How The Mind Works
	Finding Your Place In Life <  Previous Contents Next  >

According to the natural workings of things, man gravitates towards those environments that are the exact counterparts of his own active nature. This is invariably the law. However, those who are living in undesirable environments may not take pleasure in accepting the idea presented in this law. It is more agreeable to place the blame elsewhere. But the fact that your surroundings are ordinary does not necessarily prove that you are an inferior person, although it does prove that you have not brought forth into full action the superior qualities that you may possess.

Here we should remember that it is the active nature that determines the surroundings in which we are to be placed, and the active nature in most persons is a mixture of conflicting forces, many of which are constantly neutralizing each other, or disturbing each other, thus preventing the more desirable of those forces to produce such results as they have the power to produce.

In addition, we must remember the fact that a disturbed nature always attracts inferiority or is drawn into disagreeable conditions. When the active forces in your nature conflict and neutralize each other your nature becomes like a leaf in the whirlwind, and you may become a victim of all the unpleasant conditions you meet.

There are a number of people with high and strong powers who never meet anything but the dark side of things and the reason is that their active forces are in conflict. One desire goes this way and another that way. Some intentions are constructive while others move at random. Their objects in life are constantly being changed and what they build up one day is taken down the next. Thus we understand why such people fail to build for themselves such environments or surroundings as they have the power to build, and also why they are found in situations that are inferior to the best that may exist in their own nature.

If the average mind should look closely at his own nature and ask himself if all the forces of his being are moving constructively and harmoniously towards his one great goal, he would find that they are not. He would discover far more conflict in his own mind and consciousness than he expected, and he would have to admit that his surroundings are the exact counterpart of those things that are active in his own self.

There is one exception, however, to this rule, an exception that must be considered before we proceed further, and this exception is found in misdirected sympathy. We frequently find excellent people in environments where we know they do not belong. At first we may fail to discover the reason, and in failing to do this we may conclude that there is nothing in the idea that people attract their own environments, or are drawn into environments similar to themselves. But a close examination of these cases will reverse this conclusion. There are many people who remain where they are, and frequently in most undesirable environments, not because they belong there, but because their sympathy keeps them there. They do not wish to break away for fear others may suffer. We all know of many such cases, and when we look into this subject closely we find that misdirected sympathy is one of the greatest obstacles to the proper adjustment of persons with their true surroundings.

If it were not for misdirected sympathy several million people would today be living in far better environments -environments that would be directly suited to their present natures and needs. But to break loose from old associations and accept new opportunities may at times seem unkind. However, we must remember that we are living for the whole race, and not only for a few friends. And also that we can render the best service to the race, including our present friends, by being perfectly true to ourselves; that is, by living and working where we actually belong.

Sentimentalism and abnormal feelings have kept down thousands of fine minds, and compelled many a human flower to wither among weeds; but this is always wrong. The entire race is kept back in a measure whenever a single worthy person is held down. Therefore we must seek to avoid such a circumstance whenever we can. Each individual must be permitted to be true to himself; and it is wrong for us to shed tears when a friend finds it necessary to go elsewhere to promote his progress.

You may be living today in uncongenial or unpleasant environments, or your work may call you where you know you do not belong; and there are several causes. You may be held where you are on account of misdirected sympathy. If so, give reason a chance to prove to you that you are wronging everybody by staying where you are. You cannot do the right thing for yourself nor for anyone else unless you are at your best, and to do your best you must be where you belong.

Then you may be held where you are because you have no definite purpose in life, and if so, decide upon a purpose, proceeding at once to train all the forces of your being to work for that purpose and that alone. Gradually you will work away from your present surroundings and doors will open through which you may pass to better things. There is nothing that will take you into better environments more quickly than to have a fixed and high purpose, and to marshal all the powers of mind and soul to work together for the promotion of that purpose. And since this is something that all can do, there is no reason whatever why a single person should live in surroundings that are inferior to himself.

Then there is another reason, possibly the most important of all. You may be held where you are because your good qualities are negative and have neither working capacity nor practical application. If the better side of you is negative and if such adverse tendencies as you may have inherited are positive and active, you are making for yourself a world that is anything but ideal. In this case it is not the best that is in you, but the worst that is in you that determines what kind of surroundings you are to receive, build up or attract. However, when your better side becomes strong and positive; when your good intentions are filled with living power, and when you turn all the forces of your being into the promotion of larger and higher aims, there is going to be a great change. You will soon begin to build for the better, you will begin to gravitate towards better environments and you will meet everywhere more congenial conditions.

But in this connection one of the great essentials is that all the forces of your better nature be in harmony and trained to work together for those better environments that you have in view. It is not what you are negatively, inherently or potentially that determines your present conditions in life. It is what you use and how that something is used. There are people with small minds and insignificant abilities that are now living in most desirable environments simply because the active forces of their nature work together for a definite object constantly in view. Then there are others with splendid minds and remarkable talents that are living in the midst of failure and distress simply because they did not make constructive use of the powers they possessed; in other words, the better elements in their nature were not in harmony and therefore could not produce results.

It is strict adherence to the quiet, steady, orderly and constant forward movement that will bring you to the goal in view, and even when your forces are so weak that you have to move slowly. But when you are endowed with extraordinary capabilities you will through this process rise rapidly, and finally attain everything you have had in view. A man may not be strictly honest or moral; nevertheless, if he has ability and employs his faculties constructively and harmoniously, he will build for himself a superior environment. And through his power to achieve the greater things he will be attracted towards opportunities that will promote still further the improvement of his environment. But it must be remembered that if this man were honest, moral and true his power would be still greater, and he would enjoy far better the richness and beauties of his delightful surroundings.

There is a belief among many that honest people ought to have the best that life can give, but the mere state of being honest is not sufficient. The best man in the world will be a failure if he does not employ his ability constructively, because it is doing things that counts. And to do things the powers -we possess must work in harmony and work with a definite object in view.

In this connection we must not forget that the mind that is pure, honest and just can accomplish far more with a given ability than one who does not have these virtues. Virtues do not create but they do have the power to give proper direction to the process of creation. It is constructive ability that does things. Character simply guides the doing so that the product may be of the highest order and the greatest worth. That the person, therefore, who has character only and no constructive ability will accomplish very little in the world and will have to submit to the inconsistencies of fate.

The course to pursue is to combine ability with character, and to turn all powers and talents towards the attainment of some definite goal. When we take this course we are going to rise out of our present conditions and enter steadily and surely into the better and the superior. It is your active nature that counts. You may have a score of good qualities, but if those qualities are not active they will contribute nothing to the building up of your environment or your destiny. Therefore the more development, the more power and superiority that you can express through your active nature, the greater will be the results in the external world.

But all the qualities of your active nature must have worth and must work together. Superior qualities working at variance with each other will take you down into inferior environments, while inferior qualities if constructive and united in action will take you into better environments than you may be living in now. The whole problem therefore is to express your best in action, and to train the active powers and qualities in your being to work in perfect harmony; that is, to work together for the same purpose and in the same attitude.

Conflicting tendencies of mind have given poverty, distress and misfortune to many of great ability and superior goodness, while properly united tendencies have given success to many a man who was neither able nor true. However, nature is just. We receive according to what we have accomplished; not according to what we have tried to do, but what we actually have done; or in other words, not according to what there is in us, but according to how much of what is in us we applied in a thorough and practical manner.

We will receive material success and delightful exterior surroundings if we have worked properly for those things. But if we have neglected to work for the finer things of life we will receive nothing that has permanent value in human existence, and we will not have the capacity to enjoy our ideal surroundings. For this reason the wise man works for all that is beautiful and true, both in the material sense and in a higher sense.

Accordingly he will receive riches both in the without and in the within; thereby gaining the privilege to live the full life, the complete life and the life that is really worth living. You may conclude therefore that if things are not right in your world you are to blame. Accept the blame and resolve to take things into your own hands and make them right. This you can positively do because your environment will be exactly what your active nature is, and you can change your active nature as you may desire.