The facing toward poverty and despair, heading toward hopelessness and failure, is the worst thing about poverty. The fixity of their conviction that they cannot get away from poverty, their resignation to it, their firm belief that they can never rise into prosperity,--these are the most distressing things about the very poor. There is a tremendous difference between the prospects as well as the mental att.i.tude and the facial expression of a poor boy on a farm who dreams of the day when he can go to college, who pictures himself there, who believes with all his heart that his dream will be realized, and the prospects, the mental att.i.tude and face of another boy similarly situated, who also longs for an education, but has abandoned all hope of ever going to college, or ever getting away from the grinding drudgery and monotony of the farm which he hates.
We must change our thought before we can change our conditions. The thought always leads in any achievement. It would be as impossible for the great ma.s.s of poor people to improve their position materially while holding their present mental att.i.tude, the persistent belief that they are always going to be poor, and that they never can do what others have done to get out of their rut, as it would be for the boy who longs to go to college, but who has made up his mind that it is impossible, to get a higher education. While they think that all others are lucky and they are unlucky, while they continue talking about their hard fate and thinking that the rich are getting all the good things of the world and that they are getting only the dregs and never will get anything else, why, of course they will never get anything else.
Most poor people have about the same att.i.tude toward poverty that those who are constantly ailing have toward health. Habitual invalids never expect to be really well. They are always antic.i.p.ating the development of some disease, looking for the symptoms, imagining that they are going to have this or that physical disability or disease. The way to have health is to think it, to expect it, to visualize it, to realize that health is a positive everlasting fact, and disease only negation, the absence of health, which is brought about largely by a wrong mental att.i.tude, by self-thought poisoning, by disobeying the laws of health.
If we are going to be well, we must think vigorous, robust, cheerful, health thoughts, and we must observe the laws of health. We shall have the same degree of health that we give to our mental health model. It is our visualizing of health that brings the expected condition. It is the same with poverty.
Not long ago a poor man told me he would be perfectly satisfied if he could be a.s.sured that he would never have to go to the poorhouse, that he would have enough to provide the bare necessities for his little family. He said he never expected to have anything better. He was satisfied that it was not intended for him to have any luxuries. He had always been a poor man, and he always expected to be poor.
Now, this is just the thing that kept this man poor, for he was a hard worker. He always expected to be poor. He did not expect anything better. He merely worked for the bare necessities of life, did not expect anything else, and of course he only just managed to squeeze along, making but a bare subsistence. This att.i.tude of the poor toward poverty tends to increase it, to aggravate their disease. So long as one holds the poverty thought he is making himself a poverty magnet, and continually drawing to himself unfortunate conditions.
We have a good ill.u.s.tration of this, a real object lesson, in the grayhaired men everywhere seeking a job. I have watched these desperate men on their rounds looking for work. They are poverty stricken in appearance; their expression is one of utter hopelessness. They look like men who are going downhill, men who have reached the period of diminishing returns, and they feel exactly as they look. Their appearance is the reflex of their thought. Their dress, their manner, their gait, the look in their eyes, everything about them corresponds to their mental att.i.tude, and all point downgrade.
If these men would only brace up, look up, dress up, before they seek a job, there would be some hope for them. If they can"t get better clothes they can brush the old ones, blacken their shoes, have a bath and shave, and above all a mental clean-up, and their chances will be ten to one compared with what they were before their physical and mental clean-up.
A man has got to radiate confidence in himself, the expectation of success, before he can get a job. He has got to show that he has reserve power, that there is a lot of good blood in him, working material, success possibilities, or n.o.body will want him. The man who goes to an employer in a discouraged att.i.tude and begs for work on the ground that he needs it very much; who whines and complains how hard it is for any one who shows the signs of age to get a job, is not going to get one.
If you are in the clutches of a poverty so dire that it robs you even of the desire to get away from it, you are cursed with self-thought poisoning. This is what mars and embitters so many lives, drives away happiness, health and prosperity.
Poverty is usually a disease. It is just as much a disease as is smallpox or tuberculosis. It is just as abnormal to the human being as any disease of the flesh. So is failure. Fear, worry, anxiety, these are all mental diseases, from which few human beings seem to escape. But we are gradually finding an ant.i.toxin for the virus of those diseases so fatal to efficiency, health, happiness and prosperity.
The Bible tells us "The destruction of the poor is their poverty." Every investigator of slum life in our big cities, every record of the lives of the unfortunate poor in our midst proves that this is an absolute truth.
Extreme poverty is a scourge that draws its victims down from depths to lower depths; that makes life a bitter struggle for the bare crumbs that hold body and soul together. When these are not forthcoming it drives the weak, despairing struggler to crime in order to keep himself from starving, or if he is still too proud to steal, to beg, or to go to the poorhouse he ends his life, rather than wait for the slow cruel process of starvation to quench it out. Every year poverty claims its tens of thousands of innocent victims among the little children who die of disease and neglect in damp, foul cellars where the sun never enters.
It sweeps them into mills and factories where, robbed of the rights of childhood, they become warped and twisted men and women, full of bitterness, discontent, unrest and unsatisfied ambitions and longings.
It drives mult.i.tudes to crime, to insanity, to death. In short, poverty is responsible for more ignorance and crime, more discontent and unhappiness, more suicides and ruined ambitions, more wrecked hopes and homes than almost anything else. Verily "the destruction of the poor is their poverty."
If we are to progress as a race, as a civilization, we must, emphatically, drive this crushing poverty disease from our midst.
Instead of lauding its blessings, as some do, it is our duty to get away from it, and to help others to do so.
The poverty disease, the poverty curse, is not a decree of Providence.
It is largely the result of ignorance. Every human being on this earth could be living in comfort if they knew the powers locked up in themselves and were willing to work and make the best use of them. If the poverty antidotes were as generally known as are the poison antidotes there would be no poor people.
Human beings in the aggregate are in much the same position regarding the poverty ant.i.toxin as the medical profession in regard to newly discovered ant.i.toxin for some terrible disease. Physicians do not know how to apply it safely and effectively, and until practice has established its great value its use is limited. When the knowledge and the use of the poverty remedy become general the disease will be conquered.
As the race becomes more intelligent and better educated we eliminate a mult.i.tude of conditions to which people formerly thought they were born, and that there was no escape from them. Many evils which have been conquered by science and education were at one time regarded as scourges sent by G.o.d to punish us for our sins, to chasten us. Diseases which struck terror to the hearts of human beings a hundred years ago, and from which they fled in horror, are not feared at all to-day.
Intelligence and science have mastered the great plagues which in the Middle and Dark Ages carried off their terrified victims by the million.
We have no fear of those plagues to-day, because we have obliterated their causes. We know now that the prevention of those frightful epidemics is merely a matter of sanitation, scientific hygiene, intelligent, healthful living. We know that they were scourges forged by ignorance and not "judgments" of G.o.d.
Is it not reasonable to believe that, having conquered so many of the enemies of the race by intelligent thought and scientific methods, we can conquer them all by similar means? Poverty is a plague, a mental disease which can be conquered by intelligent scientific methods. We know its causes and we can remove them. They are largely mental.
It is not necessary to call in a physician to treat the poverty disease.
The sufferer can be his own physician. He can heal himself. If you are afflicted with the disease, and want to know how to get rid of it, read the next chapter.
CHAPTER VII
MAKING YOURSELF A PROSPERITY MAGNET
Though culture is the most important business of life. The habit of claiming as our own, as a vivid, present reality that which we desire with all our heart, is a magnetic power which attracts the things we long for. The more persistently we hold the prosperity thought, the more we strengthen and intensify it, the more we increase its power to attract prosperity.
Thinking abundance, visualizing prosperity, will open up the mind, and set the thought currents toward increased supply.
We are so made that about all we get in life is the reflex of what first flows out from us. Whatever thought you send out will draw to you in the material world a corresponding reality.
Every human being is a magnet, the attractive power of which may be developed in any desired direction. Each one can so direct this power that he can draw to himself whatever he wills.
Before your life can be really effective you must make yourself a magnet for the things that will make it so. You must learn how to attract, how to draw to yourself all that will help you to succeed in your work, that will enable you to attain your ambitions.
If poverty is holding you down, you can conquer it by making yourself a prosperity magnet. We are living in the midst of a stream of inexhaustible supply. It is one"s own fault if he does not take from this stream whatever he needs.
What we get in life we get by the law of attraction. Like attracts like.
Whatever you may have managed to get together in this world you have attracted by your mentality. You may say that you have earned these things, that you have bought them with your salary, the fruit of your endeavor. True, but your thought preceded your endeavor. Your mental plan went before your achievement.
The mere changing of your mental att.i.tude will very soon begin to change conditions. Your decision to face toward prosperity hereafter, to cultivate it, to make yourself a prosperity magnet will tend to draw to you the things that will satisfy your ambition.
The text "He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed" is the expression of a fundamental truth. The pictures you make in your mind"s eye, the thoughts you harbor are day by day building your outward conditions. They are real forces working ceaselessly in the unseen, and the more you think and visualize favorable conditions the more you increase your power to realize them. You make yourself a magnet for the thing you desire. This is a psychological law.
If you want to become a prosperity magnet you must not only think prosperity but you must also turn your back resolutely on poverty. Begin to-day. Don"t wait for to-morrow or next day. If you don"t look prosperous, a.s.sume a prosperous appearance. Dress as far as possible like a prosperous man or woman, walk like one, act like one, think in terms of prosperity. A mental healer could not cure a cancer by holding in his mind a picture of the hideous disease, with all its horrible appearances and symptoms. He must eliminate all this from his mind. He must see his patient whole, clean, healthy, just as G.o.d intended him to be, free from all disease. He must picture to himself the ideal man, and declare his divinity.
The same thing is true in curing yourself of poverty. You can not do this as long as you hold poverty-stricken conditions in your mind. If you want to be prosperous you must hold the prosperous thought, the prosperous picture in your mind. You must refuse to see or recognize poverty. You must not acknowledge it in your manner. You must erase all marks of it, not only from your mental att.i.tude, but just as far as possible from your appearance. Even if you are not able to wear fine clothes at first, or to live in a fine house, you can radiate the hope and expectancy of the glorious inheritance which is your birthright, and everything about you will reflect this light.
Prosperity begins in the mind. You must lay its foundations in your thoughts, surround yourself with a prosperity atmosphere. In other words, you will build into your environment, into your life, whatever dwells in your mind.
We hear of some people that "they are always lucky"; "everything seems to come their way." Things come their way because there are invisible thought forces radiating from their minds toward the goal they have set for themselves. Things fall in line and come our way just in proportion to the force and velocity of the thought forces we project.
Thinking better things might be called the first aid to the poor. To picture yourself as prosperous, living in a comfortable home, wearing good clothes, surrounded with the refinements of life, in a position to do your best work in the service of mankind, this is to put yourself into the current that runs successward.
It is a strange thing that most of us believe the Creator will help us in everything but our financial troubles. We seem to think that it is in some way almost sacrilegious to call upon Him for money to meet our needs. We may ask for comfort, for solace in our afflictions, for the a.s.suaging of our griefs and the healing of our diseases, but to implore G.o.d to help us to pay the rent, to pay off the mortgage on the home or the farm, does not seem quite right.
Yet we know perfectly well that every mouthful of food we eat, the material for the clothing we wear and for the houses we live in, every breath we breathe must come from this Divine Source, of infinite supply.
If the sun were to be blotted out, or to cease to send its magic rays to the earth, in a few days there would not be a single living thing on the globe. Not a human being, not an animal could exist without it. Not a tree, not a plant, not a flower, no fruits, no vegetables, no gra.s.s, nothing green, no vegetable life would be possible. Without the sun"s energizing power all life would cease on this planet. It would be as cold, barren and lifeless as on the moon. The Creator is the builder and provider of the universe. Everything we have comes from Him, and without the supply which flows from His abundance we could not live a single instant, and why should we not look to this great Source for our money supply?
The truth is we were all intended to live the life abundant. The Creator never meant His children to grovel in poverty, to spend their lives in drudgery and uncertainty. They have a right to their inheritance of all that is good and beautiful, all that is needful for their welfare. We were not intended to live the pinched, starved, stunted lives of paupers. It is our own fault if we do. The door to opulence is open to every human being born into this world, and no one but himself can close that door. No human being can shut out the lowliest child that is born from his divine inheritance. The only real poverty is in the mind, and no one can control one"s mind but himself.
Never for a moment harbor the thought that anything can come to you but prosperity, for this is your birthright; and because it is, you should demand it. Instead of admitting poverty say to yourself, "I am in the midst of abundance. I lack nothing that I need because my Father is the Infinite Source."
Turn your back on poverty. Make up your mind that you will never again have anything to do with it, that you will not encourage it by dwelling on and visualizing poverty suggestions. Face toward prosperity. Think of, and plan for prosperous conditions; struggle toward prosperity with all your might and you will draw it to you.
Suppose you are poor and live in a humble home, just have a talk with your wife and children, and make up your minds that you will all focus on your objective--improved conditions,--that you will face the other way, toward prosperity instead of poverty. Say to yourself, "It is a shame for G.o.d"s children to exhibit such a pauperized appearance. It is a reflection on my Father-Mother-G.o.d to go about among my fellows looking as though everything had gone wrong with me, as though I were disappointed with life. This is ungrateful. I can at least show grat.i.tude for health, for the privilege of living in G.o.d"s pure air and sunlight by holding up my head and walking erectly, joyously, as His child should. I am really insulting the Creator, to whom I pray, by reflecting such despair and degrading poverty in my mental att.i.tude, thus erasing the divine image from my face. No matter how little I have, I can at least appear respectable. I can show that I respect myself by doing away as far as possible with the depressing appearance and influence of poverty."
Tidy up your little home and make it as neat and cheerful as possible.
Do the same with your dress and general appearance. Keep yourself better groomed; look up, brace up, brush up, struggle up. Surround yourself with an atmosphere of hopefulness and show everybody by the new light in your eyes, the light of hope and expectancy of better things, that there is a change in you. Your neighbors will notice it. They will see a change in your home, in your wife, in your children. The change in the mental att.i.tude of yourself and family, through facing toward the light instead of darkness, toward hope instead of despair, will make a tremendous change in your whole outlook on life.
In this way you are making yourself a prosperity magnet; you are radiating thought waves of hope, of ambition, of determination. Your new mental att.i.tude is expressed in an erect, manly carriage, in squared, thrown back shoulders, in a neat, clean appearance, even though the clothing be old and threadbare, in a winning, forceful, magnetic countenance. You are thus establishing the conditions of success. The positive prosperity thought flows out like a wireless current and connects itself with similar thought currents. Hold the prosperity conviction, work steadily toward your object; see opportunity and success in your vista, determine to be somebody, hold firmly to the resolve, and your mentality will direct the invisible magnet of your personality to lift you higher and higher, to attract toward you others who will help you in the direction in which you are moving.