 Except you become as a little child you shall in no wise be able to “concentrate.” Concentration is the natural mental attitude of a child. A child is one-minded. When its attention turns to any given object its whole being is polarized to that object. To all intents and purposes there is nothing in existence beyond the one thing to which the child’s attention is turned. Did you ever notice a fine horse when its attention is turned toward something? He “pricks up his ears” and they point directly at the thing that has attracted his attention. Every cell in a child’s body, and every atom in his soul, “pricks up its ears” at the thing his attention is attracted to. Every cell and atom receives clear impress of the thing attended to. This is “polarization,” or concentration. This is the secret of the child’s marvelous aptitude for learning. It is likewise the secret of good memory and the joy of living. But the child forgets the art of polarized attention as he grows up. The main cause for losing the art is lack of gumption in parents and teachers. The child is charged with “musts” and “don’ts” to which he is compelled to pay attention. Every little cell is made to carry such burdens that it simply has not the heart to “prick up its ears” and take in a new impression. Only here and there is found anything vital enough to polarize attention. BURDEN-BEARING is the great cause of lack of concentration, lack of case in learning, lack of memory and of joy of living. If we were a bit wiser life would be a continual playground, where we’d simply grow in wisdom and knowledge and self-use by having a good time at our games. When we must play there is no joy in it. We must play the business game and support our families. We must “keep up appearances.” We must do as others do. We must—we MUST. Nonsense! The only must there is about it all is the cue we took from our PARENTS and teachers and the traditions of men. We are hypnotized to think we must. And it’s all a lie, too. Suppose you try it once and see. Suppose you sit down and say you will not. Who is to compel you? Nobody. You have heard of women who took to their beds and staid there—out of pure lack of anything else to attract the attention they wanted. They could have walked if they would—as circumstances proved—but they wouldn’t. They went to bed. And somebody or other always met the compulsion and took care of them. They refused to even take care of themselves; they slid the “must” off themselves. And there was always somebody else ready to assume the "must." That is it—we assume our own burdens. The less vigorous and determined and wise we are the more of these burdens we assume—burdens dropped by others. And what good does it do to bear burdens? None—worse than none. The woman who dropped hers and went to bed simply stagnates and atrophies for lack of activity; and the woman who assumes the burden of walking and thinking for her wears herself out for nothing at all. If she had walked out and left the woman in bed that woman would have got up again and walked and thought for herself. All our burden-bearings are as utterly foolish and unavailing as that. I have before me letters from two women who are still toting their sons around, although the sons are past the thirty milestone, and do not even take the trouble to let their mothers know their whereabouts. If those mothers had dropped those boys years ago and made the most of life for themselves they would be now such bright, handsome attractive women that they couldn’t keep their sons away from them. The burden-bearing woman (or man) tires herself so with useless efforts of mind and body that she has not energy enough left to keep herself in even decent trim. She gets bedraggled and falls away back to the tail end of the world’s never-pausing procession. Women as a class do not think and command themselves to best advantage. They are content to shoulder any old burden they see slipping from the shoulders of another, and to spend days and energy in feeling. Any kind of a feeling will keep the generality of women from thinking. Women shoulder indiscriminate and useless burdens and feel themselves into innocuous desuetude. It is a hardship when one does not learn in childhood to read and write. But it is not an irremediable evil. One can learn when he is 20 or 40 or 60. A great authority on the Greek language learned the language after he was 80. He couldn’t have done it though if he had fagged himself with burdens other people had dropped. It is never too late to drop burdens and use energy to some purpose. All one has to do is to declare “I have no burdens— life is a play-ground !“—and stick to it. You have no burdens—they are all an hallucination. Life is a play-ground. This is the TRUTH. Just tell it to yourself until it works its way into your semi-paralyzed mind and makes itself felt. Relax physically and mentally. Lie idly under the apple tree and look up to the blue sky and let fancy play with the world. You will find new and happy TRUTH in common things, as Newton did. Lie there and let truth regenerate you. By and by you will think of something you want to go play at. Perhaps the pervading humor of the world will suggest that you want to make mudpies again. Perhaps it will suggest a blackberry pie instead. It is a lot more fun to make blackberry pies than mud ones; and it’s such pleasure to watch the other children’s shining eyes whilst you all eat. Perhaps you will prefer to go play the game of business. Well, play that. This whole great play-ground is before you. Go play. Make your own choice of games and have a good time. Somebody says, “Life is real, life’ is earnest.” But I say unto you that “Life is real—ly what you think it.” It is a great game, a tragedy, or a sentence at hard labor, just as you will; if you don’t like what it has been, use your ingenuity to make it different. Above all things, drop the burdens. Refuse to make bricks without straw. If the world won’t let you go just go anyhow. There is always a Red Sea to cut off pursuers and obliterate your tracks—unless perchance you dig up your old tracks and lug them along through the wilderness. If you do, I give you fair warning, you’ll never get across the border into the land flowing with milk and honey. This is a new, glorious day—different from any other day—a clean, beautiful day. The Red Sea ‘has wiped out all the old days; the new days are not yet born. This is the only day there is. Go play in it. ****** “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” One thing at a time, and that thing done with all thy heart;— this is concentration, the secret of Life and Creation itself. And it is a simple little thing—so simple that a child does it without effort, and any man or woman can acquire it again by practice. Remember, that every time you say to yourself, “I must,” you tell a lie, and you commit a crime against yourself. You lay upon yourself a burden and rob yourself of the joy of doing. Every time you catch yourself saying, “I must,” DENY it hard. Sit down in a chair, relax all over and ask yourself solemnly who says you “must.” You said it. You are doing all the compelling. Why? Simply because you choose to do this particular thing. There is no compulsion about it. You CHOOSE to do it—you want to do it. You are exercising your divine FREE WILL to do it. Oh, of course you can say, “If it wasn't for this, that or the other I wouldn’t do it.” But that does not alter the fact that you can fold your hands and leave it undone if you choose. But you desire to do it. You choose to. You want to. Keep at this practice of logic until you realize that you have thought yourself completely out of the old "must" feelings. As you emerge from the “must” feelings you will find the joy of life filling you, and you will find memory and other faculties regaining the vigor of youth. Everything but a mushroom or a toadstool takes time to manifest. You have been growing into the “must” habit since childhood. It may take time to outgrow it. But perseverance will accomplish it. And the more faithful you are in practice the more quickly will you realize the freedom, joy, youth you desire. The joy of life is HERE and NOW. Joy of life is the power of accomplishment. All things are easily possible to him that believes—and practices. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” |
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