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.