The poor man is not always the one who has little or no property, but the one who is poverty-stricken in his ideas, in his sympathies, in his power of appreciation, in sentiment; poverty-stricken in his opinion of himself, of his own destiny, and his ability to reach up; who commits the crime of self-depreciation.
It is mental penury that makes us poor.
How few people realize the possibility of mental achievement, the fact that everything is created by the mind first, before it becomes a material reality! If we were better mental builders we should be infinitely better material builders.
A Morgan or Rockefeller mentally creates conditions which make prosperity flow to him. The great achievers do comparatively little with their hands; they build with their thought, they are practical dreamers; their minds reach out into the infinite energy ocean and create and produce what the ideal, the ambition, calls for, just as the intelligence in the seed reproduces the tree plan coiled up within itself.
To be prosperous we must put ourselves in the prosperous attitude. We must think opulently, we must feel opulent in thought; we must exhale confidence and assurance in our very bearing and manner. Our mental attitude towards the thing we are striving for and the intelligent effort we put forth to realize it, will measure our attainment.
Parsimonious saving by cheese-paring efforts does not compare in effectiveness with the results of obeying the laws of opulence.
We go in the direction of our concentration. If we concentrate upon poverty, if want and lack predominate in our thought, poverty-stricken conditions must result.
We must conquer inward mental poverty before we can conquer outward poverty.
Opulence in the larger sense in which we use it is everything that is good for us, abundance of all that is beautiful in life, uplifting and inspiring; abundance of all that is sublime and magnificent. Opulence is everything that will enrich the personality, the life, the experience.
True prosperity is the inward consciousness of spiritual opulence, wholeness, completeness; the consciousness of oneness with the very Source of abundance, Infinite Supply; the consciousness of possessing an abundance of all that is good for us, a wealth of personality of character that no disaster on land or sea could destroy.
Chapter III.
Working for One Thing and Expecting Something Else
Prosperity begins in the mind and is impossible while the mental attitude is hostile to it. It is fatal to work for one thing and to expect something else, because everything must be created mentally first and is bound to follow its mental pattern.
No one can become prosperous while he really expects or half expects to remain poor. We tend to get what we expect, and to expect nothing is to get nothing.
When every step you take is on the road to failure, how can you hope to arrive at the success goal?
It is facing the wrong way, toward the black, depressing, hopeless outlook, even though we may be working in the opposite direction, that kills the results of our effort.
Most people do not face life in the right way. They neutralize a large part of their effort because their mental attitude does not correspond with their endeavor, so that while working for one thing they are really expecting something else. They discourage, drive away, the very thing they are pursuing by holding the wrong mental attitude towards it. They do not approach their work with that assurance of victory which attracts, which forces results, that determination and confidence which knows no defeat.
To be ambitious for wealth and yet always expecting to be poor, to be always doubting your ability to get what you long for, is like trying to reach East by traveling West. There is no philosophy which will help a man to succeed when he is always doubting his ability to do so, and thus attracting failure.
The man who would succeed must think success, must think upward. He must think progressively, creatively, constructively, inventively, and, above all, optimistically.
You will go in the direction in which you face. If you look towards poverty, towards lack, you will go that way. If, on the other hand, you turn squarely around and refuse to have anything to do with poverty,—to think it,—live it, or recognize it—you will then begin to make progress towards the goal of plenty.
Many of us work at cross purposes, because, while we would like to be rich, we believe in our hearts that we shall not become so, and our mental attitude, the pattern which the life processes follow, makes impossible the very thing we are working for. It is our penury attitude, our doubt and fear, our lack of self-faith and of faith in the all-abundant, infinite supply, that makes us poor.
You must not play the part of a poor man while you are exerting all your energy to make money. You must get into a prosperous mental attitude. As long as you carry about a poorhouse atmosphere with you, you will make a poorhouse impression; and that will never attract money.
There is a saying that every time the sheep bleats it loses a mouthful of hay. Every time you allow yourself to complain of your lot, to say, “I am poor; I can never do what others do; I shall never be rich; I have not the ability that others have; I am a failure; luck is against me,” you are laying up so much trouble for yourself, making it all the more difficult to get rid of these enemies of your peace and happiness, for every time you think of them they will go a little deeper and deeper into your consciousness.
Thoughts are magnets which attract things like themselves. If your mind dwells upon poverty and disease, it will bring you poverty and disease. There is no possibility of your producing just the opposite of what you are holding in your mind, because your mental attitude is the pattern which is built into the life. Your accomplishments are achieved mentally first.
If you are always thinking of poor business, preparing for it, expecting it, are always complaining about the times and conditions and fearing that business is going to be bad, it will be bad—for you. No matter how hard you may work for success, if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors, and make success impossible.
The terror of failure and the fear of coming to want and of possible humiliation keep multitudes of people from obtaining the very things they desire, by sapping their vitality and incapacitating them, through worry and anxiety, for the effective, creative work necessary to give them success.
The habit of looking at everything constructively, from the bright, hopeful side, the side of faith and assurance, instead of from the side of doubt and uncertainty; and the habit of believing that the best is going to happen, that the right must triumph; the faith that truth is bound finally to conquer error, that harmony and health are the reality and discord and disease the temporary absence of it—this is the attitude of the optimist, which will ultimately reform the world.
Optimism is a builder. It is to the individual what the sun is to vegetation. It is the sunshine of the mind, which constructs life, beauty, and growth in everything within its reach. Our mental faculties grow and thrive in it just as the plants and trees grow and thrive in the physical sunshine.
Pessimism is negative, it is the darkened dungeon which destroys vitality and strangles growth.
A fatal penalty awaits those who always look on the dark side of everything, who are always predicting evil and failure, who see only the seamy, disagreeable side of life. They draw upon themselves what they see, what they look for.
Nothing has power to attract things unlike itself. Everything radiates its own quality, and attracts things which are akin. If a man wants to be happy and wealthy, he must think the happy thought, hold the abundance thought, and not limit himself. He who has a mortal dread of poverty