lost the hope, the expectation of getting an independence.
Many people keep themselves poor by fear of poverty, allowing themselves to dwell upon the possibility of coming to want, of not having enough to live upon, by allowing themselves to dwell upon conditions of poverty.
The minds of the children in many families are saturated with the poverty thought; they hear it from morning till night. They see poverty-stricken conditions everywhere. They hear everybody talking limitation, lack. Everything about them suggests poverty.
Is it any wonder that children brought up in such an atmosphere repeat the poverty-stricken conditions of their parents and environment?
Did you ever think that your terror of poverty, your constant worry about making ends meet, your fear of that awful “rainy day,” not only make you unhappy, but actually disqualify you from putting yourself in a better financial condition? You are thus simply adding to a load which is already too heavy for you.
No matter how black the outlook or how iron your environment, positively refuse to see anything that is unfavorable to you, any condition which tends to enslave you, and to keep you from expressing the best that is in you.
By what philosophy can you expect poverty thoughts, thoughts of lack and want, to produce prosperity? Your condition will correspond to your attitude and ideals. These form the patterns which are woven into the life web. If they are slovenly, poverty-stricken, your life condition will correspond.
Suppose a boy should try to become a lawyer without expecting to be admitted to the bar, or while believing that he would never amount to anything as a lawyer. He would fail. We tend to get what we expect, and if we expect nothing we get nothing. The stream can not rise higher than its fountainhead; no one can become prosperous when they expect or half expect to remain poor.
The man who IS bound to wm believes he IS going to be prosperous; he starts out with the understanding with himself that he is going to be a successful man, a winner and not a loser. He does not say to himself all the time, “What’s the use? The great business combinations are swallowing up the chances. Before long the multitude will have to work for the few. I do not believe I shall ever do anything more than make just a plain living in a very humble way. I shall never have a home and the things that other people have. I am destined to be poor and a nobody.” A man will never get anywhere with such ideals.
Everybody ought to stand erect with face towards the sun of hope and prosperity. Success and happiness are the inalienable rights of every human being.
Every achievement has its origin in the mind, every structure is first a mental structure. The building is first completed in all its details in the architect’s mind. The contractor merely puts the stones, the brick and other material around the idea. We are all architects.
Everything we do in life is preceded by some sort of a plan.
Some people would like to make money, but they keep their minds so pinched, so closed, that they are not in a condition to receive an abundance.
The man who expects prosperity is constantly creating money in his mind, building his financial structure mentally. There must be a mental picture of the prosperity first; the building around it is comparatively easy. It does not take as great a man to place the material around the idea as to create the idea, the mental picture. This is not idle dreaming, it is brain building, mental planning, mental construction. Dogged imagination is often one of the most practical of faculties; the true dreamer is the believer, the achiever.
Let us put up a new image, a new ideal of plenty, of abundance. Have we not worshiped the God of poverty, of lack, of want, about long enough? Let us hold the thought that God is our great supply, that if we can keep in tune, in close touch with Him, so that we can feel our at-one-ness with Him, the great Source of all supply, abundance will flow to us and we shall never again know want.
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
