Our Two Natures: Concentration and Cultivation

Everyone has two natures. One wants us to advance and the
other wants to pull us back. The one that we cultivate and
concentrate on decides what we are at the end. Both natures
are trying to gain control.

The will alone decides the issue. A man by one supreme
effort of the will may change his whole career and almost
accomplish miracles. You may be that man. You can be if you
Will to be, for Will can find a way or make one.

I could easily fill a book, of cases where men plodding
along in a matter-of-fact way, were all at once aroused and
as if awakening from a slumber they developed the
possibilities within them and from that time on were
different persons.

You alone can decide when the turning point will come.

It is a matter of choice whether we allow our diviner self
to control us or whether we will be controlled by the brute
within us. No man has to do anything he does not want to
do. He is therefore the director of his life if he wills to
be. What we are to do, is the result of our training. We
are like putty, and can be completely controlled by our
will power.

Habit is a matter of acquirement. You hear people say: “He
comes by this or that naturally, a chip off the old block,”
meaning that he is only doing what his parents did. This is
quite often the case, but there is no reason for it, for a
person can break a habit just the moment he masters the “I
will.”

A man may have been a “good-for-nothing” all his life up to
this very minute, but from this time on he begins to amount
to something. Even old men have suddenly changed and
accomplished wonders. “I lost my opportunity,” says one.
That may be true, but by sheer force of will, we can find a
way to bring us another opportunity.

There is no truth in the saying that opportunity knocks at
our door but once in a lifetime. The fact is, opportunity
never seeks us; we must seek it. What usually turns out to
be one man’s opportunity, was another man’s loss. In this
day one man’s brain is matched against another’s.

It is often the quickness of brain action that determines
the result. One man thinks “I will do it,” but while he
procrastinates the other goes ahead and does the work. They
both have the same opportunity. The one will complain of
his lost chance. But it should teach him a lesson, and it
will, if he is seeking the path that leads to success.

Many persons read good books, but say they do not get much
good out of them. They do not realize that all any book or
any lesson course can do is to awaken them to their
possibilities; to stimulate them to use their will power.
You may teach a person from now until doom’s day, but that
person will only know what he learns himself. “You can lead
him to the fountain, but you can’t make him drink.”

One of the most beneficial practices I know of is that of
looking for the good in everyone and everything, for there
is good in all things. We encourage a person by seeing his
good qualities and we also help ourselves by looking for
them. We gain their good wishes, a most valuable asset
sometimes.

We get back what we give out.

The time comes when most all of us need encouragement; need
buoying up. So form the habit of encouraging others, and
you will find it a wonderful tonic for both those
encouraged and yourself, for you will get back encouraging
and uplifting thoughts.

Life furnishes us the opportunity to improve. But whether
we do it or not depends upon how near we live up to what is
expected of us. The first of each month, a person should
sit down and examine the progress he has made. If he has
not come up to “expectations” he should discover the
reason, and by extra exertion measure up to what is
demanded next time.

Every time that we fall behind what we planned to do, we
lose just so much for that time is gone forever. We may
find a reason for not doing it, but most excuses are poor
substitutes for action. Most things are possible.

Ours may be a hard task, but the harder the task, the
greater the reward. It is the difficult things that really
develop us, anything that requires only a small effort,
utilizes very few of our faculties, and yields a scanty
harvest of achievement.

So do not shrink from a hard task, for to accomplish one of
these will often bring us more good than a dozen lesser
triumphs.