September 24

Quiet and activity are the opposite sides of creative energy. I doubt that anyone can ever be a creative activist who is not at the same time a creative quietist. 

September 23

Sing at least one song every day. This may not add to the enjoyment of your family or friends, but it will be a wonderful tonic for you. Actually, a hymn is best—a hymn with the morning shower will wash your mind on the inside as soap and water do on the outside.

September 22

Your mind will give you back exactly what you put into it. If, over a long period of time, you put defeat into your mind, your mind will give you back defeat. But if, over a long period, you put great faith into your mind, your mind will give faith results back.

September 21

Keep the mouth lines up. Smile and be happy. William James claimed that we are happy because we smile rather than we smile because we are happy. The smile comes first. It is also a fact that happiness in the heart puts a smile on the lips. Cultivate optimism, always looking on the bright side, and you will develop a happy state of life.

September 20 Autumn

. . . there is a harmony

In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,

Which through the summer is not heard or seen,

As if it could not be, as if it had not been.

So wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley. "Harmony" and "lustre" are true of autumn. But I also see it as an exciting time of year. Another powerful adjective to associate with autumn is "glorious." "sensational" and "incredible" go well with it also. For surely woods, aflame with colors that make description difficult, and hills and valleys spread afar like an oriental rug, can hardly be depressing.

Oh, I know where the sadness concept comes from: the dying year, the early twilights, the passing of the fullness of summer, and all that. The last leaf clinging to the moldering wall brings long thoughts tinged with melancholy.

But enough of that. Let’s wander, on a late September day or one in crisp October, down a quiet country road in New England or New York or Ohio or Pennsylvania or wherever we can smell autumn. The aroma of burning leaves perfumes the air. Perhaps they contribute something to that "haze on the far horizon, The infinite, tender sky, The ripe rich tint of the cornfields, And the wild geese sailing high." Yes, indeed, as W. H. Carruth says, some of us call it autumn, but others call it God.

Hand in hand, down a winding country road with all this indescribable beauty all about and, at every turn, deep thoughts of home and memories of old days—this is the mystic gift of autumn.

Indian summer it is sometimes called in America, for in bygone years it was said that the haze lingering over the landscape was caused by the tires from the Indian wigwams and tepees. The Indians who peopled the country are long gone, but the old-time autumn haze endures. Could it be that the spirits of the warriors once again come trooping over storied hills and along river valleys famed in song and story in autumn time? Who knows?

Many an America, immersed in history and lore, can sense them in the gathering dusk of an October evening, As long as our country endures, the Indian tribes will surely come riding out of the past, down the silvery moon spread of autumn. So it is the mystic time, the romantic interval, the long dream time laced with history still with us, that is called the fall of the year.

And with it comes the music of the falling leaves. Silently they float downward, red, yellow, russet, piling up in windrows until one walks through them ankle deep. Strange about that sound. We became acquainted with it as childhood toddlers. But, at eighty years and beyond, it sounds exactly as it did on long-vanished October days—the rustling of the leaves.

The katydids, who dolefully warned us on September nights that summer was ended and fall had come, are silent now. The nights are still. The big, round harvest moon rides high. The air is cool and crisp. Inside the snug house, the fire bums brightly on the hearth. Apples and walnuts are ready at hand; cider is poured from the jug. It’s autumn, it’s October, it’s America, it’s home. There is nothing quite like it in all the world, an American autumn.

September 20

One of professional golf’s outstanding players once told me: "One secret of a good shot is ‘seeing’ the ball going where you want it to go before you hit it." And pianists have told me it is possible to practice a number in one’s mind without being near a keyboard. You need only visualize the notes with your inner eye and hear them with your inner ear. Whatever your goal, to reach it, fix in your mind a definite and successful outcome. Hold that image and go to work, for you have set in motion a realizable force.

September 19

A salesman who from being a loser became a winner, told how he did it:

I went to church one Sunday in a small town where I had to wait over until Monday. In the sermon, the pastor came up with this idea: "You are never going to get the most out of life until you give living all you’ve got. Don’t wait for living to give something to you; you give something to living." This was a new idea to me, exactly what I was not doing. It was as a door opened in my mind. I had an entire new image of myself” and decided I would give living everything I had. So, first thing next morning, I got up earlier than usual, took out the list of people I was going to see that day, and prayed for every one of them. I got to the first store before it opened. I helped the man open up and made my first sale before I would normally even have been up. And I had a wonderful day all day long. It was like magic! All along I had been expecting life to give me something and it hadn’t been doing it. Now I was giving something to life and it was giving wonderful things back.

September 18

If your predicament looks hopeless, remember there is no situation so completely dark that something constructive cannot be done about it. When faced with a minus, ask what you can do to make it a plus. Reject hopelessness; substitute faith; use intelligent, persevering effort and you can lift yourself out of hopelessness.

September 17

Changing one’s thought pattern may be a long and difficult process. But it can be accomplished by the practice of displacing unhealthy thoughts with healthy ones. You can pray out hate, for example. A man told me he had to pray 142 times to get rid of a certain hate but then, like a fever, it broke and he became a well man spiritually and emotionally. Don’t knock yourself out disliking or hating or resenting. It isn’t easy to shift from that habit to the love habit. But the person who does just that is in for a lot of happiness.

September 16

Rufus Jones, Quaker educator and philosopher, pointed out that the word individual implies a being who resists being divided. When you muster yourself on the side of the real you, you come alive, accomplish more, gain a sense of greater worth—and live with joy. The effort it takes to be your own individual really pays off in satisfaction.

September 15

Some persons simply refuse to grow old. I like that eighty-

year-old man who told me:

What’s wrong with being eighty years old? It isn’t how long you’ve been around; it’s what you’ve done while you’ve been around. Sure, I’ve been in the world eighty years. But I don’t have an old philosophy. I do not think old thoughts. I happen to own the business run. But I can still run it all right. When I find some bright young fellow who is as smart as I am, I’ll step down. Don’t think because I have a game leg that I can't handle the business. You don't run a business with your leg but with your head. And my head is okay. I don't intend ever to get old. I know there will come a time when my obituary will be in the paper, but I will have had the time of my life all my life.

September 14

Think negative thoughts and you thereby activate negative forces and tend to draw back to yourself negative results. Like attracts like. Send out hate and you get back hate. Send out fear and you get back fear. Send out defeat and you draw defeat to yourself. Conversely, send out positive thoughts and positive results will come to you. We defeat ourselves, or gain victories, by the thoughts we think.

September 13

Captain Eddie Rickenbacker once gave me an exercise for relaxing: Sit loosely in a chair, making yourself limp. Imagine yourself a burlap bag filled with potatoes. Mentally cut the string, allowing the potatoes to roll out. Be like the bag that remains. Lift your arms one at a time, letting them fall limply. Do the same with your legs and eyelids. Conceive of all your muscles as relaxing. Say, “All tension is subsiding, all stress is leaving me. I am at ease. I am at peace with God, with the world, with myself.”

September 12

On the plains, winter storms can take a heavy toll of cattle. The temperature drops below zero. Freezing rain and howling winds whip across the prairie. Snow piles into drifts. In the maelstrom, some cattle, I’m told, turn their backs to the icy blasts and slowly drift downwind, finally coming to a boundary fence barring their way. There they pile against it and many die. But other cattle react differently. They head into the wind, slowly working their way forward against it until they come to a fence. Here they stand, shoulder to shoulder, facing the storm. "We ‘most always find them alive and well," said an old cowboy. "That’s the greatest lesson I ever learned on the prairie: to attack difficulties head-on and not turn and run."

September 11

Here is a good way to end a day and get ready for a great day tomorrow: Do not carry the day into the night. Let it rest while you rest. Before you go to sleep, run over your personal world mentally and thank God for everyone and everything. Count your blessings; name them one by one. Then say to yourself, "God watches over me, over my house, over all my loved ones." Then go to sleep in peace. Let go and let God.

September 10

An old Chinese farmer was walking along the road with a stick across his shoulder. Hanging from the stick was a pot filled with soybean soup. He stumbled and the jar fell off and broke into pieces. The old farmer kept going, unperturbed. A man rushed up and said excitedly, "Don’t you know that your jar broke?" "Yes," the old farmer answered, "I know. I heard it fall." "Why didn’t you turn around and do something about it?" "It’s broken; the soup is gone—what can I do about it?" he asked.

September 9

A critic is an asset, though perhaps an unpleasant one. Consider criticism objectively and ask whether it is justified. If it is, then try to profit by it, even when it is unfriendly. If it isn’t valid, then forget it. Don’t criticize in return, just keep on doing your job to the best of your ability. Sure, it hurts, but we are not intended to go through life without some hurt. We are supposed to make strong people of ourselves.

September 8

The average man usually empties his pockets onto his dresser or desk before retiring. Personally, I rather enjoy standing over a wastebasket during this process to see how many things I can throw away: notes, memos, scraps of paper, completed self-directions, even knickknacks which I have picked up. With relief, I deposit all items possible in the wastebasket. It is perhaps more important to empty the mind as one empties pockets. During the day we pick up mental odds and ends: a little worry, a little resentment, a few annoyances, some irritations, perhaps even some guilt reactions. Every night, these should be thrown out for, unless eliminated, they accumulate and subtract from the joy of life.

September 7

On the morning of our thirty-fourth anniversary, Ruth and I went into the church in Syracuse where we were married. How well I remember the day when I first saw her. I was holding a committee meeting following the church service. The door opened and in burst a girl. I had never before seen her but said to myself, That is the girl for me. Of course, I had a little job persuading her, but that was the start of a romance that now covers over fifty years. When she and I went into the church on our anniversary, there was no one there. So I said, "Ruth, please go back and burst through that door again." She did. Believe me, I would do it all over again! And she says she would, too.

September 6

Before this day is out, do something specific and concrete that will demonstrate your determination to change yourself and your life for the better. Pay a debt. Heal a broken relationship. End a quarrel. Offer an apology. Pray for someone. Visit someone who is sick. Restrain yourself from buying something you had planned to buy for yourself and give the money to charity instead. Do whatever you do quietly, without ostentation. And do it, not in hope of reward, but simply because you want to do it, because you prefer to be an inner-directed person.

September 5

The process of tranquilizing the mind is important in assuring a condition of body, mind, and spirit that will induce perfect rest. Deliberately conceive of the mind as completely quiet, like the surface of a pond on which there is not even a ripple. Picture the mind as motionless and filled with deep quietness. Think silence until an atmosphere of silence seems to surround you. Suggest tranquil ideas to the mind, remembering that your thoughts respond to suggestion. Slowly, deliberately image peace at the center.

September 4

Stronger than willpower is imagination. The word might be pronounced image—ing. This means the projection of mental images or pictures of a desired outcome. A basic fact of human nature is the tendency to become like that which we habitually imagine (image) ourselves as being. The deeply held mental image tends to realize itself in fact. If you visualize a goal and hold it firmly in consciousness, the mind has a tendency to complete the image.

September 3

Prescription: Until condition improves, every day

1. Take two minutes to think about God.

2. Read a psalm.

3. Read a chapter from the Gospels.

4. Do something kind for someone.

5. Get outside yourself by joining some human-betterment effort.

6. Go to church every Sunday and get into an atmosphere of faith.

7. Become a believer—in God, in life, in yourself.

September 2

The tough-minded optimist takes a positive attitude toward a fact. He sees it realistically, just as it is, but he sees something more. He views it as a challenge to his intelligence, to his ingenuity and faith. He seeks insight and guidance in dealing with the hard fact. He keeps on thinking. He knows there is an answer and finally he finds it. Perhaps he changes the fact, maybe he just bypasses it, or perhaps he learns to live with it. But in any case his attitude toward the fact has proved more important than the fact itself. 

September 1

A person who dislikes himself because of guilt or inferiority feelings will often try to escape painful awareness of this condition by "taking it out on other people." He projects his self-dislike upon others. It is significant that the commandment which begins, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor," concludes with "as thyself" (Leviticus 19:18). If you do not have a normal measure of esteem for yourself, you cannot genuinely like other people. Self-dislike is an enormous obstacle in developing or maintaining good relationships.