body muscles to the point of phy- sical efficiency you would not question it. In this lesson I am going to show you how to train your brain muscles. This is simpler than training your body muscles, because your brain has much greater susceptibility, is cap- able of far greater change and development. Will is directed desire. It is not a mere matter of thinking. It is thinking plus feeling. Thoughts are cold, but feelings are warm, alive, vital. The first law in building will power is: Learn to desire. You must not only wish, you must want. You must stir your nature to its very depths if you would gain anything great. Desire, emotion, passion, wanting, 251 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY demanding, these are the things that create. Do not stop at thinking, wishing, yearning or longing. If your ambition is worth while, let it pos- sess you, give it a free rein. If it isn't worthy, get one that is. To create a thing you must want it with a burning want that recognizes no refusal, that brooks no denial. Every leader of men is characterized by the intensity of his desires. You never hear him say he "wishes" he could do a thing. He says, "I want to do it." That wanting, that burning determination kindles desires in those around him, makes them want to help him get it, makes them fol- low him, and these in turn incite him to fur- ther action. Whenever you come in contact with a man of intense desire you feel the force radiating from him. You feel he has learned how to concentrate that force on things he wanted to do. Let me give you here the second law for building will power: Eliminate the non-es- sentials. The big man focuses his strength on the important things, the vital things. He 252 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER doesn't even see the superficial, unnecessary, trivial things that would sap his energy. Just as attention is the secret of Worry and visualization the secret of Self-Confidence, concentration is the big basic secret of Will Power. Any man who will keep his mind concentrated on what he wants will get it. This is due to the psychological law that our actions follow our thoughts. You express will power a hundred times a day. If you think you lack will power tell me what it is that enables you to get up in the morning; what it is that has made possible everything you have ever achieved. We will take a familiar example. You de- sire to move your foot and it moves. Why? Because this wonderful mysterious force stored up within you is the electrical current you have released to move your foot. This current can only be generated by desire. Most people in the world do not know how to desire. They do not know what it is to be filled with an eager, intense craving, longing, ravenous desire that takes possession of them and makes them demand things instead of ask- ing for them. They are like sheep, rabbits or pigeons who sit meekly around while the 253 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY strong ones of the race those filled with these burning desires gather up every good thing in sight. There is in this, as in all natural laws, a kind of justice. Those who do not exercise the force which nature has given them cannot peo- ple the world with strong souls. Any man with will power can open the door to what he wants. Most of us sit on the door- step crying for it to open. Will power is more than a mere faculty of the mind. It is a mighty attribute. Buxton said, "I am more certain the longer I live that the greatest difference between men, between the weak and the strong, the great and the small, is energy, invincible determination, a purpose once fixed, and then victory or death. "Will power will do anything that can be done in this world. No talents, no conditions, no opportunities, will make a two-legged man without it." Disraeli said, "I have brought myself, after long meditation, to the conviction that a hu- man being with a settled purpose can accom- plish it, that nothing can resist a will which will stake existence, if need be, on its fulfill- ment." 254 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER Donald G. Mitchell said, "Resolve is what makes a man manifest not puny resolve, not crude determination, not errant purpose, but that indefatigable will which treads down dif- ficulties and dangers as a boy treads down the heaving frost lands of winter, which kindles his eye and brain with a proud pulse beat. Will makes men giants." The secret of resolute will is found in per- sistence and determination. Learn tenacity of attention concentration. You must learn to concentrate your will upon a thing and not allow it to be distracted or wander off until you have done what you have set out to do. This can be done by fol- lowing the triple methods set forth in this lesson. First, stir up your desire make it live; sec- ond, determine that you will do it, and third, act. Millions of men have done these things and so may you if you try. At first your greatest enemy will be habit. But habit is a thing that can be changed. Your habits are now enemy habits. If you will follow the rules of this lesson your habits will be your friends. The thing you call your weak will is not a weak will but a load of detrimental habits. 255 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY You created these habits. You can demolish them. You created them by giving them your vote when you might have voted for some- thing better. Every individual is an Ego with two selves a weak self and a strong self. The weak self always takes the easy way out; it is lazy, inert, made up of our lower instincts. The stronger self may be said to be composed of our higher instincts, such as aspiration and altruism. If you are enslaved to bad habits it is be- cause the ego of you has cast its vote with the weaker self so often your giving in to it has become more or less automatic. To develop your will do not attempt to change yourself in a day. "How shall I a habit break?" "As you did that habit make; As you gathered, you must lose; As you yielded, now refuse. Thread by thread the strands we twist, Till they bind us, neck and wrist; Thread by thread, the patient hand Must untwine till free we stand. As we builded stone by stone, We must toil unhelped, alone, Till the wall is overthrown." 256 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER Carlyle says, "Habit is the deepest law of human nature. It is our supreme strength as well as our greatest weakness. Let me go once, and my footsteps are an invitation to me a second time to go by the same way." Just as habit has been allowed to work against you it can now be made to work for you. Gather the strength to do today a few little things that are not easy and tomorrow they will be easier. William James said, "Do not try to destroy your bad habits by force. Make some good ones and they will destroy the others." To do this, first get control of the physical channels of expression the channels thru which are expressed the mental states of self- confidence. Get control of the muscles thru which Mall power is expressed. Control your shoulders. Begin to put them back manfully instead of letting them sag. Get control of the muscles that hold your head up. Control your eyes. Gaze into the face of the world fearlessly. Get control of the muscles of your legs and walk firmly as a positive man does. Get control of the vocal organs and begin to speak in the vibrant tones which com- mand attention and respect. 257 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY We do not know just how it happens but we do know that these things clear a channel through which will power expresses itself. Learn to keep your mind on what you want to do. When you have once focused your will on a thing hold it there. When it runs away, bring it back. Shut out the fringes. The Orientals have a word to express the concentration which gets things, "one-point- ed." Put out of your mind all thoughts and ideas that are out of harmony with the big ideal of your life. At first you will have to fight against all manner of distracting thoughts but after a while you will acquire the habit of turning them away without conscious interruption. The best method for warding off undesir- able thoughts is to keep the mind filled with mental pictures or visualizations of yourself as doing the thing you wish to do. This adds oil to the flame of your desire. The art of concentration has up to this time been shrouded in occultism and mystery. This is due to the fact that its advocates had only empirical knowledge on the subject They have observed what could be accomplished by concentrative methods, but have had no 258 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER comprehension of the reason for the results achieved. Absolute concentration means merely the massing of all your thoughts upon a single purpose. It means mental efficiency. It means drawing your mental fires to one point instead of merely shooting sparks into space. Ordinarily your desires and emotions scat- ter your energies and exhaust you to no pur- pose whatever. Organize these powers and the only question then to be answered is, "What shall I go after?" Mental coordina- tion, harmony and unity, such as will lift you out of all petty annoyances, can be yours. Your stream of consciousness is a living cur- rent. It is a swirling torrent of activity. Its powers have always been under-estimated. Lillian Hartman Johnson, Ph.D., eminent Mental Analyst and authority on the subcon- scious, says, "Your mental attitude must be made up of but two ideas: 'I am certain to succeed,' and, 'how.' If you will constantly maintain this attitude you will draw from the profoundest depths of your nature the plans and power for doing it." I will now give you the twenty-five specific rules by which you may build your will power and control your destiny. 259 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY No. 1. Awaken the power of willing by realizing that you can will to do a thing. In other words, come to a realization of the pow- er and possibilities of the human will, and that you possess one. Most people fail to develop will power be- cause they refuse to will to do a thing. At these moments open your mind and let the consciousness of your own ability be- gin to assert itself. Realize that you are the master of conditions; that you are a dynamo that is continually generating suf- ficient will power to do great things; recognize that you are in possession, not your habits, not your weaker self, but the ego, the "I," the soul of you. One moment after doing this you will begin to feel its potency, you will feel the blood coursing through your veins, you will sit up straighter, you will lift your chest, you will become conscious, for some inex- plicable reason, of resources in which you have hitherto had little confidence. No. 2. Decide what you want to do. "Look before you leap" is an old but sensible admo- nition. Always take a good look before plung- ing in. Exercise your judgment and do not be swayed too much by the judgment of others. Learn to put your hand to the plow 260 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER and not turn back. Learn to control your will power so that it will not leap into action until you are ready for it to do so. When you have done this, when you are sure this is the thing you want to do, clinch your mind shut and lock it. Make up your mind that your mind is made up. Leave no reservations. Don't say, "This is what I want to do but perhaps tomorrow I shall feel differ- ently." Don't decide until you are as sure as it is humanly possible to be, and then stick. No. 3. Gather together in your mind all the advantages you will gain from doing this thing. .Visualize yourself as doing it. See yourself enjoying the comforts, spending the money it would bring, meeting the friends, the pleasurable situations, accepting the honors, reaping all the rewards that it would bring. Say that the thing upon which you have bent your will is a college education. Keep yourself reminded of the many advantages of a college education. Picture to yourself the friendships you would make, the learning you would acquire, the person you would become with this new development. See yourself in college. Picture yourself as going through that four years, from your freshman days to your cap-and-gown-days. Let your mind 261 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY dwell on the joys of intellectual growth, the fun you will have in athletic sports, general college activities, everything from spreads to "exams." Remind yourself that the experi- ences of those four years will change your life, will open the doors of opportunity and ro- mance. Picture to yourself the upstanding, clear-eyed, capable young person you are go- ing to be at the end of those four years, equipped with learning to meet the world. No. 4. Gather together in your mind all the penalties and punishments that would come from not doing this thing you wish to do. Dwell on them. Paint them in their darkest colors. Picture to yourself the embarrass- ments and humiliations which will accrue as a result of not going to college. Think of the opportuinties for promotion, advancement, financial and otherwise, which you will be cheated out of if you do not get a college edu- cation. Recall how much less self-confidence the man without a college education feels; think how this handicap will affect your life; realize that you are going to miss pleasures and joys for which nothing can compensate. No. 5. Announce your plans to those who are truly interested in you. I *rant you to do this because it gives your pride a powerful 262 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER incentive; having once declared you are going to college, you have something to live up to. One of the most conspicuous tricks of your weaker self is to get you not to let your friends know of your good resolutions. You give yourself all manner of reasons for keeping still, but the real fact is that this miserable little weaker side of your nature has whispered to you, "Don't tell anybody, then if you fail it will be no disgrace." This gives you every chance to lose. It is leaving the back door un- locked, ready for your desertion if you become too cowardly to go out the front. I do not mean by this that you should go about publishing your plans to everybody. Never tell them to any but those who are in sympathy with you, who like you and are in- terested in you. You will then not only be im- pelled to do what you have set out to do in order to keep their respect, but will be inspired by their belief in you and their desire to see you win. No. 6. Weld the thought of doing to the action of doing by the only thing that ever welds anything, feeling. Watch a blacksmith when he is trying to weld together two pieces of iron. He builds a fire under them. Mere thoughts are cold things, but feelings are alive. 263 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Let yourself feel intensely about this thing you want to do. The white heat of emotion will compel you to act. Feeling arouses the will, and the will stimulates action. These two act and react upon each other. They should work in unison. The trained individual has both under control, pulling together like a well trained team. No. 7. Avoid all friends, situations and con- ditions that would interfere with what you wish to do. If you have been associating with superficial people, who care for nothing but dances, movies, parties, and fun, and who are out of sympathy with the idea of a college edu- cation, begin to give them less of your time. Understand them, give them tolerance, never feel bigoted or superior. But learn how to stay away from them. Refuse to make engagements with anyone whose ideals, standards and convictions would pull you away from your aim. Remember the legend of Ulysses, who induced his companions to stop up their ears with wax lest they be fascinated by the song of the sirens. It is much easier to listen to the songs of the sirens of idleness, ease, pleasure and dissipation. But it eventually takes you down, not up. No. 8. Put yourself in the way of friends, 264 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER situations and conditions conducive to your aim. This is not difficult. If you are truly in- terested in a college education you will attend the lectures, visit the libraries, and frequent the other places where college people, and those who hope to be college people, are to be found. You will soon make new friends, friends who will aid you, encourage you, inspire you. If it is necessary that you leave the town in which you live, or even your family, in order to find congenial companions, do so. Go any- where, at any cost, to surround yourself with the things which shall help and not hinder. No. 9. Start today. Take at least one step toward your goal. Don't try to take too long a step. Start at the easiest end of this thing you wish to do. Do not attempt the hardest part at first, only be sure that you do some- thing right now. Do not attempt to start to college today, but do not let the sun go down without at least writing a letter, looking up a catalogue or doing some other thing toward a real start. Do not let the enormity of your task dis- courage you. The greatest struggle is always at the beginning, so start slowly. Gird on your armor, grasp your sword, but don't attempt to finish the whole fight in one day. Plan to in- 265 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY crease the tasks each day. Plan to do some- thing bigger and bigger each week. Do not be like the man who wanted to jump the ditch. Each day he got to the ditch and each day ran back for a fresh start. No. 10. Do this thing one day at a time. Most of those who fail to develop will power have been frightened out by the feeling of the "unendingness" of the task. Under the weight of all the future, they succumbed before they started. Don't let the thought of the "forever- ness" enter your mind. Stand up to it one day at a time. Prof. James said, "The man who attempts to do only today's work today can accomplish wonders." It is the convulsive worker who breaks down. It is the man who lets the thought of the tomorrows get into his mind who cannot live up to today. Never be in a hurry; do not let anxiety and solicitude for results terrorize you. Work sys- tematically, economize effort. Waste no time regretting the past or fearing the future. No. 11. Do not let exceptions occur. Be- ware of your weaker self when it whispers, "You have proven you can do this, now let's take a little vacation." The actual interrup- tion would not always do you harm. It is the 266 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER memory of the exception which poisons. It makes you lose faith in yourself. Having once allowed a break in the chain, you feel less equal to building a strong one. You are ashamed; you are conscience-stricken; you are fully aware, after it is done, that it was your weaker self that induced you to do it. This realization is disintegrating. Remember, one interruption can undo the good work of weeks. It is like a ball of twine. The care- lessness of an instant can unwind it, and it takes a long time to rewind. No. 12. As a reminder of your will power, let every good thought for the first few days express itself in some kind of action. At the same time, see how many unpleasant or un- kind thoughts you can inhibit. Every good thought which evaporates without action leaves you weaker, while the conquering of an unkind thought gives you strength. No. 13. Every day do something you do not like to do. Everyone, even the weak- est, can do things they like to do, pleasant, agreeable things. But these are not the proof of real will power. Nothing will encourage you more, nothing will prove to you your own powers like com- pelling yourself to do something disagreeable. 267 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Prof. James advised his students systematic- ally to exercise themselves in the direction of doing some particular things for no other reason than that they preferred not to do them, even if the task be nothing more than giving up one's seat in a street car. He said: "Doing daily a disagreeable thing is like pay- ing the premiums of insurance on one's prop- erty. It is laying up reserve resources for the day of need." But it is even more necessary that you keep up your will insurance. Your property may never burn down, but the emergencies in your own life are inevitable. Only the man who has trained himself to do the hard thing can meet that emergency when it arrives. James said: "The men who have attained great success have in nearly every case so trained their wills by doing things whether they liked them or not that they could under- take difficult or disagreeable tasks with a min- imum of effort. They have acquired the hab- it." No. 14. When you fail, see to it that your wiU never condones nor consents. Let dis- gust for yourself fill you. But not discourage- ment. There is a world of difference between disgust and discouragement. There is no rea- 268 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER son for discouragement. Nothing was ever done in a day. No. 15. When successful, tell yourself and your friends of the little victories you have achieved. Do not be conceited about it, mere- ly tack up a little bulletin in your own mind. It will give you new pride in yourself. It will give your friends new faith in you, and their faith in you will act as a constant urge to you. No. 16. Avoid all stimulants. They slip the bolt off your will. I know a woman who says she doesn't dare trust herself to go shop- ping after she has had black coffee for lunch. "I spend money like a drunken sailor/' she says. Many students have told me how var- ious stimulants affect them, and it is always for the worst, not for the better. No. 17. Keep before your mind the mem- ory of the feelings you experienced the last time you failed. Many a man has been kept at his helm, not because he could not face the prospect of his failure, but because he could not stand a repetition of the sufferings he underwent at his previous defeats. No. 18. Keep before your mind the mem- ories of how you felt when you won. Live again those feelings of exultation, glory and triumph, than which life holds no greater joy. 269 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY No. 19. Keep your mind centered on the thing you wish to do. No matter how great a break may have occurred, bring it back and put it to work again. Eventually it will know better than to wander away. No. 20. Set aside the last ten minutes of each day to revisualize your desire, to live over again your reasons for making your de- cision. One of the best aids to will power is to make a list, during this ten minutes, of the things to do next day. Look over this list each evening and scratch off those done. Transfer those undone to the next day's sheet. If you have an ounce of pride you cannot bear to leave many of these undone tasks to stare you in the face. No. 21. Never mistake stubbornness for strength. Stubbornness is the result of pre- judice, ignorance or misdirected energy. The stubborn man cannot yield. The strong man knows that yielding is sometimes the greatest proof of strength. The Grand Canyon was made by trickling drops of water. Sometimes it is necessary to turn slightly aside in order to achieve one's ultimate goal, just as the little drops of water 270 HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER had to turn aside and wind their way around the pebbles, rocks and boulders in the con- struction of that sublimest masterpiece. The man with the strong will knows how to yield. He knows that yielding sometimes means stepping aside to get a better view or a stronger foothold. The stubborn man will not bend nor stoop and often his stiff attitude breaks him. A willow bends when a storm is on, but bobs up and keeps growing after it has passed. A ship has to turn out of its course to avoid rocks and icebergs. The big man doesn't push ahead into the very face of trouble just because his original path pointed that way. He weaves, winds, stoops, climbs over, goes around, under, and gets by. No. 22. Make every act one of vigor. Do not do anything halfheartedly. Do not hold back. Play fair with yourself. Merely going through the motions of what you have decided to do is cheating yourself. When you have decided to do a thing, not only do it but do it well, do it hard, do it to a finish. In no other way can the maximum of strength be ac- quired. No. 23. Keep the realization that you are 271 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY winning. See yourself as the man who is con- quering himself. Never admit defeat. No. 24. Do not relax in your efforts. When you get to the places where you feel incapable of making further headway just then, do not give up. At least hold your own. Be like the swimmer who, when he reaches an ad- verse tide, manages to hold himself up though he may make no progress. No. 25. Note with what surprising ease you do these things which you considered were going to be hard. Keep yourself reminded of the psychologi- cal fact that it is never the doing of a thing that makes it difficult; it is our anticipation of it. In this way you will acquire a conscious- ness of your own self-mastery. If you will follow these rules you can train the vast forces of your mind to act in accord- ance with your will. You can build will power. Thus, and thus only, have all things worth while been done in this world. 272 CHAPTER VII HOW TO MAKE MONEY "If I just had a chance!" There are chances aplenty Right close to our fingertips, day after day. For each opportunity seized there are twenty Overlooked and permitted to wander away. And while we are waiting for some one to offer Ways for winning success by some "push-button" plan, With the splendid rewards she is eager to proffer, Opportunity sighs: "If I just had a man!" HE subject of money-making is an interesting one for many reasons. It is the one upon which more thoughts are centered, about which more lies are told, and concerning which more deception is practiced than any other in the world. All of us want to make money, but few people will admit it. This is due to the false training we receive. From early childhood we are taught that to want money is an ignominious ambition; that it is something to be ashamed of. Very young or very gullible people believe in the sincerity of those who preach this 273 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY doctrine, but at along about eleven years they begin to wake up. They discover gradually that the double standard of morals is nothing to the double standard of money. They begin to discover that underneath all the piety there runs a burning desire for this "root of all evil." They discover later that those who prate oftenest, loudest and longest against money-making have an eagle-eye focused on making all the money they can themselves. I remember I was about nine when a reali- zation of it came to me. One Sunday I was passing the collection basket in church, as a substitute for one of the ushers who was not there that day. In my section there was one of the well-to- do "pillars." I knew he would drop in enough to make my basket total as much as others, because I had heard him make such feeling talks on "the higher good," and the sin of "seeking the things of this world." So I was looking most intently for his donation. From that day to this I have refused to lean too heavily on "pillars." He put in a pewter slug the size of a fifty cent piece! If you have read this book carefully up to this point (which you have not, for you are reading this chapter first!), you have doubt- 274 HOW TO MAKE MONEY less noticed I do not deal in platitudes. I have not once said, "Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains/' or that "Virtue is its own reward." Having sidestepped these popular pitfalls thus far, I am going to see if I can't be sincere with you to the end. I want to make money. I want to make lots of money and more money every year. And I believe I will, for my income has been increasing annually for several years, due largely to the fact that all who have dealings with me advise their friends to patronize me. When I ask them why they give me so much free advertising, they say, "Because you are honest with us. You don't try to catch us with this modern bait about 'human ser- vice.' This makes us trust you at the start. At the finish we tell our friends about your lecture courses and publications because we have gotten so much more than our money's worth." I relate this here for two reasons. First, because I believe in advertising, and, second, because my own experience has proved to me that it is neither necessary nor advisable to deceive people to make money. 275 \ PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Therefore the first rule for money-making is, don't lie about it. My reason for this first reason is, if you can stand bedrock honesty it doesn't pay. Other people are just as smart as you are. Don't be an ostrich. Don't stick your head in the sand, imagining no one can see you. Everybody is on to you, but don't worry. He is on to you for a reason which gives him nothing on you, he is after money himself. The poets and singers praise the beauties of poverty, the joys of the simple life and tell us about the emptiness of riches. But even as they say it, they are wondering where they are going to get next month's rent and long- ing for the riches they condemn. There is no glamour over poverty except to the man who has climbed out of it. There is no halo around hardship except to him who has emancipated himself from it. When you hear rich Mr. So and So declare he'd 'love to go back and live over again the early days when he was poor," do not doubt him. He means it. He thinks what he wants is the struggle, but it isn't. It is only that he thinks how easily he could bear the struggle with today's riches in mind. He feels that 276 HOW TO MAKE MONEY with the certain knowledge that today's riches were on the way he could stand anything. One can stand almost anything if he knows it is only temporary. Poverty and struggle have a glamour around them only when you know they won't last, only when you know the reward is inevitable. Then the thought of the reward sustains. The millionaire would not for anything return to the days when he had to save pennies if the fairy godmother would not permit him to take along the cer- tainty of today's wealth. If you want to make money, don't apol- ogize for it. Sarah H. Young, well known efficiency ex- pert says: "Wanting what money brings is a laudable ambition. Nobody wants money for its own sake. Dollars, as dollars, are as valueless as so many pieces of iron. "We want what money represents the comforts it will provide, die freedom it as- sures, the self-expression it guarantees. 'The desire for these things is what dis- tinguishes modern men and women from cave men and women. Without the urge for these things, esthetic surroundings, self-expression and individual freedom, civilization would be unknown. We would still be living in 277 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY caves, eating raw meat from the bones of wild beasts. There would be no art, no lit- erature, no education, no invention, no human liberty, no ideals. "These are the hungers and cravings that have urged man up from the sod; that have impelled him to face hardships, danger and death, and thus grow." No organism develops except under pres- sure. We are so full of laziness and inert- ness that there would have been no develop- ment had it not been for this pressure from within. There would be no such thing as evo- lution. The stage to which any creature has evol- ved can be pretty accurately measured by his ambitions and aspirations. The man who is content to live in poverty, dirt and sordid- ness, the man who is willing to work all his life at some other man's game instead of his own, does not greatly advance civilization. The man who turns his back on the lure of laziness and faces the battle with the world, as every man does who makes money, proves thereby his higher degree of evolution. To such men and women we owe the culti- vation of the fields, the clearing of the forests, the building of cities, the invention of the 278 HOW TO MAKE MONEY steam engine, the telegraph, telephone, wire- less, aviation, all the vehicles of human prog- ress. Because a few safe blowers, capitalists, etc., have used their brains to get money uneth- ically does not alter these facts. Every great thing is carried to the point of abuse by some. Money-making on the stu- pendous scale practiced by a few multi-mil- lionaires no more discredits the normal money- making instinct than the over-eating of a few gluttons discredits the instinct of eating. All extremes are dangerous to the individual and to the race. For both these reasons money-making as it is practiced today by combines, to the en- slavement of the workers and the fleecing of the consumer, must be and will be abolished. This lesson is no brief for the man who gets money dishonestly, be he porch-climber or magnate. This lesson is for all who desire the best life can give us, who believe we are en- titled to the best and who are willing to win it in the open by honorable methods. It is for those who realize that nothing worth while comes free. It is for those who realize, how- ever, that everything, even money, comes eas- ier than we anticipate, if we only go after it. 279 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Hubbard said: "Blessed is he who is not looking for a soft snap for he is the only one who shall find it." Since there is nothing new under the sun, you will find little that is new in these rules. If you are expecting to be let into some won- derful secret whereby you may make money over night in an easy, leisurely way, you are booked for disappointment. There are no wonderful secrets about mak- ing money. There are certainly no easy, care- free, comfortable roads to the land of Wealth. This is the first thing you must realize. The rules for making money are simple rules, but they are not easy to follow. It takes stamina to make money. It takes back- bone and jawbone rather than wishbone. It takes will power. But do not let this depress you. "Will power," as Arnold Bennett said, "Is the chief thing that differentiates you from the cat by the fire." If you prefer the cat-by-the-fire existence to the rich rewards of effort, give up this chap- ter. Also give up the hope of ever getting anything worth while in this world. Above I told you that the first step in mak- ing money is to be straightforward concerning 280 HOW TO MAKE MONEY your money-making aspirations. The money- making aspiration is the mark of the man who has evolved beyond the cat-by-the-fire stage. The money a man makes is one of the truest measures of his service to mankind. The world is full of people who want all kinds of things, who need all kinds of things for material and spiritual advancement. They stand ready and anxious to pay in real dollars and other rewards the man or woman who will supply those needs. Whenever you see a pen- niless man you see a man who is not produc- ing much, if anything, for the satisfaction of these needs, the alleviation of these sufferings, or inspiration for the battles of the people OF TODAY. Because they are the most important words I have used up to this time, let me impress upon you the two words in that last sentence. You may paint the pictures, write the poems, preach the religious and economic doctrine for which future generations will immortalize you, but these achievements will never bring you financial independence unless the world OF TODAY wants them. "Fame is the food of the tomb." The man who prefers food today to these ashes of im- mortality must do something, say something, 281 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY make something or sell something THE PEO- PLE OF HIS DAY AND AGE want They will pay money only for what they want, not for what future generations will want. That "Three cities claimed Homer dead through which the living Homer begged his bread" is tragic, but just as true today as it was three thousand years ago. The roads of yesterday are strewn with the bodies of martyrs whose works vastly benefit us. We are today martyring other men and women equally good, equally great, whose ideas and productions will vastly advance pos- terity. We are starving some of them to death just as our predecessors starved the good and great of their day. All this is a sad commentary, but bemoan- ing it does not alter human nature. The man who wishes to *iake sufficient money to ob- tain the refinements, self-expression and free- dom he craves while he is still alive to enjoy M them must produce something this generation wants. He must not ask that it pay him for a thing its great-great-grandchildren will want. Each generation insists on spending its money for the things that meet its particular needs, and leaves its descendants to pay their 282 HOW TO MAKE MONEY own bills when they get here. That the great poet, painter, reformer or teacher will not live that long makes no difference. "Besides," human nature argues, "how do we know that posterity will want what this man has to offer? Only time can tell whether he is right or wrong. There is no way of dis- tinguishng between the false and the true gods. We will leave it to the future." The false ones pass; the true have laurels laid on their graves down through the ages. This lesson is for the man and woman who believes that it is as worthy to meet the needs of today's children as those of tomorrow's, and that the benefactors of mankind have a right to the good things with which God has filled the world. Keep your eyes, ears and mind open. Find out what the world wants, ihe trend of the times, what the latest needs are from neck- wear to aviation, and see if you can't devise something, improve something, invent some- thing, organize something, or promote some- thing to meet these needs. To do this, recognize the fact that you were born with talents for doing some of these much easier than others. Find out what these in- 283 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY born trends are, what you are best fitted for, and then capitalize them. Don't be afraid of an idea because it is your own idea. As Emerson said, "A man dis- cards his thoughts simply because they are his." All the big money is made by the men who are willing to take at least some risk and blaze trails. Don't wait till you see others breaking the trail before you bring forth your vision, for if you do, you get what followers always get, the leavings. The big rewards never go to those who seek the sheltering safety of the second trench, no matter how hard they may actually work after they start. Great rewards are never given for work but for daring. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the tel- ephone, was asked what he would say were he asked to put into twenty words his best advice to young men who wished to make money. He said : "I would say to young men and young women, 'Get an idea of your own, stick to it, and put all your heart and soul into it every day/ ' Cultivate your initiative. The world re- serves its supreme rewards for but one thing initiative. 284 HOW TO MAKE MONEY The next big step is to eliminate worry about money. Turn back to Chapter II of this volume and learn exactly how to do it. A common sense care for your financial future is necessary, but worry over it only de- creases your financial ability. In these days of keen competition, with everybody else wanting the money you are after, the man who gets it is the one whose mind is given to making it, not worrying for fear he won't make it. The man whose attention is centered on the fear of poverty, brings about the very poverty he fears. Your actions match your predom- inant thoughts. The man whose thoughts are of poverty acts like poverty. Nobody dares to trust a high-salaried job to him. High salaries are never paid for manual work. They are paid to the men who do effective mental work, thinking out con- structive ideas. Now the man whose mental machine is clogged up with poverty- worries is not in good running order. What you accomplish is due to the working out of ideas. A great financier said to me once, "From the neck down a man is worth $3 a day. From the 285 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY neck up a man may be worth anywhere from $10,000 to several hundred thousand dollars a year." Another millionaire is fond of saying, "The difference between the hod carrier and the $50,000-a-year man is that the hod carrier works his hod and the other man works his head." A friend of J. Pierpont Morgan once said to him, "I need a man with ideas. If you should find such a man and will send him to me I will pay him $50,000 a year." "If I find that man," said Morgan, "one who can be eyes and ears for me when I'm not there you will never lay eyes on him, for I shall pay him $100,000 a year." Right here is a good place to tell you a great psychological law: Ideas come to us as the result of concen- trating on the thing we want. I don't mean that you must cut yourself off from your friends and family, shut yourself up in a quiet room and fasten your conscious mind on what you want, though a few moments of this daily is most effective. I mean rather the constant thinking in the back of your mind about the thing you want, plus a striving after it. 286 HOW TO MAKE MONEY Phychologists have named this chamber in the back of your mind the subconscious. It is your "silent partner." It takes orders from you. It will work on whatever subject you wish. What is more, it will work on that subject until you tell it to stop. Your subconscious is about 90 per cent of your mind. When you worry, this great working force is expended in negative, de- structive work. All of its strength is used up in this way. There is then none left with which to plan out the things you want. If you expect to get what you want, instead of what you fear, change the standing order you have given to your subconscious. Instead of letting it spend its time loafing in the movie theatre of your mind, in that chamber of horrors where your fears are on parade, or- der it to come out into the sunshine right now and get busy figuring out ways and means to get what you want. If you are worried everybody knows it Nothing fails like failure. Stop giving failure thoughts a place in your mental power house. Study the successful man. You will note that under all circumstances he radiates suc- cess. He does not always have the material facts and reasons justifying it. But material 287 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY things are born of spiritual things, and the man who, in the days of no business, keeps up a successful front ultimately has a successful business. In this connection we can mention the mat- ter of personal appearance and its influence on success. A young man once asked an Ameri- can millionaire how he should dress to be suc- cessful. "As though you were already successful," he answered. And that is the law of self-con- fidence and of all success, to act the part if you want to make it real. The effect that your dress, your grooming and your general appearance have on you is fully as important as its effect on others. No one has ever yet fully defined the psy- chology of dress, but it is certain there is a mysterious relationship between one's per- sonal appearance and his self-respect. It not only helps or hinders success but helps or hinders character and moral courage. "Clean linen is," as a great writer once said, "a source of spiritual strength second only to that of a clean conscience." I know a Mil- waukee woman who will not meet anyone she wishes to impress without a red rose and im- maculate white gloves. 288 HOW TO MAKE MONEY One of the most successful men of my ac- quaintance tells me that whenever he has a big deal to put through, even if it comes in the middle of the day, he goes home, takes a shower bath, shaves and dresses inroughout with fresh garments. "This may sound silly to you," he said. "I laugh at myself for doing it, but I have found it pays." Even if you are not like this man, and do not see the importance of dress, you must take it into consideration. If you are not naturally particular about yourself; if you are inclined to be a little slack or slovenly; if you are careless one or two mornings a week and hurry off to work without the usual touches to your toilet, you are paying a high price for it. You cannot afford this handicap. Dress makes a tremendous difference in your chances for success. Don't ignore it. One of the best investments you can make is in putting up a good appearance. Say what you will about the unimportance of clothes in comparison with the man him- self, we all realize that our clothes do cut a big figure in peoples' estimate of us. We know that the impression other people get of us has a far-reaching influence on our lives. 289 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Clothes play a leading part in our general ap- pearance and our general appearance is re- sponsible for a big part of that impression. Clothes do not make the man, but good clothes have got many a man a good job that he never would have had otherwise. And a man with a good job has a chance to become a better man. Your personal appearance, your dress, your manner, your grooming, your haircut and hair dress are the front windows which advertise, as all show windows do, the stock of goods inside. The way a merchant displays his goods is known to be the first step in salesmanship. If his windows are filled with soiled, out-of- date wares, if they do not indicate care, sys- tem and order, you expect to find the same characteristics inside. Now you are a salesman. Every person in the world is a salesman of something, whether he is selling commodities or not. You are anxious to succeed; you wish to get a good position, in other words, sell your services, you want to make the most of yourself, that is, market your abilities most effectively and for the highest possible price; 290 HOW TO MAKE MONEY you want friendship, love and marriage. All love and friendship are exchanges, and there- fore a kind of salesmanship. Where people place you in their estimation has a powerful effect on your career. They place an estimate upon you, consciously or un- consciously, the instant they lay eyes on you, and it is never as easy to change that estimate afterward as it would have been to make the right impression the first time. Because your personal appearance is the first thing people see about you it should be worthy of you, of your best and highest self. I do not mean extravagantly handsome dress; I mean the opposite, refined, inconspicuous but tasteful dress, and perfect cleanliness. Because the eye is the favorite sense-mes- senger and the quickest, you must first please the eye of the other fellow. Then you must please his ear, and later, if you get past these boys in the front office, he may give you a chance to prove your worth, to show him who and what you are. Many a superior man, and countless super- ior women, have failed miserably because they never passed muster with these under-secretar- ies. 291 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Many a man has failed because he tried to be too economical. He did not keep fresh- ened up with clean linen; he attempted to save on his clothes by having them mended and pressed when he should have gone with- out food if necessary to buy a new suit. Wearing shabby clothing and soiled collars to save laundry bills has cost hundreds of men their chances for promotion and ease. Few people realize what a tremendous in- fluence appearances have on their future. They do not realize that when they apply for a position the mind of their would-be employer is working at lightning-like speed, sizing up whether or not this applicant would be an as- set or a liability to his business. No matter how many letters of introduction you carry nor who has written them, they will not get you the place if your personal appearance is a poor advertisement for him. In Philadelphia I saw a sign over the em- ployment manager's window which read, "No seedy-looking people wanted here." That this must have been a cruel blow to the poor seedy ones who most needed the jobs didn't alter the fact. And I thought as I looked at it, 'The world 292 HOW TO MAKE MONEY is like that; it has this announcement over its doorway in letters so big that all who run may read/' I do not say it is right. I say most emphat- ically it is not right. The standards are wrong. But they are here. My task in this lesson is not to discuss ethics, I reserve that for another book, but to show you how to achieve happiness and success here and now, in this world in which you live. As Time is measured, you have but a day to live and the world is not going to be made right in a day. If you would be a true success, lift your voice for the ideal world. Keep working for something better for all humanity but prove your right to lead humanity by fulfilling its requirements today. If you honestly want to better the world, meet the tests it gives today, and tomorrow it will listen to you. If you have a message and not just a grouch you are willing to pass through the world's acid test, the test of personal achievement, to earn the chance to deliver that message. 293 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY If you do not care enough for it thus to sac- rifice yourself you can't blame the world for not being willing to sacrifice itself. The world is a big place. There are bil- lions of people in it. To win their belief in you, you must set them the example. You must believe in yourself. I know a young man who has been trying for months to get a situation. He is always turned down. He does not understand why. I could quickly tell him. He doesn't talk like a success. He doesn't look like one. He is trying to dispose of something which he does not present in an attractive form. People feel that he doesn't believe in it himself. Your prospective employer, buyer, or friend is watching you with an "eagle eye." He is looking for victory in your face, not defeat; he is looking for evidences of ability, not in- competence. Every one is after 100 per cent men and women and will take no others if they can possibly avoid it. Every employer wants cheerful, optimistic, self-confident employes around him; men and women who bear the earmarks of efficiency; who are good walking ads for his business. His trained eye tells 294 HOW TO MAKE MONEY him instantly whether you are going to im- press his customers as a winner or a loser. To get a good position you have got to convince your prospective employer that he will have a prize in you. One of the biggest American writers has said: "Talent is sure of a market, but it must not cower at home and expect to be sought out. "There is a good deal of can't in the criti- cism of the aggressive, forward-pushing man. It is complained that retiring men of worth are passed over with neglect. Sad as this is for the retiring, worth-while people, it usually happens that the forward-pushing men have the qualities of activity and accomplishment without which worth is a gold mine that can't be operated. A barking dog is sometimes more valuable than a sleeping lion." "Egotist" is the term you like to apply to the man who has done more than you. As a matter of fact, it is probably only egoism that has placed him where he is. If his being there worries you so much that you find yourself constantly accusing him, the chances are that your own egotism is at the bottom of your resentment. 295 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Jealousy is the confession of your own in- feriority. A certain amount of good healthy egotism is necessary to the success of any man or woman. As long as it is not used to belittle others it is a good thing. It acts as the spur without which few great steps would have been made in the world's progress. In these busy days men have no time to hunt about in obscure corners for retiring merit. They find it more effective to take a man at his own estimate till time shall prove otherwise. The world admires manliness and courage. It admires womanliness, and true womanli- ness in this day and age means the self-confi- dence of the winner. The world has little use for the timid, whether male or female. It passes by the self-effacing people who have an air of apolo- gizing for living. Leaders in every walk of life must have lieutenants who also know how to lead. Therefore they select for the big places the people of positive mentalities, men who rad- iate victory, who express confidence in them- selves: who can get things done, who can put 296 HOW TO MAKE MONEY big undertakings through, who have the tri- umphant attitude. Charles M. Schwab, an expert in estimating and measuring ability, says: "I have great faith in those who have great faith in them- selves. I know that the men who fear them- selves are not fit for responsibility." If you look as though you had lost your nerve, your faith in yourself, your self-confi- dence, no one is going to give you a respon- sible position. It is human to have faith in those who have faith in themselves. Regardless of whether you have yet won out or not, if you are a conqueror in your own mind, if you have a victorious manner, other people will believe in you. On the other hand, if you tag yourself with things bespeaking uncertainty, doubt or tim- idity, the law will work the other way. Thousands of seekers for positions go after them in a half-hearted, dejected, discouraged way. They are convinced at the beginning that they are not going to get the place. Scores of able young men and women among my students have asked me why it was they never got a raise in salary. In al- most every instance they admitted they made the request expecting to be refused. 297 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY The psychology of it seems to be this: The world demands that you make somewhat of a success of your own individual personality before asking it to take you into partnership in its business. It sees that the timid, self-con- scious man is not succeeding with his own mental attitudes and automatically concludes that he is not a safe risk. The world makes way for the self-confident man. There is no use trying to stop him. No use opposing him. If you dam up his efforts in one direction he gathers force and breaks over in another. No enemy or enemies are great enough to forestall him. Only the weak can be beaten by their enemies. The self-con- fident man plows through everything and reaches his goal. The next step essential to success is: Think of yourself as two persons, the real you who has given the orders for doing this thing, and your other self which must carry them out. Let this second self see that you expect it to carry out these orders. Never rescind those orders as long as you wish to accomplish that particular thing. Let your other self see you are expecting 298 HOW TO MAKE MONEY it to deliver the goods. When it whines and wants to beg off don't listen. It is your weaker nature, your lazy self, that negative part that acts as a drag to the ambitions. Right here let me tell you of something which has been most effective in my own life. I learned how this lazy other self was always trying to get out of work. I discovered it could think up the most plausible excuses for justifying me. I found that if I left any loop- holes open it always came around whispering how some other time would do. "Let's just take today off, one more day of vacation won't do any harm and we'll make it up to- morrow." I found that this enemy Inertia was trap- ping me into neglecting the things I had set out to do, and after a few years I was dis- mayed to realize that I had allowed it to cheat me out of my greatest desires. So I devised a trap for it. Knowing that this weaker side of myself would continue to creep in when- ever I was off guard and beguile me away from the task which my better self had set, I forestalled its activities. Whenever I had fully decided to do some- thing worth while, and while my best self was 299 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY still at the helm, I made whatever arrange- ments were necessary to compel me to accom- plish it. For instance, if I decided to write a book on a certain subject I announced that fact to my classes, giving the exact date when it would be available. When I decided to organize a new lecture, I compelled myself to do it by engaging the hall, paying a deposit, and advertising in the newspapers. The greatest undertaking of my life I literally forced myself to engage in. After years of study and preparation I still delayed, giving myself the excuse that I need- ed more time in which to make the final ar- rangements. At last I determined to inaugurate it on a certain date. Ordinarily I would have given myself about four years. As it was, I gave myself exactly six months to the day. Hundreds of times in those six months my weaker self rebelled, declared I could never do it, that I had set myself to do the impos- sible. Sometimes when the task threatened to overwhelm me I almost succumbed, but the size of the stake I had deliberately placed in the balance was so great I dared not. 300 HOW TO MAKE MONEY I now know that the development, soul- growth and inspiration I gained from deliver- ing exactly what I had contracted, on the ex- act date, was worth more than anything the other three years of half-work could have given me. From that day to this my weaker self has never been able to re-establish herself in her old place of dominance. To be sure, she comes back. She comes back with the same excuses and sometimes they sound very se- ductive. But, as the farmer says in regard to breaking a horse: "Break his will once and he is yours." I still tie myself up with contracts, agree- ments, advertising and other inexorable task- masters. I still have my weaker self but it knows its place. You can teach yours to know its place. You can rise above it, conquer it and put it beneath your feet. Take for granted that you have the energy, courage, enthusiasm and self-confidence to do what you want to do. Place yourself in a po- sition where others expect you to do it, and when the time comes you will find yourself in possession of the qualities with which to do it. 301 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Stop thinking poverty if you wish to attract prosperity. Refuse to give a place in your mind to the things you fear. The man who focuses his mind on ex- pectations of failure, poverty, who banishes ambitions, hope, and gives full sway to doubt, fear and timidity, inevitably brings these things to pass. No power on earth can make such a man succeed. No power on earth can always keep down the man who holds the opposite expectations of himself. Think the things you want; furthermore don't be afraid to want. There is a world of difference between wishing and wanting. The "wishers" usually fail while the "wanters" win. Thousands of lives are made small, pinched and narrow because people are afraid to de- sire, to fling out their longings, to visualize them. Instead of believing we can get the thing we desire we spend our time exaggerat- ing our restrictions and limitations. All men and women who have climbed to the top of life's ladder climbed up mental!; first Most failures are due to the fact that pec pie are not willing to do their part towan 302 HOW TO MAKE MONEY making their dreams come true. They wish "to have their cake and eat it too/' to take things easy and have the good things of life drop into their laps by magic. Opportunities always come, doors are al- ways opening, the road is always made clear to the man or woman who trusts and works. They seldom open in just the way or at just the time he expects, but they open often to bigger things than he ever dreamed of. Noth- ing comes to the weak, doubting heart save the crumbs of existence. Someone has said, "The world is a whis- pering gallery which sends back the echo of your own voice." Someone else has said, "It is a mirror which reflects the face it sees in it" If we frown it frowns, if we laugh it laughs back. One of the saddest things is this fact, that most people measure themselves by their weaknesses instead of by their strength. They estimate themselves at their worst instead of their best. They seem to feel that the vision they see of themselves in self-confident, op- timistic, exalted moments is a figment of the imagination and not their real selves. Very few people realize how much self- confidence has to do with accomplishment 303 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Most people do not realize that it is a creative force. It is not only a creative force but one of the greatest in man, so great, in fact, that man accomplishes in almost exact proportion to his self-confidence. Keep your eyes and ears open. Do not spend time and energy regretting the lack of a college education. A college education is a good thing but the greatest good it does is not the education it gives you, but the self-confi- dence it instills. The root of many a man's failure in business is found in his too great sensitiveness over the lack of a higher educa- tion. He keeps himself reminded that he has missed something. He imagines, as we all do when we miss anything, that it is much great- er than it really is. Meanwhile it is not the college man's "learn- ing" which gives him the advantage over you, as you suppose, but the consciousness on his part that he has spent four years at a seat of learning. If a hypnotist could put you to sleep for ten minutes, and while your mind was subservient to his, give you the conviction that you had been thru college, and give it to you with such force that you would always thereafter believe 304 HOW TO MAKE MONEY it, you would not once in a thousand encoun- ters miss the education. The self-confident air which your belief had given you would cause everyone to assume you to be a college man and they would accept your opinions accord- ingly. If you are sensitive on this question of your lack of education, assume as near as possible the attitudes of an educated man. Never tell anyone of your educational de- ficiencies. Get knowledge. Educate your- self, but don't let the fact that you failed to spend four years on a campus "get your goat." Don't let the fact that you lack social stand- ing get it either. Instead of regretting that you are not the son of a "best" family of "blue bloods," start a best family of your own; a family of such good red blood that it will never need traditions to bolster it up. Take a positive attitude toward everything in your life. Think and act positively, never negatively. Instead of saying, "I can't afford this," and "We mustn't do that because we are going to need this money next year," spend all that is necessary, and say, "I will make more for next year." 305 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Those who are constantly retrenching, who deny themselves here, pinch themselves there and skimp somewhere else, are always poor. They take the poverty attitude, the negative attitude toward life. Determine to make more money next year. Force yourself to make more. Save a certain percentage always but don't take it all out in saving. Another trouble with us is that we do not concentrate. We want things but we do not want them badly enough to keep working for them. Our thoughts are truants. They go off on vacations. They want to play, to frivol, to enjoy themselves. And we wind up where the enjoyer always winds up, at the small end of things. We wish for riches, station, fame, but we refuse to pay for them. We do not want to earn them. We want them to fall into our laps. I know many young women, and middle- age ones, too, who say, "How I long to have plenty of money, a beautiful home; I adore lovely things, exquisite possessions, handsome cars and elegant clothes. Why can't I have them?" The answer is simple. They can't have them because they do not earn them. Only 306 HOW TO MAKE MONEY one such woman in millions has them fall into her lap via marriage. The rest must earn them. Thousands of American women are earning them. Female brains are making fortunes to- day and more will make them in the future. If you really want money, and want it badly enough, that desire will kindle the fire neces- sary to burn your way to it. Don't waste your time longing to lure a money-making male into marriage. It costs too much. It usually costs more than it is worth. Almost any rich wife will tell you so, especially if she married him after the riches were made. People fail to get what they desire because they do not desire it hard enough. The man or woman of strong desire draws everything toward him that he wants because a strong de- sire compels action and action is what gets everything. The man of strong desire draws not only things but people to him. People instnctively fall in with his suggestions. They feel drawn rather than pushed toward him, for such is the power of desire. Nothing can withstand it. Keep the fire of your desire burning bright and fierce or it will not awaken you to action. 307 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Allow yourself to want things with all your might and they will in turn cause you to do the things that bring them to you. We have heard much about the "mag- netic" individual; the kind of man who has the power to attract people to him. These men invariably possess great will power; they are the active, energetic, forceful men. All great minds possess this kind of energy to a marked degree. There are those who have been able to work their will upon the mass of people. These men are seen to possess a strange power, but very few understand it. It forces and com- pels; nothing can stand in its way. No one ever did anything or got anything who was not filled with a strong, hungry desire. The man who feels and hungers for achieve- ment will make mighty efforts to satisfy that hunger. Around you every day you see peo- ple who go to lengths to satisfy the hunger for food. The great men of the world have felt the same way in their hunger for achieve- ment. All "feelings" that incite one to action of any kind are forms of desire. Without desire the world would cease absolutely from action. 308 HOW TO MAKE MONEY Preceding every action is desire, either con- scious or unconscious. Those who make a virtue of renouncing desire, who claim to have "conquered desire absolutely/' are acting in response to desire of a more subtle form. They are expressing a desire not to do other things. All renunciation is the result of desire, just as its opposite is the result of desire. This is a fundamental natural law. "Lack of desire" to do a certain thing is another way of ex- pressing a desire to pursue an opposite course of action. And so it goes. Desire is at the root of every action and every refraining from action. Nothing has ever been done, created or manifested without desire. A keen, ardent desire will cut away the un- dergrowth from the path of success. It will attract you to the things and the people neces- sary for its gratification. It will bring you directly or indirectly to the circumstances, conditions and environments necessary to your success. It will seldom bring you by the exact route you anticipated, but the destination is the important thing. The man of will power is wanted every- where. The world is crying for him. 309 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY One of America's most famous financiers said recently, "I have ten twenty-five thou- sand-dollar-a-year jobs for men of will power." When asked what he meant by a man of will power he said, "I mean a man filled with the force of action; a man who is determined; who keeps his mind on an object just as a ma- chinist keeps his chisel on the metal, makes it bite in deeper and deeper until the desired impression is made." Cultivate fixity of purpose. To hit a target you must see it. To arrive at any point you must keep your eye on it and go straight to- ward it. Fix your will upon what you want; hold it there, and move toward it in as straight a line as possible. Turn the spotlight of con- centration on it and every faculty will gravi- tate toward its accomplishment just as the eyes of an audience follow a spotlight on the stage. The people or objects outside the rim of the spotlight are not seen. You can de- velop concentration to the point where inimi- cal or opposing matters will not be felt. The spotlight of concentration illumines your aim, magnifies it, brings it out with such distinct- ness that other things do not tempt you. To accomplish anything, "Cut off both ends 310 HOW TO MAKE MONEY and set it afire in the middle/' is the way one author puts it. The sun shining on a news- paper is sufficiently diffused spread out that nothing happens, but concentrate that sunshine down to the area of a pin point and it will burn a hole thru it. To get anything in this world you have got to burn holes through the things that inter- vene. You must center not only your body but your mind on the thing. All outward activities dissipate your ener- gies. Stop losing power in the thinking of wasteful thoughts. You cannot stop the ceaseless activities of the mind but you can direct them into the channels that are worth while. Stop yourself sometime when you are hur- rying in a crowded day's work. Note what an inner whirlwind of excitement is going on inside your mind. Walter Dill Scott of Northwestern Univer- sity said, "In studying the lives of contem- porary business men two facts stand out pre- eminently. The first is that they have accom- plished what to most of us seemed impossible. Such men appear as giants in comparison with whom ordinary men sink to the size of pig- mies. The second fact is that they never seem 311 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY rushed for time. The secret of it seems to be that they require less time because their con- centration accomplishes in one hour what or- dinary men take three hours to do." That there is an enormous lack of proper application of energy in the lives of most men is an undoubted fact. What you need is not more power to do but more sensible applica- tion of the powers you are wasting. You often hear a big business man spoken of as "a human dynamo." We are impressed by his power, by his ability to turn out a stupendous amount of work in a short time. We exclaim at his capacity for carrying in his mind the de- tails of so many projects and wonder how he can accomplish so much in so many direc- tions; how he can pull the strings of so many enterprises without ever getting lost in the maze of details. One thing we know is that he never seems hurried. If you will look you will find the explana- tion. Nearly every word and act of this man is straight to the point. It is said that "a cool brain is the reserve of a hot box." The busi- ness of the day is carried along in a steady drive. This is invariably the mark of the big man. The man who chatters, clatters and flut- ters usually imagines he is getting over a lot of 312 HOW TO MAKE MONEY track, but he wastes far more steam than is necessary in doing it. By keeping your physical and mental ener- gies riveted on what you want to do there can be no insurmountable obstacles. You may not be able to do it just the way you planned, but new conceptions, new ways and methods will come to you just as surely as you keep your desire and concentration. By concentra- tion I do not merely mean the keeping of your surface mind on your ideal. I mean building it so deeply in your subconscious that if I awakened you from the soundest sleep in the middle of the night you could tell me before you were entirely awake what that aim was. Ask any successful man if his success came about in the manner in which he expected and he will say, "No. Many of the specific plans I laid were frustrated, but my determina- tion brought from somewhere other plans that served my purpose as well or even better than those I had originally conceived/' When the will is focused with burning in- tensity on the accomplishment of any one thing, ways and means can always be found for accomplishing it. The brain that is kept at work on one aim develops unsuspected powers. 313 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY The reason for this is purely scientific. In every brain there are millions of unused brain cells the "reserves." The average person, because he never places himself in jeopardy, never has the use of these reserves, but the man who calls upon his brain for them not only finds them responding to his needs, but develops new ones* Brain building is the development or growth of the brain cells in any special region of the brain. As you know, the brain is divided into sections or areas, each one being the seat of some particular faculty. These areas are the same in all human beings, as was discovered by Dr. Gall, a brain anatomist of France, 125 years ago. It has long been recognized that these brain centers could be developed. In some instances specialists, whose work de- manded great concentration, developed that particular brain area to such an extent that slight changes in the outward shape and size of their skulls was apparent. The bony struc- ture of the skull accommodates itself very gradually and in ordinary cases the change is not noticeable.* * Note: For further study of the subject of brain areas, see "Brain and Personality," by Thompson. 314 HOW TO MAKE MONEY It has been demonstrated many times that a man may literally make himself over men- tally. All that is necessary is that he devote the same degree of attention, patience and work to the subject that he would if he were attempting to develop some physical muscle in arm or hand, for instance. The processes for developing mental and physical muscle are almost identical, exer- cise, practice, persistence. You can increase any brain area, therefore any ability, faculty or talent. Earnest desire, intensified by visualization, stimulates the brain centers, sends the blood to that area and automatically causes the cre- ation of new cells. Concentration is attention in an intensified form. As long as other subjects are allowed to enter your consciousness they will weaken concentration until it becomes merely interest. Only by inhibiting all outside interests can you attain the concentration which is effective. It is difficult for one to concentrate his at- tention for any great length of time on any one thing. The secret of concentration is to keep pulling it back. Whenever it wanders return to the ideal of the financial success, the 315 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY professional achievement, the ruling passion, and let it get control of your attention again. The mere general longing for success is not enough. Nothing indefinite will ever get you anywhere. You must have definite interests clearly defined. The mind must be given something specific, important and tangible to work on. New details will be needed constantly. But if you really want this thing, your desire will furnish those details. Concentration has been the secret back of every invention. If Thomas A. Edison had given his attention to the thousand little odds and ends that the rest of us do, how far do you think he would have climbed? How far do you think any other big man would have climbed? How iar do you think you are go- ing to climb, if, instead of conducting a spe- cialty shop, you run a mental five-and-ten- cent store? Do not allow yourself to waste time, strength or energy reading things that cannot serve your purpose. Do not make engage- ments that will dissipate your powers. Be jealous of your time. Franklin said, "Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time for that is the stuff life 316 HOW TO MAKE MONEY is made of." Give money to the needy; be generous with your worldly goods, but give no man your time. Over the desk of a prominent executive in New York City is this statement, "Be brief. The man who steals my time is the most dan- gerous thief." Conserve your energy for the accomplish- ment of your great aim in life. Do not be- come narrow, selfish or self-centered but let everyone know that you are on the road to some place in particular and that you do not intend to loiter along the way. Anyone worth while will respect you all the more, for every- one worth while is doing the same himself. There is only one sure way to get away from poverty and that is to turn your back on it. Begin this minute by putting the poverty thought out of your mind. Get the poverty expression out of your eyes, the poverty tones out of your voice, the poverty limpness out of your handshake. Mentally, physically, and spiritually erase, as far as you can, marks of poverty. Erase the marks of poverty from your clothing, your surroundings, your bearing, your environment as a whole. 317 PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Don't give up. All solids and metals have what is called a melting pot. At a certain temperature they tend to liquify. The test of you is your melting point, the place where you are ready to quit, to lie down, to give up. Nearly every rich man will tell you that every big triumph was preceded by places of dark discouragement which, had he heeded them, would have marked his end. The dif- ference between the poor man and the rich man is usually just that. One gives up when things look dark. The other shuts his eyes, grits his teeth, clenches his fists and hangs on. THE END 318 ' N E *ff* YC 15871 TTcTBER^Y LIBRARIES UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY