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.