June 8

Not every day can be an easy one, nor every day fully happy; but even a day of tough going and difficulty can be a good day. Robert Browning knew this when he wrote: “Meanwhile as the day wore on the trouble grew, Where—from I guessed there would be born a star.”

June 7

Henry Thoreau, the American philosopher, upon awakening in the morning would lie in bed telling himself all the good news he could think of: that he had a healthy body, that his mind was alert, that his work was interesting, that the future looked bright, that people trusted him. Presently, he arose to meet the day in a world filled with good things, good people, good opportunities.

June 6

To make the day good, visualize or image it in your mind as good. We become what we think. Our life’s events, good or bad, are governed by our thoughts. Develop the habit of thinking good days and you will go a long way toward having good days.

June 5

When your feelings are hurt, what then? Immediately put some healing balm on that sore spot. Forgiveness is the best medicine. Open your mind completely and empty out all the grievances. Pour them out until not a vestige remains in your thoughts. Your hurts will heal quickly.

June 4

A. Harry Moore, a poor boy who became governor of New Jersey for three terms, had an early struggle to make a career. He often become discouraged and would say to his mother: “Mom, I’m discouraged. I want to do something and be somebody, but I just haven’t got it in me. Besides, we have no money or influence.” His mother’s reply was blunt: “You’ve got plenty in you. All you need is God and gumption.” It’s a good formula: “God and gumption.”

June 3

One thing is sure—to live your life successfully you will need to overcome proneness to error or the mistake tendency. It is error that gets us into trouble. All of our failures and mistakes have been due to the mistake tendency. But rightness leads to right results and rightness is cultivatable.

June 2

God, who created us in the first place, continually recreates. If we cooperate He will constantly fill us with new life, increased strength, and adequate power. You can have energy that never runs down if you image yourself as being constantly recreated.

June 1

The big heart of faith can push the crushing circumstances of life wide apart. The positive mind is not limited. It has extra problem-solving power. People who have big hearts and big minds need not be afraid of what may come, for those hearts and minds determine the quality of the future.

May 31

So you’ve made a mistake. Who hasn’t? But perhaps you feel it’s a pretty serious one. I have always liked the following quotation from Grove Patterson, a famous editor.

A boy . . . leaned against the railing of a bridge and watched the current of the river below . . . Sometimes the current went more swiftly and again quite slowly, but always the river flowed on under the bridge.

Watching the river that day, the boy made a discovery. It was not the discovery of a material thing, something he might put his hand upon. He could not even sees it. He had discovered an idea.

Quite suddenly, and yet quietly, he knew that everything in his life would someday pass under the bridge and be gone like water . . . And he didn’t worry unduly about his mistakes after that and he certainly didn’t let them get him down, because it was water under the bridge.

May 30

A physician told me he had seen people die, not because of organic trouble but because they had lost their enthusiasm, their will to live. Had they continued to possess the zest for life that enthusiasm gives, they could have overcome the physical problems that took their lives. Enthusiasm is an elixir of life.

May 29

In time of discouragement, it helps to take paper and pencil and add up all your assets—all that you have going for you. You will be astonished by what you have as you stop thinking about what you have not.

May 28

It is always well to remember that a lost battle or two or three does not mean the war is lost. With God’s help, you can take any setback or defeat, muster your forces, and win out in the end.

May 27

By always expecting the best, you are putting your whole heart and mind into what you want to accomplish. People are defeated in life not because of lack of ability but for lack of sustained expectation and wholeheartedness.

May 26

Imagine yourself looking at all of your difficulties lined up like an army before you. As you face this army of discouragement, frustration, disappointment, hostility, and weakness, affirm, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). Know that God is for you and His power is greater than all opposition. Visualize these enemies of your peace and happiness as retreating, giving way before God’s power.

May 25

Physical death is a transitional step in the total life process. The soul, which does not die, having finished with the earthly body, moves to a higher level of life, where it grows under greatly enhanced circumstances.

May 24

The mental and spiritual heat created by enthusiasm can burn off the apathy-failure factor in any personality and release hitherto unused, even unsuspected, personal power qualities. The president of a large corporation states: “If I am trying to decide between two men of fairly equal ability and one man has enthusiasm, I know he will go higher than the other man, for enthusiasm acts as a self-releasing force.” Enthusiasm is infectious. It carries all before it.

May 23

The controlled person is a powerful person. He who always keeps his head will get ahead. The number of people whose careers have been mined through lack of emotional control is astonishing.

May 22

I once asked President Dwight D. Eisenhower who was the greatest of all the great men he had known. His instant reply: “It wasn't a man. It was a woman—my mother. She had little schooling, but her educated mind, her wisdom, came from a lifelong study of the Bible. Often I have wished I could consult her.

One night we were playing a card game, mother, my brothers, and I. Not with playing cards. It was Flinch—mother was straightlaced. But hands were dealt and I drew a bad one. I began to complain. “ ‘Put your cards down, boys,’ Mother said. ‘Dwight, this is just a friendly game in your home where you are loved. But, out in the world where there isn't so much love, you will be dealt many a bad hand. So you’ve got to learn to take the hands life deals you without complaining. Just play them out.’ ”

May 21

It is difficult to sustain concentrated, creative thinking. But we have the capacity to do so. As we keep thinking, never give up—solutions to problems will come. But the effort must be made and continued. As Leonardo da Vinci observed, God gives us everything “at the price of an effort.”

May 20

You can he made tired by your thoughts—thoughts of weariness, fear, anxiety, or resentment. But when you hold thoughts of hopefulness, confidence, positiveness, and good will, a constant flow of energy develops. Do not think tired thoughts. Think lively ones.

May 19

Every day, preferably about midafternoon, when energy lag usually comes, try repeating “. . . in him we live, and move, and have our being . . .” (Acts 17:28), meanwhile visualizing yourself as plugged into the spiritual power line. Affirm that God’s recreative energy is restoring strength and power and health to every part of your body, mind, and soul.

May 18

Do the best you can, trust the Lord, serve Him, walk with God, love people, do your duty, be honorable and upright, live right, think right, and you will live at peace with yourself.

May 17

Empty pockets never held anyone back; it’s only empty heads and empty hearts that do that.

May 16

Some people feel they can change and improve their situation merely by moving from one place to another. “I'm tired of this job. My talent isn't being used. I'm not appreciated here. Think I'll look around.”

These statements are often born of illusion. People sometimes make them primarily because they are tired not only of the job but of themselves. Nothing is likely to change for them unless they first change their attitude. Then they won't require escape.

May 15

A friend, a famous baseball player, hit regularly in the neighborhood of .315. Early in the season I had listened on the radio through two innings of a game and was dismayed when he struck out. Meeting him later that day. I told him how sorry I was he had struck out. “Oh,” he said, “l struck out again in the eighth inning.”

“Twice? What’s happening to you?” I asked anxiously. “Nothing at all,” he responded with unconcern. “I take comfort in the law of averages. To bat an average of .315 as I have been doing, one will strike out about ninety times a season. So today, when I fanned twice, it means I have only eighty-eight times more to strike out this season.”

May 14

In his book The Unobstructed Universe, Stewart Edward White suggests that when the blades of an electric fan are at rest, or moving slowly, you can’t see through them. But when the fan is revolving at top speed you can see through all the points of the circle in which the blades are revolving, because they have been stepped up to a higher frequency.

Is it not conceivable that around us now in this mysterious universe are those whom we have loved and lost for a while, and that we get glimpses through the barrier in rare moments when our spiritual frequency is at one with the higher frequency?

May 13

A man said: “I've been afraid, but not anymore, for now I’ve got the five G’s going for me: Guidance: God guides me in everything. Grace: God does for me what I cannot do for myself. Guts: Just plain man-sized courage. Gumption: Good old American common sense. And the greatest of all: God.”

May 12

The key phrase of failure is “if only.” If only this hadn’t happened! lf only I had done differently. If only . . . if only! Shift the key words. Take “if only” out of the mental slot. Slide in a new phrase, image it locked into place in your mind. It can cancel out failure thinking. Instead of “if only,” say “next time. . . next time . . . next time.”

May 11

Never settle for a failure. To do so is a serious blow to self-confidence. When an acrobat fails, he tries again, and, in fact, will keep the audience waiting for minutes, if necessary, until he completes his stunt successfully. He will not leave the stage until he has performed it. Otherwise he accepts into his consciousness the fact of failure so that the next time he performs he is afraid, is not sure he can do it and is, indeed, likely to fail.

May 10

There is only one power greater than fear, and that is faith. When fear comes to your mind, immediately counter it with an affirmation of faith. Think positively, visualize achievement. Never doubt. Always think faith.

May 9

My father, Charles Clifford Peale, often said to me, and indeed it was one of the last things he said: “I have always believed in you. You have never failed me. Remember, the Peales never quit.” While I have not always lived up to my father’s statement, one thing is sure—it has always helped when I begin to weaken.

May 8

A physician tells of a patient who died of “grudgitis”—a long-held hatred of another person. It is healthy to get rid of grudges; they seldom hint the other person but they can make the holder sick.

May 7

General Stonewall Jackson was approached by a timorous subordinate general who admitted grave doubts about a planned military sortie. “General Jackson,” he said, “I’m afraid of this. I fear we can’t quite carry it off.” Jackson replied, “General, never take counsel of your fears.”

May 6

A family holds a yearly “unhappy-thought burning.” Each person drops into an urn pieces of paper on which they have written things they want to forget. They watch their unhappy thoughts burn and curl into ashes. This act helps them forget.

May 5

Built into you is the inner fortitude and strength to stand up to things—to anything. The best lightning rod for your own protection is your own spine. That means, stand up straight and handle difficulties with faith in yourself.

May 4

Once, in a restaurant, Henry Ford was asked, “Who is your best friend?” Ford thought for a moment, then took out his pen and wrote in large letters on the tablecloth, “He is your best friend who brings out of you the best that is in you.”

May 3

Charles P. Kettering, the famous engineer, said: “I am not interested in the past. I am only interested in the future, for that is where I expect to spend the rest of my life!”

May 2

A friend has six gems of wisdom which he repeats almost every day. The first is from Cicero: “To live long, live slowly.” The second is from Confucius: “The way of a superior man is threefold: virtuous, he is therefore free from anxiety; wise, he is therefore free from perplexity; bold, he is therefore free from fear.” The third is from Robert Louis Stevenson: “Sit loosely in the saddle of life.”

The fourth, Saint Theresa’s famous words: “Let nothing disturb you; let nothing frighten you. Everything passes except God; God alone is sufficient." And from Isaiah, “. . . In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). Then finally, and most importantly, the words of Jesus: “. . . my peace I give unto you: not as the world gives, give I unto you, Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27).

May 1

I had made a speech to a large and friendly crowd. My cousin Philip Henderson heard me. Afterwards, he said: “You were not up to your best. It just wasn't good enough. You didn’t give it all you’ve got. You coasted. You only wanted to get by. You must always do your top best, nothing else.” It was a wise appraisal from one who loved me with the kind of love that gives it to you straight to make you be your best self.