Chapter 2

The puffy, corn-fed millionaire pities the man who is content to live with small means and enjoys what he has to the full extent.

The wise man is he who gets the fullness out of life, happiness, respect, content, freedom from worry, who is busy doing useful things, busy helping his brother, busy training his children, busy spreading sunshine and love and the close-together feeling in his home circle.

The corn-fed, hardened, senseless, money-mad, dollar-worshipper knows not peace. Smiles seldom linger on his lips. Peace never rests in his bosom, cheer never lights his face. He is simply a fighting machine, miserable in solitude, suffering when inactive and sick when resting.

The money-chaser is up and doing, working like a Trojan, because occupation takes his mind off the painful picture of his misspent opportunity and his destroyed natural instinct. When fighting for gold he forgets his appalling poverty of the really worth-while things in the world.

Like the drunkard in his cups the intoxication makes him forget, and he is negatively happy.

Money received as reward for doing things worth while is laudable.

We cannot sit idly by and neglect to earn money to provide food, shelter and education for our loved ones, but between times we should seek the wealth that comes from right mental employment.

The millionaire thinks, dreams and gets dollars and that is all.

The worth-while man thinks kindness, usefulness, self-improvement, brotherhood, love, and he gets happiness.

The man who discovers means to help his fellowman, does a good act, but it is the man with the dollars in front of his eyes that commercializes the discovery and invention.

In the end the man that helped mankind fares better than the man who made the millions.

It's a great crowd surging by, and very few have the good sense to learn the value of TODAY. That great crowd I see below my window thinks ever of tomorrow and forgets TODAY.

Those who think always of tomorrow will never get the beauties and joys from life that comes to the little group, of Today, who appreciates and enjoys the real Now, rather than the pictured Tomorrow that never comes.

It's mighty interesting to watch the crowd go by and speculate on their movements.

Save up your pennies, measure everything by the dollar standard, think dollars, dream dollars, work, slave, push for the dollars and you will build a fortune. You will never have peace or recreation, or joy; you will live only in hope of a some day when you will retire. That's the way the millionaires travel life's highway.

Some day the paper will announce the death of those millionaires and then the dollars will be blown in by reckless heirs, and so the grinding wheels roll on.

Surely there are many ways of looking at things. Surely there is much of interest in the crowd. Surely there is an unending fund from which to speculate, in that crowd way down on the street below my window.

What passions, what hopes, what joys, what sorrows, are in the hearts of that hurrying, worrying crowd.

What noise this din of traffic makes, what activity man has stirred up.

A picture, a drama, a tragedy, a comedy, all these I see in the human ants that run along below the hive where I sit and write these lines.

The phone rings and my little Nancy Lou's voice says, "Daddy, will you please bring me a pencil and a tablet with lines on it."

So I must needs stop this, whatever you may call it, and push through the crowd to get that tablet with "lines on it" for my Nancy Lou; and there is some feeling of happiness and content and peace in Daddy's heart as he lays down his pen, for Daddy is going Home, and that word means a lot in his little family, where they all say "Daddy" instead of Papa or Father.

DOING THINGS TWICE

A Common Habit That Saps Nerve Power

It is hard enough to do duty once, but doubly hard when you anticipate mentally everything you have to do tomorrow.

This doing things twice is a habit easily acquired if you don't watch out, and it means wasted energy.

I have just read the experience of a housewife who was resting on a couch reading; her eye caught sight of a book lying on the floor across the room.

Instantly her mindometer, if I may coin a word, registered, "when you get up, pick up that book."

She went on reading, but her mind was not on the magazine she held, but on that book on the floor.

So obsessed did she become that she was miserable until she got up and picked up the book.

I was talking with a woman who was resting on her porch; her day's work was over. She was dressed for the afternoon. Everything in the home was neat, sweet, clean and tidy. All serene but her face, and that was the window through which I saw worry working overtime.

By strategy I learned the trouble, and here is her story: "Tomorrow a lot of fruit will be ready to preserve. I am worrying where I shall put it. My fruit closet is full."

The woman had every reason to say to herself "sufficient unto the day," yet she was doing the preserving mentally today and tomorrow she would do the work physically.

A tired mind is harder to rest than a tired body, so we must nip this advance mental work in the bud.

We have all had mental obsessions of worrying about the things we were going to take on our trip; then worrying over the routine of our work when we return from our trip.

If the housewife looks over her week's work and washes the dishes, makes the beds, cooks the meals, dresses the children, mends the clothes, in her imagination, before she does them in reality, she is indeed a hard working woman.

It's all right to plan your work; that's economy in mental expenditure, for it simplifies, systematizes, and saves work.

Plan your work in advance, but do not keep your mind on the plans until the work is done.

When you have planned, then close the mental book of tomorrow's duty, and turn to pleasures, rest, relaxation and enjoyment of today.

These little round-ups we have each evening are fine to switch the thought current from tomorrow's duties.

It is to get a definite, different thought habit fixed, that I ask you to give me these few minutes each day when we may consider various phases of life, science, pleasure, morals and mental refreshment.

True we can only have a fleeting look at things, but we'll get enough, I hope, to freshen your minds, change the humdrum, and elicit interest in things.

Maybe these round-ups we have will help us, and keep us from working mentally tomorrow's physical work.

If these evening talks interest you, help clear your vision, help cheer you, help rest you, then they are good for you, and be cause they help you they certainly benefit me and make me very happy, because happiness comes from doing something for others.

I write as the mood strikes me, or as a phase of life comes before me, or as an idea strikes in and just won't let go until I grasp my pen and let the words flow.

I mean this book is human, and not a studied literary effort.

Just get the human viewpoint and don't criticize the words used or the sentences I construct.

I want to reach you right there alone in the room where you are reading this, and I want the suggestions, the good, the help, to soak in and I want you to pass the good you get to your brother; you won't lose a bit by so doing.

NERVES

The Doctors' Most Difficult Problem

"She is all right--her only trouble is her NERVES." How often we hear that and how little does the person with steady nerves appreciate the tortures of "nerves."

A cut, a bruise, a headache, or any of the physical ailments can be quickly cured. Nature will mend the break, but tired, worn, stretched, abused nerves take time to restore. These nerve ailments call for most vigorous mental treatment.

Neurasthenia means debilitated or prostrated nerves and it shows itself first of all by worry. Worry means the inability to relax the attention from a definite fear or fancied hard luck. Worry leads to many physical and mental disorders.

Left alone this worry stage develops into an acute state and brings with it nervous prostration, and sometimes a complete collapse of the will power.

Before the acute stage of neurasthenia is reached there is noticed "brain fag," and brain fag is nature's warning signal calling upon you to take notice and change your mental habits.

Worry sometimes develops into hysteria; again it takes the form of hypochondria or chronic blues. The hypochondriac has a chronic, morbid anxiety about personal health and personal welfare. Frequently this state is accompanied by melancholia.

Melancholia is the forks in the roads. One road leads to incurable insanity, the other to curable melancholia. Right here is where heroic action is needed by the sufferer.

Here is where the sufferer must exert his will power, change completely his mental and physical habits and his surroundings. Occupation, changed habits, taking in of confidence, faith and courage thoughts--these changes are necessary to the victim of melancholia, or he will shatter on the danger rocks and go to pieces.

Melancholia is where is offered a good chance for Christian Science. Mental suggestion, powerful personality of a friend, and the personal help such a friend can give by counsel, example and suggestion, are all helps.

I have abundant evidence that melancholia sufferers can be restored to peace, efficiency and poise, by proper thought direction, and by proper physical employment.

"Pep," which has principally to do with mental efficiency, definitely lays down rules and practical suggestions for the employment of the mind and body. I have letters and verbal proofs in quantity proving the efficiency of those rules and suggestions.

So wonderful have been the results, so numerous the recoveries, that the testimonials, if published, would make the fake nerve tonic manufacturer die of envy.

"Only your nerves." I cannot understand why the word, only, is used. It makes it appear that nerves are of minor importance.

Nerves are less understood than anything in the human anatomy.

Experience has proved that nerves cannot be restored by dope, patent medicines, tonics or prescriptions.

The cure must come by and through the individual possessing the nerves and by and through the individual's power of will and mastery of the mind.

Get the mental equipment right. Let the mind master the body. Let the nerve sufferer get hold of himself and fill his brain with faith thought instead of fear thought, with courage instead of cowardice, with strength instead of weakness, with hope instead of despair, with smiles instead of frowns, with occupation instead of sluggishness, and wonders will appear.

The little shredded, tingling nerve ends will then commence to synchronize instead of fight, to harmonize instead of discord, to build instead of destroy.

The building, or coming back to a normal state, is slow; it takes time, patience and will power, but it can be done. I know. I have been through the mill, and I pass the word to you and try to stir you to be up and doing, even as I did.

Your nerves can be steadied, your thoughts uplifted, your health restored, your ambition re-established, your normality fixed.

Smiles, love and content are to be yours. Poise, efficiency, peace, your blessings. Health, happiness and hope your dividends. All these I promise you if you will read carefully this book from cover to cover and follow its plain, practical teachings.

The curriculum is not hard, it is not my discovery. I am merely the purveyor of facts, the gleaner of truth, and the selector of helpful experiences, first of all for my own benefit and having proved the truth in my own case and by friends to whom I passed the truths and rules.

I made bold to write books, but the writing has paid me well, not alone in dollars, but from having done a helpful thing in writing for other humans who have had problems, worries and nerves.

The big books on nerves are discouraging and forbidding by their immensity and labyrinth of scientific technical terms. They are fine for teachers, but discouraging for the layman.

The great everyday crowd is the class I want to talk to and so I endeavor to write in plain human, sincere style from heart to heart, with understanding, feeling, charity and sympathy.

I have felt the things you feel, and if I can by example, emphasis, suggestion, rule or good intent, be a help to you, then I have done a service.

Don't worry or criticize this book. Take my suggestions in the spirit offered.

PESSIMISTS

Give Them the Cold Shoulder

The calamity howler is found in the midst of peace and plenty. This pessimist sows seeds of discord, plants envy, generates the anarchist spirit, and is an all-around nuisance.

A man may spend years erecting a building; a fiend can demolish it in a minute with a stick of dynamite.

The calamity howler is a destroyer; he doesn't think, he spurts out words. His words and arguments are simply parrot mimicry and void of intellectual impulse, as are the movements of an angle worm.

These peace destroyers talk of their rights and they expect and demand the same privileges and benefits that are earned by the man who uses his head.

These ghouls are born without heads; they just have necks that grow up and are covered with hair. These brainless mollusks are now telling the people that the Sultan of Sulu is to capture Texas and that Japan is to invade Indianapolis; Germany is to capture Quebec, and France is to siege Milwaukee.

The howlers spread talk of yellow peril and black plague to follow. They spread doubt and fear; they tell you the capitalists are awake nights trying to starve you and that they employ inventors to discover new methods of torture for the poor working man.

They accuse business men of grinding down the farmer, forming pools, establishing starvation prices, and ruining agriculture. Yet, as I write these lines, fat beef cattle sell for $10.00 a hundred on the hoof, wheat is way over $1.00 a bushel, and good farms in Missouri even are selling at from $100.00 to $150.00 per acre.

Good farm mortgages are hard to get. The farmers have money in the banks, honey in the house, and automobiles in the garage.

Our taxes in the United States are lower than anywhere on the face of the earth. Our wages are higher than anywhere in the world. Our schools better, our opportunities greater.

And in the midst of better conditions and brighter prospects the shameless, brainless, fameless bipeds pollute the atmosphere, poison hearts and plant discontent.

If these howlers are any better than foot-pads, thieves, grave robbers, or child beaters, I can't see it.

And it is up to you and to me to denounce these peace destroyers, ridicule them, show our contempt for them; they have no hearts, no souls, they are only decay spots that spread rottenness, disease, despair, discouragement, contamination and anarchy, and we do not want such guests at our quilting parties or husking bees.

GLOOM CONTAGION

A Little Study of Faces in a Street Car

This evening I rode home in a crowded street car. What an interesting study to watch the faces in that car.

Discontent, discomfort, worry, gloominess on nearly every face. Tired faces, tired bodies from a hard day's work, mouth corners drooped. Hopelessness stamped on the countenances.

As the people came in the car some of them had smiles or at least passable expressions, but when they got crowded together and saw the gloomy faces the gloom spread to their faces, too.

At a picnic all are smiling and laughing. In the street car at six o'clock the long procession of workers is a stream of solemn faces. Contagion, example, surrounding, yes, that's it--contagion and example.

At six o'clock in the cars all is gloom, blueness and sorrow faces. At eight o'clock many of these faces will be changed; there will be joy, smiles, rosiness, singing and dancing. Yet the actual conditions of finance, health, hope or prospects haven't changed since these people were in the car at six o'clock.

Why then such a change in two hours?

It is this: at seven o'clock these workers sat down to supper, they were out of that gloom-reflected street car atmosphere. Now they are talking, they are rounding-up the day's activities; they are HOME with mother, sister, brother and the kiddies. The home ones greet them with smiles, the appetizing supper pleases the palate, good cheer permeates, and all is smiles and joy.

Gloom spreads gloom. Joy spreads joy. Gloom is black; joy is white. One darkens, the other brightens.

Well, then, where's the moral? What's the benefit from this little study of the street car passengers?

The lesson is plain: it is that you and I are ferments of joy or acids of gloom. We are influences to help or to hurt. To hurt others by our example hurts us. To help others by our example helps us. We become happier than ever.

In the street car life was not worth living if you judged by the pained faces. In two hours by changed thought the example of life was worth while.

What changes the mental attitude makes.

"When a man has spent His very last cent-- The world looks blue, you bet; But give him a dollar And loud he will holler There's life in the old world yet."

Next time we get on the street car let's plant some smiles. Let's give that lady a seat and smile when we do it.

We can spread cheer by merely wearing a cheery face. Costs little, pays big. Let's do it.

HAPPINESS

Hovers Near Us If We Do Not Chase It

Some of our richest blessings are gained by not striving for them directly. This is so true that we accept the blessings without thinking about how we came to get them.

Particularly true is this in the matter of happiness. Everyone wants to be happy, but few know how to secure this blessing.

Most people have the idea that the possession of material things is necessary to happiness and that idea is what keeps architects, automobile makers, jewelers, tailors, hotels, railroads, steamships and golf courses busy.

Do your duty well, have a worth-while ambition, be a dreamer, have an ideal. Keep your duty in mind, be occupied sincerely with your work, keep on the road to your ideal and happiness will cross your path all the while.

Happiness is an elusive prize; it's wary, timid, alert and cannot be caught. Chase it and it escapes your grasp.

I read today of a friend who walked home with a workman. This is the workman's story: He had a son who was making a record in school. He had two daughters who helped their mother; he had a cottage, a little yard, a few flowers, a garden. He worked hard in a garage by day and evenings he cultivated his flowers, his garden, and his family. He had health, plus contentment a-plenty. His possessions were few and the care of them consequently a negligible effort.

Happiness flowed in the cracks of his door. Smiles were on his lips, joy in his heart, love in his bosom; that's the story my friend heard.

Then came a friend in an automobile on his way home from the club. He picked up my friend and to him a tale of woe, misery and discontent did unfold.

This club man had money, automobiles, social standing, possessions, and all the objects and material things envious persons covet--yet he was unhappy. His whole life was spent chasing happiness, but his sixty horsepower auto wasn't fast enough to catch it.

The poor man I have told you about was the man who washed the club man's auto.

The strenuous pleasure seeker fails to get happiness; that is an inexorable law. He develops into a pessimist with an acrid, satirical disgust at all the simple, worth-while, real things in life.

This is not a new discovery of mine; it's an old truth. Read Ecclesiastes, the pessimistic chronicle of the Bible, and you'll find what comes to the pleasure-chaser, and you will know about "vanity and vexation of spirit."

Do something for somebody. Engage in moves and enterprises that will be a service to the community and help the uplift of mankind. This making others happy is a positive insurance and guarantee of your own happiness.

You must keep a stiff upper lip, a stiff backbone; you must forget the wishbone and the envious heart.

Paul had trials, setbacks, hardships and hard labors; he had defeats and discouragements and still the record shows he was "always rejoicing."

Paul was a man of Pep. In the dungeon with his feet in stocks he sang songs and rejoiced. Paul was happy, ever and always, not because he strove to get happiness, but because he had dedicated his life to a service to mankind.

The real hero, the real man of fame, the real man of popularity, doesn't arrive through direct quest, for any of these things; the result is incidental.

The real hero forgets self first of all; that is the essential step to greatness.

Washington at Valley Forge had no thought that his acts there would furnish inspiration for a picture that would endure for generations.

Lincoln, the care-worn, tired noble man, in his speech at Gettysburg, never dreamed that speech would stamp him as a master of words and thought, in the hearts of his countrymen. He thought not of self. He was trying to soothe wounds, cheer troubled spirits, and give courage to those who had been so long in shadowland.

Ever has it been that fame, glory, happiness are rewards, given not to those who strive to capture, but to those who strive to free others from their troubles, burdens and problems.

THOUGHT CONTROL

"As a Man Thinketh in His Heart so is He"

A little child is crying over a real or fancied injury to her body or to her pride.

So long as she keeps her mind on the subject she is miserable.

Distract her attention, get her mind on another subject, and her tears stop and smiles replace frowns.

This shows how we are creatures of our thoughts. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" is a truth that has endured through the centuries.

We are children in so far as we cry and suffer when we think of our ills or hurts or wrongs or bad luck.

We can smile and have peace, poise and strength if we change our thoughts to faith, courage and confidence.

Our condition is what we make it. If we think fear, worry and misery, we will suffer. If we think faith, peace and happiness, we will enjoy life.

Every thought that comes out of our brain had to go in first.

If we feed our brain storehouse with trash and fear, and nonsense, we have a poor material to draw from.

The last thought we put in the brain before going to sleep is most likely to last longest. So it is our duty to quietly relax, to slow down--to eliminate fear-thought, self-accusation, and to substitute some good helpful thought in closing the mental book of each day.

Therefore read a chapter or two from a worth-while book the last thing before going to bed.

Say to yourself, "I am unafraid; I can, I will awake in the morning with smiles on my face, courage in my heart, and song on my lips."

These suggestions for closing the day will be of instant help to you.

The great power for good, the wherewith to give you strength, progress and efficiency is within yourself and at the command of your will.

You can't think faith and fear, good and bad, courage and defeat, all at the same time.

You can only think one thing at a time.

Your great power is your will, and the wherewith to help yourself is your thought habit.

Change your thought habit as you go to bed. You can do it; it's a matter of will determination. The more faithful you are to your purpose, the easier your task will be. Be patient, conscientious rational and confident.

You are what your thoughts picture you to be. Your will directs your thoughts.

Don't get discouraged if you can't suddenly change your life from shadow to sunshine, from illness to wellness.

Big things take time and patience. The great ship lies in the harbor pointed North. A tug boat could make a sudden pull and break the great chain or tow line.