Some days, it seems that everybody is clamoring for your attention. But when it comes to family members, it's important that you give it to them. Ten minutes often is not enough to really get started talking, but it shows your loved ones that you care deeply about what troubles them and that you want to help. Even if your help is just listening to them vent, do it. You can always set aside another ten minutes to continue the discussion at a later time. Consider the alternative. Brushing them aside for more urgent matters sends the wrong signal. Make time for loved ones before they leave your nest. Isn't it true that you are happiest when you know that they are happy too?
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Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends. Walt Disney
Wednesday
Make a Video Record of an Elderly Family Member Sharing Memories
Before a parent, grandparent, great aunt, or great uncle gets any older, ask him or her to join you for a videotaped chat. Make it informal and begin with easy questions that can serve as points of departure into his story. When were you born? What town, village, or city? What country? Who were your parents? What kind of work did they do? Then ask open-ended questions. Tell me about your earliest memories? What was life like for you growing up in your town? Ask questions about certain periods in his life such as pre-adolescent, teen, young adult, middle age, and golden years, for example. Long after he has passed away, you can relive those moments and feel joyful that you took the time to make the video.
Tuesday
Make a Birthday Card Instead of Buying One
Get the whole family involved in making a card for that special birthday gal. A sheet or two of colored paper, paste, scissors, colored pens, and some magazines are all you need to make a great, personalized birthday card guaranteed to evoke smiles of appreciation. Find birthday greetings on the Internet or make up your own. Use the magazines for images or words. You may decide that making a card that says exactly what you want is way more fun than perusing dozens of cards on a store shelf. Oh, and since it costs nothing when you already have the materials on hand, you've got another reason to smile.
How to Prepare Specific Action Steps
Today, I would like to share something about goal-setting
and preparing for specific action steps. These are the things that will help
you achieve your goals. If you follow the technique to have a measurable goal,
then this is it.
Think of it as a guide when you’re traveling to a
specific place and you don’t want to get lost on the way. Obviously, your first
instinct is to focus on your route and not more on your destination. After all,
you’ll reach your destination if you have followed your route carefully.
To do this, prepare a checklist of your activities. If
you have accomplished an item, you can mark a check on it. In that way, you’ll
know if you have followed the route really well. You shouldn’t give up if a
step is very challenging, though. Just move forward and reach your destination
safely. You’ll reap rewards in doing so after all the hurdles that you have
encountered along the way.
Monday
Learn Three Conflict Resolution Techniques and Use Them Regularly
Three basic mechanisms for dealing with conflict are avoidance, accommodation, and collaboration. Use conflict resolution techniques on a regular basis when you are dealing with family conflicts and disagreements. For example, when you are putting masking tape on the floor of the family room in order to separate your children from each other because you can't stand their incessant arguing, do so with a calm, thoughtful, and respectful demeanor. Show them what courtesy, kindness, empathy, and understanding look like. Listen to both sides and demonstrate your desire for a constructive solution. It may be necessary to restate their problem, paraphrasing it in your own words so both of them are satisfied that you truly understand. Impress upon both children your desire that a solution be found. At all times, speak calmly and avoid being confrontational and aggressive. When the optimal solution is found, happiness and peace will again prevail.
Sunday
Help Children Understand Why Grandparents Are Family Treasures
If your children have grown up with grandparents around, they are truly lucky. Grandparents are repositories of memories and details of a bygone era and as such are often treasure troves of information for younger generations. Encourage lively discourse between the older and younger generations of your family. Teach your children why their grandparents are so special. Encourage them to do an oral history project, interviewing their grandparents for true stories about growing up in a different time (and possibly place) in the world.
Saturday
Learn How to Be a Better Parent
If you want to be the best parent you can be, sign up for a parenting class. Such classes often can be found through parent teacher organizations, local adult education courses, the family court system, and even online. Learn what to expect from your child as he or she goes through various stages to adulthood. Discover techniques for discipline that do not involve yelling, spanking, screaming, or arguing. Understand why children need boundaries and guidelines as they grow. Invest a little time in becoming a better parent if you want to raise strong, self-sufficient, well-adjusted, happy children.
Friday
Repeat Your Friend's Words Back to Him
The art of actively listening means to be totally engaged when someone is talking to you. When you truly make an effort to understand others, they appreciate it. Consequently, your relationships with them are strengthened. Make sure you truly understand what your friend tells you by repeating his words back to him. You could start with, “I want to make sure I understand what you're telling me.” Express your understanding of what he's saying and if it isn't right, he'll correct you. Listen without judging. Be fully present. Pay attention. Your relationships will be stronger and happier as a result of your effort.
Be the Kind of Friend You Want to Attract
If you are seeking loyalty and trust in your friendships or the romantic relationship you hope to have, first cultivate those qualities within yourself and then demonstrate them to others. In so doing, you become a magnet for exactly what you want. Similarly, if you seek a gentle, loving spirit for a life partner, avoid someone with a mercurial, volatile, and temperamental nature. Although opposites do sometimes attract, you'll most likely be happiest with a kindred spirit.
Thursday
Be the Kind of Friend You Want to Attract
If you are seeking loyalty and trust in your friendships or the romantic relationship you hope to have, first cultivate those qualities within yourself and then demonstrate them to others. In so doing, you become a magnet for exactly what you want. Similarly, if you seek a gentle, loving spirit for a life partner, avoid someone with a mercurial, volatile, and temperamental nature. Although opposites do sometimes attract, you'll most likely be happiest with a kindred spirit.
Wednesday
Write “I Love You” on a Note and Tuck It Under Your Partner's Pillow
Leave love to its own devices or take some action to evoke a response from your lover. Write a simple “I love you” note and tuck it under your partner's pillow to be found when it's time for bed or after you have already left for the day. Such a simple act will call up strong, loving feelings in him during your absence. Expect a call, possibly the delivery of some flowers, or lots of attention. Want a double dose of happiness? Try it and see for yourself the results.
Tuesday
List Ten Physical Attributes You Desire in a Mate
If you are unattached and looking for that special someone, this exercise will not only be fun but it could produce exciting results. Law of attraction experts say that when you know exactly what you want, it is easier to attract it. Make a list of the top ten physical attributes you'd like in a potential mate. If you have trouble, close your eyes and visualize this person walking toward you. What does he look like? What does his walk or gait say about him? As he gets closer, can you tell if he is taller than you, the same size, or shorter? If you don't like what you see, change it. Go from general observations to specific until you see him clearly in your mind's eye. Now write down ten specific physical attributes that you want. Be on the lookout for that exact person, now, because your thoughts may be calling him to you.
Monday
Make a Ten-Point List of What's Really Important to You
Millions of people live their lives without a sense of direction. Unless you know what is really important to you and what you want out of life, how are you going to know where you are going, how to get what you want, and what your life purpose is? Think of ten things that are really important to you, for example, family unity. Then make each item as specific as possible. Instead of family unity, maybe you really mean eating meals together, working on the chores together, or praying together. Refine the ten things on your list until you know exactly what is of primary importance to you. These are the things that will make you happiest. Knowing what they are can help you make better choices in your personal life journey.
Sunday
Practice a Random Act of Kindness Every Day
Push the buttons in the elevator for a fellow rider. Help an elderly person up the steps of a building, a subway exit, or onto a bus. Pick up an item that someone drops. Put your pocket change into a charity box. Invite a fellow shopper to move ahead of you in the check-out line. Shovel the snow off your neighbor's walk. Offer to let someone share your umbrella. Random acts of kindness require very little effort but pay great dividends in the good karma and personal happiness they generate.
Saturday
Become More Tolerant
When was the last time you tried to understand a bias you hold toward something or someone? If it's been a while, now might be the right time to revisit your beliefs. Growing up, many people consciously and unconsciously absorb the biases of their family members, associates, friends, and peers. When you let go of intolerant biases and recognize and respect the beliefs of others, you are practicing tolerance. Consider one or more of the beliefs you still hold. Perhaps your beloved grandmother told you that things would never change or the father you respected taught you not to trust anyone who didn't look or talk like you. Think for yourself. Using truth and fact, compassion and understanding, create a new lens for seeing bias.
Friday
Memorize a Prayer, Affirmation, or Piece of Spiritual Writing
Not only is it good for your brain, but memorization of a prayer, affirmation, or a piece of profound spiritual writing can provide solace and comfort in times of crisis or deep emotional distress and give you peace. If you were a Christian growing up in America, you may have been expected to memorize the Lord's Prayer, one or more of the psalms or proverbs, or New Testament verses. In other religious traditions, too, there are prayers and religious texts, mantras, and sacred verses that followers can memorize. So close your eyes, open your heart, and mentally recite your favorite affirmation or prayer. Let the words lead you to tranquility and bliss.
Thursday
Nourish Your Inner Being
Nourish your inner being by diving into meditative reflection, centering and grounding yourself, and endeavoring to deepen the experience. According to Harvard scientist Herbert Benson, who has conducted studies on Buddhist meditation and the effects of the mind on the body, when you turn inward through meditation, complex activity in the brain (as seen on MRI brain scans) takes place. That activity actually calms the body, reduces stress levels, and promotes healing. Eventually a period of quietude is reached and as your concentration deepens, you experience a disconnect between the body and mind. Some people describe that experience as one of awesome peace and joy.
Wednesday
Memorize a Funny Joke and Share It
Heard any good jokes lately? Have you tried passing them on? Telling a funny joke is a terrific way to cheer up others, defuse tense situations, add much-needed levity in times of stress, and generate some positive effects on your health. Memorizing a joke and telling it to others is just one way to cultivate a sense of humor. Did you know that laughing may actually reduce your risk for heart disease and can mitigate damage incurred when you are experiencing deep distress and pain? Also, some sources say that while sniffles, sneezes, and coughing are contagious, laughter is more so. Want to feel good? Be able to laugh at stressful situations. Did you hear the one about.
Tuesday
Release the Past and Appreciate the Present
You can never go back to previous moments or past events. Once you have moved through them, they are forever gone. Whatever is in the past that haunts you or makes you sad or fearful necessarily stays there. It cannot be undone. If some past event or encounter still bothers you, do what you can to process through it and let it go. You alone give it the power it has over you. Release it and instead focus on the present moment. Be mindful right now of where you are, who you are, and what you are doing. Paying attention to and being fully present in each moment of your life means you truly will be “showing up for your life.” That is the way to happiness.
Monday
Cook Your Favorite Dish for Yourself
Cook up something spectacular such as the comfort food of your childhood, an exotic creation you first tasted on your honeymoon, or even a savory palate-pleaser you learned to cook when you were dating that foreign guy or girl. If you are a working parent, then it's unlikely you ever cook just to please yourself. So once in a while, cook what you want to eat instead of only what the kids will eat. They can nibble on pizza, ordered in, while you happily savor every bite of that Moroccan tangine chicken, New England crab cakes, Midwestern meatloaf, Southern fried chicken, or other favorite. You know how happy you feel eating your favorite food. That's why it's your favorite.
Sunday
Indulge in Moments of Relaxation
Your bookshelves need dusting, the dishes still stand in the sink, the floor needs mopping, and you haven't even gotten around to the laundry, but you need a moment to deflect or discharge the worries of the day. Take that time to indulge in something that makes you feel peaceful and relaxed. For example, sit in a rocker and gaze at the fresh red tulips on the kitchen counter. Walk into your garden and inspect your plants for new green shoots. Drop some bread crumbs for the pigeons and mourning doves or fill the bird feeder with Niger seed for the little yellow finches. Feel the wind on your face, the sun on your back, and freshness of a new moment imbued with tranquility.
Saturday
Write Three Things You Love about Yourself
Do you have an inner critic that constantly reminds you that your nose is too big or your hips are too wide or your chest is too flat? Think of three wonderful things that you love about yourself and write them on a card. They don't have to be your physical attributes; they could include things like “I love my compassionate nature,” or “I love my ability to immediately put other people at ease,” or “I love the fact that I have great inner strength.” Tape the card to your mirror, computer, refrigerator, or other place where you can frequently be reminded of the gifts that are uniquely yours.
Friday
Quiet Your Mind Before Starting Your Day
Focus on your thinking at the start of every day. Are your thoughts already racing through your to-do list? Are they jumping from one subject to another through thought associations? Did a troubling dream leave you anxious or angry or fearful upon awakening? If you answered yes to any of those questions, spend ten minutes before you even get out of bed doing a mental check-in. Take deep breaths and be aware of your entire body. Feel anchored and centered in it. Quiet your mind. Think positive thoughts. Dial out the emotions of bad dreams and the anxieties associated with the day ahead. Relax into peace. The world can wait for ten minutes.
Thursday
Praise Yourself
You praise your children, your friends, your coworkers, and your spouse whenever they accomplish something praiseworthy, so why not give yourself a one-minute praising for your own achievements? You're not being a braggart or egotistical when you acknowledge some wonderful task or breakthrough you made during your day. You undoubtedly work very hard and probably accomplish much that no one but you recognizes. If you finally played a complicated piano libretto all the way through or found an ingenious way to increase the family budget, tell yourself how wonderfully brilliant and accomplished you are. Bask in the glory of that moment. You deserve it.
Wednesday
Cultivate Hope When Disaster Hits
If something isn't going well in your life — your child becomes ill, a car broadsides yours in the parking lot, you overdraw your bank account, or the taxi you are riding in on the way to the most important meeting of your life gets ensnarled in traffic — have hope that circumstances will shift and the situation will improve or be resolved. Find the courage to work to change what isn't good right now. Rather than allowing stress and anxiety to fill you with worry and stress, try to feel hopeful. It will be better for you emotionally and physically.
Tuesday
Don't Harbor a Grudge
Holding on to anger, resentment, and hostility hurts you, psychologically, emotionally, and physically. Even if the inciting incident happened only yesterday, the person you are mad at may not even remember the incident, so what's the point? Don't give over your power to have positivity in your life just to harbor a grudge. Find a way to move past it. Take an anger management class or read books offering specific strategies for dealing with anger issues. Take extremely good care of yourself, loving and respecting yourself enough to ensure that you don't flounder but rather flourish.
Monday
Change One of Your Faults
Everyone has faults, but that doesn't mean you are stuck with yours. Pick one you would like to change or eliminate. Take time to do a little self-examination with complete honesty. Do you frequently gossip? Do you have a quick temper and a short fuse? Do you procrastinate and avoid facing problems until they snowball out of control? Or, are you still blaming others for the things that are wrong with your life? Choose to fix what you don't like about yourself. See goodness in yourself and others. Allow your inner strength and joy to be at the heart of who you are.
Sunday
Smile More Often
Force yourself to smile. Try it; it's not that difficult. Now hold it for a count of ten and deepen it. Mentally affirm, “I am happy, totally, blissfully happy.” Notice how your mood begins to shift. You can't help but feel a little lighter. Use your smile to start a happiness epidemic. Smile at everyone, everywhere. People are hardwired to respond to the facial expressions they encounter. If you glower at someone, that person will return a frown, but your smile will evoke a smile. You'll feel happier, too, because your body responds to your smile, even if you are faking the grin. So fake it until you genuinely feel happy. Once you know it works, do it often.
Saturday
Be Happy with Yourself
If you want to find happiness and add years to your life, think happy thoughts. When you choose positive thoughts over negative ones, you are more likely to develop an optimistic outlook on life. According to happiness researchers such as Martin E.P. Seligman, director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and Barbara Fredrickson, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, positive people generally have higher levels of optimism and life satisfaction and live longer. In a BBC News report, Dr Seligman was quoted as saying that he believed that “we have compelling evidence that optimists and pessimists will differ markedly in how long they live.” Dr. Fredrickson has counseled that changing your mindset can change your body chemistry. She has stated that positive feelings literally can open the heart and mind. And there's more good news. Even if you aren't normally a happy person, thinking happy thoughts is a skill that can be learned. Work on being open, being an optimist, choosing to think positive thoughts, and seeing the proverbial glass half full rather than half empty. The next time you are in line at the post office and someone cuts in front of you or says something rude, resist the urge to respond with anger, which can clamp down your blood vessels and increase your blood pressure. Instead, return rudeness with kindness and respect. Keep that positive vibe going through your intentions and actions in whatever you do. The more frequently you choose to be happy, the more your effort will be strengthened. So don't fret; be happy and live longer.
Friday
Fear and Reason
We have all heard the seemingly discriminating remarks that fear is normal and abnormal, and that normal fear is to be regarded as a friend, while abnormal fear should be destroyed as an enemy.
The fact is that no so called normal fear can be named which has not been clearly absent in some people who have had every cause therefor. If you will run over human history in your mind, or look about yea in the present life, you will find here and there persons who, in situations or before objects which ought, as any fearful soul will insist, to inspire the feeling of at least normal self-protecting fear, are nevertheless wholly without the feeling. They possess every feeling and thought demanded except fear. The idea of self-preservation is as strongly present as with the most abjectly timid or terrified, but fear they do not know. This fearless awareness of fear suggesting conditions may be due to several causes. It may result from constitutional make-up, or from long continued training or habituation, or from religious ecstasy, or from a perfectly calm sense of spiritual selfhood which is unhurtable, or from the action of very exalted reason. Whatever the explanation, the fact remains: the very causes which excite fear in most of us, merely appeal, with such people, if at all. to the instinct of self-preservation and to reason, the thought-element of the soul which makes for personal peace and wholeness.
Banish all fear.
It is on such considerations that I have come to hold that all real fear-feeling should and may be banished from our life, and that what we call "normal fear" should be substituted in our language by "instinct" or by "reason," the element of fear being dropped altogether.
"Everyone can testify that the psychical state called fear consists of mental representations of certain painful results" (James). The mental representations may be very faint as such, but the idea of hurt to self is surely present. If, then, it can be profoundly believed that the real self cannot be hurt; if the reason can be brought to consider vividly and believingly all quieting considerations; if the self can be held consciously in the assurance that the White Life surrounds the true self, and is surely within that self, and will suffer "no evil to come nigh," while all the instincts of self preservation may be perfectly active, fear itself must be removed "as far as the east is from the west."
These are the ways, then, in which any occasion for fear may be divided:
As a warning and as a maker of panic. But let us say that the warning should be understood as given to reason, that fear need not appear at all, and that the panic is perfectly useless pain. With these discriminations in mind, we may now go on to a preliminary study of fear.
preliminary study of fear.
Fear is (a) an impulse, (b) a habit, (c) a disease.
Fear, as it exists in man, is a make-believe of sanity, a creature of the imagination, a state of insanity.
Furthermore, fear is, now of the nerves, now of the mind, now of the moral consciousness.
The division depends upon the point of view. What is commonly called normal fear should give place to reason, using the word to cover instinct as well as thought. From the correct point of view all fear is an evil so long as entertained.
Whatever its manifestations, wherever its apparent location, fear is a psychic state, of course, reacting upon the individual in several ways: as, in the nerves, in mental moods, in a single impulse, in a chronic habit, in a totally unbalanced condition. The reaction has always a good intention, meaning, in each case, "Take care! Danger!" You will see that this is so if you will look for a moment at three comprehensive kinds of fear fear of self, fear for self, fear for others. Fear of self is indirectly fear for self danger. Fear for others signifies foresensed or forepictured distress to self because of anticipated misfortune to others. I often wonder whether, when we fear for others, it is distress to self or hurt to them that is most emphatically in our thought.
Fear, then, is usually regarded as the soul's danger signal. But the true signal is instinctive and thoughtful reason.
Even instinct and reason, acting as warning, may perform their duty abnormally, or assume abnormal proportions. And then we have the feeling of fear. The normal warning is induced by actual danger apprehended by mind in a state of balance and self-control. Normal mind is always capable of such warning. There are but two ways in which so-called normal fear, acting in the guise of reason, may be annihilated: by the substitution of reason for fear, and by the assurance of the white life.
Let it be understood, now, that by normal fear is here meant normal reason real fear being denied place and function altogether. Then we may say that such action of reason is a benefactor to man. It is, with pain and weariness, the philanthropy of the nature of things within us.
One person said: "Tired? No such word in my house!" Now this cannot be a sound and healthy attitude. Weariness, at a certain stage of effort, is a signal to stop work. When one becomes so absorbed in labor as to lose consciousness of the feeling of weariness, he has issued a "hurry call" on death. I do not deny that the soul may cultivate a sublime sense of buoyancy and power; rather do I urge you to seek that beautiful condition; but I hold that when a belief or a hallucination refuses to permit you to hear the warning of nerves and muscles, Nature will work disaster inevitably. Let us stand for the larger liberty which is joyously free to take advantage of everything Nature may offer for true well-being. There is a partial liberty which tries to realize itself by denying various realities as real; there is a higher liberty which really realizes itself by conceding such realities as real and by using or disusing them as occasion may require in the interest of the self at its best. I hold this to be true wisdom: to take advantage of everything which evidently promises good to the self, without regard to this or that theory, and freely to use all things, material or immaterial, reasonable or spiritual. I embrace your science or your method; but I beg to ignore your bondage to philosophy or to consistency. So I say that to normal health the weary-sense is a rational command to replenish exhausted nerves and muscles.
It is not liberty, it is not healthful, to declare, "There is no pain!" Pain does exist, whatever you affirm, and your affirmation that it does not is proof that it does exist, for why (and how) declare the non-existence of that which actually is non-existent? But if you say, "As a matter of fact I have pain, but I am earnestly striving to ignore it, and to cultivate thought-health so that the cause of pain may be removed," that is sane and beautiful. This is the commendable attitude of the Bible character who cried: "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." To undertake swamping pain with a cloud of psychological fog that is to turn anarchist against the good government of Nature. By pain Nature informs the individual that he is somewhere out of order. This warning is normal. The feeling becomes abnormal in the mind when imagination twangs the nerves with reiterated irritation, and Will, confused by the discord and the psychic chaos, cowers and shivers with fear.
I do not say there is no such thing as fear. Fear does exist. But it exists in your life by your permission only, not because it is needful as a warning against "evil."
Fear is induced by unduly magnifying actual danger, or by conjuring up fictitious dangers through excessive and misdirected psychical reactions. This also may be taken as a signal of danger, but it is a falsely-intentioned witness, for it is not needed, is hostile to the individual because it threatens self-control and it absorbs life's forces in useless and destructive work when they ought to be engaged in creating values.
Thursday
Exclusive Friendships
That men should work together for the good of all is very beautiful, and I believe the day will come when these things will be, but the simple process of fifty-one per cent of the voters casting ballots for socialism will not bring it about.
The matter of voting is simply the expression of a sentiment, and after the ballots have been counted there still remains the work to be done. A man might vote right and act like a fool the rest of the year.
The socialist who is full of bitterness, fight, faction and jealousy is creating an opposition that will hold him and all others like him in check. And this opposition is well, for even a very imperfect society is forced to protect itself against dissolution and a condition which is worse. To take over the monopolies and operate them for the good of society is not enough, and not desirable either, so long as the idea of rivalry is rife.
As long as self is uppermost in the minds of men, they will fear and hate other men, and under socialism there would be precisely the same scramble for place and power that we see in politics now.
Society can never be reconstructed until its individual members are reconstructed. Man must be born again. When fifty-one per cent of the voters rule their own spirit and have put fifty-one per cent of their present envy, jealousy, bitterness, hate, fear and foolish pride out of their hearts, then socialism will be at hand, and not until then.
The subject is entirely too big to dispose of in a paragraph, so I am just going to content myself here with the mention of one thing, the danger to society of exclusive friendships between man and man, and woman and woman. No two persons of the same sex can complement each other, neither can they long uplift or benefit each other. Usually they deform the mental and spiritual estate. We should have many acquaintances or none. When two men begin to "tell each other everything," they are hiking for senility. There must be a bit of well-defined reserve. We are told that in matter solid steel for instance the molecules never touch. They never surrender their individuality. We are all molecules of Divinity, and our personality should not be abandoned. Be yourself, let no man be necessary to you. Your friend will think more of you if you keep him at a little distance. Friendship, like credit, is highest where it is not used.
I can understand how a strong man can have a great and abiding affection for a thousand other men, and call them all by name, but how he can regard any one of these men much higher than another and preserve his mental balance, I do not know.
Let a man come close enough and he'll clutch you like a drowning person, and down you both go. In a close and exclusive friendship men partake of others' weaknesses.
In shops and factories it happens constantly that men will have their chums. These men relate to each other their troubles they keep nothing back they sympathize with each other, they mutually condole.
They combine and stand by each other. Their friendship is exclusive and others see that it is. Jealousy creeps in, suspicion awakens, hate crouches around the corner, and these men combine in mutual dislike for certain things and persons. They foment each other, and their sympathy dilutes sanity by recognizing their troubles men make them real. Things get out of focus, and the sense of values is lost. By thinking some one is an enemy you evolve him into one.
Soon others are involved and we have a clique. A clique is a friendship gone to seed.
A clique develops into a faction, and a faction into a feud, and soon we have a mob, which is a blind, stupid, insane, crazy, ramping and roaring mass that has lost the rudder. In a mob there are no individuals all are of one mind, and independent thought is gone.
A feud is founded on nothing it is a mistake a fool idea fanned into flame by a fool friend! And it may become a mob.
Every man who has had anything to do with communal life has noticed that the clique is the disintegrating bacillus and the clique has its rise always in the exclusive friendship of two persons of the same sex, who tell each other all unkind things that are said of each other "so be on your guard." Beware of the exclusive friendship! Respect all men and try to find the good in all. To associate only with the sociable, the witty, the wise, the brilliant, is a blunder go among the plain, the stupid, the uneducated, and exercise your own wit and wisdom. You grow by giving have no favorites you hold your friend as much by keeping away from him as you do by following after him.
Revere him yes, but be natural and let space intervene. Be a Divine molecule.
Be yourself and give your friend a chance to be himself. Thus do you benefit him, and in benefiting him you benefit yourself.
The finest friendships are between those who can do without each other.
Of course there have been cases of exclusive friendship that are pointed out to us as grand examples of affection, but they are so rare and exceptional that they serve to emphasize the fact that it is exceedingly unwise for men of ordinary power and intellect to exclude their fellow men. A few men, perhaps, who are big enough to have a place in history, could play the part of David to another's Jonathan and yet retain the good will of all, but the most of us would engender bitterness and strife.
And this beautiful dream of socialism, where each shall work for the good of all, will never come about until fifty-one per cent of the adults shall abandon all exclusive friendships. Until that day arrives you will have cliques, denominations which are cliques grown big factions, feuds and occasional mobs.
Do not lean on any one, and let no one lean on you. The ideal society will be made up of ideal individuals. Be a man and be a friend to everybody.
When the Master admonished his disciples to love their enemies, he had in mind the truth that an exclusive love is a mistake. Love dies when it is monopolized. It grows by giving. Your enemy is one who misunderstands you why should you not rise above the fog and see his error and respect him for the good qualities you find in him?
Wednesday
Dealing with Others
When you are dealing with other people, endeavoring magnetically to win them to your wish, you should summon the general magnetic feeling within yourself, will them to do as you desire, and at the same time think of them as already consenting and acting. Your inner condition should be perfectly calm, buoyant, hopeful, whatever the external means employed, your mind should be concentrated upon the thing desired, and its accomplishment should be thought of as now secured. The response of the person may be delayed, but this should not discourage you, for some minds do not take suggestions (those of your unspoken will are referred to) quickly, and they do not act instantly upon their own thought. It is invariably best to induce people to believe that they are acting on their personal impulse or judgment; they should be made to feel perfectly free, not at all coerced, and that they are doing their own will rather than yours simply because they wish so to do.
We may summarize all these suggestions in the words of a distinguished scientific writer:
"Life is not a bully who swaggers out into the open universe, upsetting the laws of energy in all directions, but rather a consummate strategist, who, sitting in his secret chamber over his wires, directs the movements of a great army." This is a good description of magnetism.
The success-magnetism assumption: We are now ready for the great assumption-principle of magnetism in applied life.
Think of every goal as already reached, of every undertaking as already achieved.
Tuesday
Acquire Power Through Self Development
Why do we suffer in life? Because in the scheme of nature we are being forced forward in evolution and we lack the spiritual illumination that alone can light the way and enable us to move safely among the obstacles that lie before us. Usually we do not even see or suspect the presence of trouble until it suddenly leaps upon us like a concealed tiger. One day our family circle is complete and happy. A week later death has come and gone and joy is replaced with agony. Today we have a friend. Tomorrow he will be an enemy and we do not know why. A little while ago we had wealth and all material luxuries. There was a sudden change and now we have only poverty and misery and yet we seek in vain for a reason why this should be. There was a time when we had health and strength; but they have both departed and no trace of a reason appears. Aside from these greater tragedies of life innumerable things of lesser consequence continually bring to us little miseries and minor heartaches. We most earnestly desire to avoid them but we never see them until they strike us, until in the darkness of our ignorance we blunder upon them. The thing we lack is the spiritual illumination that will enable us to look far and wide, finding the hidden causes of human suffering and revealing the method by which they may be avoided; and if we can but reach illumination the evolutionary journey can be made both comfortably and swiftly. It is as though we must pass through a long, dark room filled with furniture promiscuously scattered about. In the darkness our progress would be slow and painful and our bruises many. But if we could press a button that would turn on the electric light we could then make the same journey quickly and with perfect safety and comfort.
The old method of education was to store the mind with as many facts, or supposed facts, as could be accumulated and to give a certain exterior polish to the personality. The theory was that when a man was born he was a completed human being and that all that could be done for him was to load him up with information that would be used with more or less skill, according to the native ability he happened to be born with. The theosophical idea is that the physical man, and all that constitutes his life in the physical world, is but a very partial expression of the self; that in the ego of each there is practically unlimited power and wisdom; that these may be brought through into expression in the physical world as the physical body and its invisible counterparts, which together constitute the complex vehicle of the ego's manifestation, are evolved and adapted to the purpose; and that in exact proportion that conscious effort is given to such self-development will spiritual illumination be achieved and wisdom attained. Thus the light that leads to happiness is kindled from within and the evolutionary journey that all are making may be robbed of its suffering.
Why does death bring misery? Chiefly because it separates us from those we love. The only other reason why death brings grief or fear is because we do not understand it and comprehend the part it plays in human evolution. But the moment our ignorance gives way to comprehension such fear vanishes and a serene happiness takes its place.
Why do we have enemies from whose words or acts we suffer? Because in our limited physical consciousness we do not perceive the unity of all life and realize that our wrong thinking and doing must react upon us through other people a situation from which there is no possible escape except through ceasing to think evil and then patiently awaiting the time when the causes we have already generated are fully exhausted. When spiritual illumination comes, and we no longer stumble in the night of ignorance, the last enemy will disappear and we shall make no more forever.
Why do people suffer from poverty and disease? Only because of our blundering ignorance that makes their existence possible for us, and because we do not comprehend their meaning and their lessons, nor know the attitude to assume toward them. Had we but the wisdom to understand why they come to people, why they are necessary factors in their evolution, they would trouble us no longer. When nature's lesson is fully learned these mute teachers will vanish.
And so it is with all forms of suffering we experience. They are at once reactions from our ignorant blunderings and instructors that point out the better way. When we have comprehended the lessons they teach they are no longer necessary and disappear. It is not by the outward acquirement of facts that men become wise and great. It is by developing the soul from within until it illuminates the brain with that flood of light called genius.
