Right And Wrong Thinking And Their Results
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Avoidance of discordant thinking is of great social as well as personal advantage to the one who has attained it. It is a mild power, but it is of tremendous effectiveness.

Whether we know it or not, we always arouse thoughts in others similar to those which fill our own minds. Anger in one person provokes anger in others, and love begets love. Fear brings fear, and confidence inspires confidence. The cheerfulness of one person will pervade a roomful, and if persisted in it may extend to a whole neighborhood. Even the most retiring and least assertive have their influence upon others far beyond their own recognition.

Intention does not alone control the impression made upon another, because there may be a difference between its character and the method of its execution which may produce a result contrary to that intended; besides, there may be some strong dominant thought in the background which is quite different from the intention. Mere possession of this positive thought, without any effort or desire on the part of the thinker, affects and influences others, and the more earnest or positive the thought, the more efficacious will it be, and the more certain and definite will be the result. It does not need any intention to influence others, but only the earnest desire on the part of the thinker himself to be right and to think right.

A teacher in one of the public schools of Boston had an assistant assigned to her in her school-room. This threw two strangers into close rela-tionship during the school hours of every day. They soon found that they were each in such a mental condition that if either made a suggestion or expressed an opinion it disturbed or irritated the other. The mental disturbance or irritation thus aroused was a mild form of anger, though each would have preferred to call it by some other name. This was of such frequent occurrence that it colored the whole day. After mature deliberation the teacher decided not to allow this mental disquiet in herself. She resolved to stop thinking the discordant or angry thoughts, however slight they might be.

The opportunity to put her resolution into effect came very soon after it was made. The assistant said something which irritated her. Affairs in the room were in such a condition that she could sit at one of the desks and labor with herself in the attempt to stop her own discordant thinking. During the effort she did not try in any way to influence the assistant; indeed, she did not once think of doing so. Her attempt was to change her own mental condition and to cleanse her own mind of all discordant thinking. Her work was with herself alone.

She found that it required more effort and occupied a longer time than she had anticipated, but this only intensified her determination to set herself right. After a while she experienced the pleasure of success. The discordant thoughts all disappeared and harmonious ones took their places. A delightful revulsion of feeling followed. A harmonious glow filled her whole being, and she rejoiced that she had triumphed over her own discordant thinking.

She sat in her place a little longer in order more firmly to establish her present mental condition and to fortify herself against a return of the discordant thinking, as well as to enjoy the pleasure of her present satisfaction, when something occurred which greatly surprised her. The assistant came and sat down beside her, took her hand in a half-caressing way as it lay upon the desk, and, in a tone of voice which she had never recognized from her before, asked about something which was going on in the schoolroom. The discord had also ceased in the assistant's mind, and harmony had taken its place. The division between them was healed.

Seemingly this was a little incident, but it is important because it illustrates an important principle of mental action which is always at work between people who are thrown into close relationship with each other. By her earnest work with herself to stop her own discordant thinking, the teacher had changed the condition of her own mind, and, without any intention or even thought about it on her own part, this change had so affected the assistant as to work a mental revolution in her mind also. The close relationship between minds is such that when the teacher had recovered her own mental poise the assistant, without conscious thought or intention, regained hers also. Such is the effect of banishing discordant thoughts from one's own mind and introducing positive and harmonious ones in their places.

The old saying that it takes two to quarrel is true, and it is equally true that the mental relationship between man and man is such that it takes two to be angry. If one of the angry parties ejects all discordant thinking from himself and waits without impatience or any other kind of discordant thinking, the anger of the other one must stop of itself. It has nothing to feed upon.

In the case of the teacher and her assistant it is certain that there was discordant thinking; perhaps at first it was only on the part of one (it is of no consequence which), but it communicated itself to the other, increasing as time went on, and it continued until one of them assumed positively the right mental attitude for herself, and then it ceased with the other.

This incident suggests the course to be pursued in all misunderstandings or quarrels. The one who recognizes the situation should at once set his own mind at peace, sweeping it clear of all discordant thoughts concerning the attendant actions and conditions, regardless of their character and without any question of how or where they originated or who was to blame; this done, he should in every particular keep his mind in a condition of perfect harmony toward the other – and wait. Waiting will do the rest. "They also serve who only stand and wait;" and especially is this the case if, in addition to the waiting, they maintain the right mental condition.

Unless it comes about naturally and without effort there should not be any verbal attempt at reconciliation. Very often the best-intentioned predetermined efforts of this kind fail of success. Complete control of one's own mind in such cases will never fail. This does not mean that when one finds he has done wrong, he must not say so to the one he has wronged: but even this is not advisable until the confession can be made with- out the slightest discordant stir in himself. Discord in one person rouses it in another, and even allusion to the subject which has once caused in harmony may arouse it again.

It should be expressly noted that in the case just cited the teacher did not do the work in herself for the purpose of affecting the assistant, nor for any other but the one sole object of making herself right. This mental attitude is of first importance. To purify one's own self for the sake of purifying others is commendable, but it is not so praiseworthy as when undertaken with the single object of correcting one's own faults. It will then better affect and assist others than if it were undertaken for that object. It is only with one's own self that one has to deal -- never interfering with another unless assistance is asked.

When there has been anger between two people, for one of them to undertake by word or deed to set the other right would frustrate all the good intentions in the world unless the one who attempts it has already first completely accomplished it in himself. Even then success may be very doubtful. Indeed, just here is where grave mistakes are often made in trying to solve any social problem. Every person is prone to lay the blame on another and then to try to make that other one right instead of turning his whole attention to correcting the error in himself. Correction of the other person by one of the parties to a quarrel is impossible in nine cases out of ten, and especially is this true when the discordant thought of condemnation exists in the mind of the. one who makes the attempt.

Epictetus was right when he declared: "However he treats me, I am to act rightly with regard to him; for the one is my own concern, the other is not." Acting and thinking are so closely allied that this rule applies as much to the one as to the other. It is a maxim of the soundest philosophy that nothing another does can ever make it right for me to do wrong, because wrong is never right, and no combination of circumstances can ever make it so.

When the teacher had removed the discord from her own mind, she discovered that it had disappeared from the assistant's also. Had she attempted to correct the assistant's error instead of correcting her own, the discord might never have been healed. Although the assistant's action was set in motion by what the teacher did, yet the assistant's thinking and acting were her own and not the teacher's. Another's thoughts become our own only when we accept them as ours. Reformation is at last one's own work.

In fact, as seen in the principle set forth in these pages, each can reform only one person in the world, and that one is himself. However much the suggestion to reform may come from another, yet all reformation is essentially self-reformation, because all thinking is one's own thinking, and thinking is the causative power. This does not exclude assisting some one else when assistance is asked for, nor does it prohibit extending all good feeling and brotherly love to others. Indeed, the underlying principle requires this, because otherwise one's own mind cannot be in a harmonious condition; but the work is, after all, one's own work with one's own self. When he has cast out the beam from his own eye, then shall he see clearly to cast out the mote from his brother's eye; but in the process of removing the beam he will most probably have effected the removal of the mote also, and therefore he shall then see that there is nothing to be removed from the eye of his brother.