It is now established beyond a doubt that certain parts of the brain continue active during the night when the rest of it is under the anesthetic of sleep. But we have hardly begun to realize what a tremendous ally this sleepless creative part of the brain can be made in our mental development. It is well known that most of the growth of the child, of its skeleton, muscles, nerves and all the twelve different kinds of tissues in its body takes place during sleep, that there is comparatively little during the activities of the day. It is not so well understood that our minds also grow during the night; that they develop along the lines of the ideals, thoughts and emotions with which we feed them before retiring. "All the analogies go to prove that the mind is always awake," says M. Jouffroy. "The mind during sleep is not in a special mood or state, but it goes on and develops itself absolutely as in the waking hours."
As a matter of fact we never awake just the same being as when we went to sleep. We are either better or worse. We changed while we slept. While our senses are wrapped in slumber, the subjective mind is busily at work.It is either building up or tearing down. It is my firm belief that by an intelligent, systematic direction of this sleepless faculty of the brain we can actually make it create for us along the line of our desires. As it is, most people by not putting the mind in proper condition before going to sleep not only do not intelligently use this marvelous creative agency but they destroy all possibility of beneficial results from its action. It is as necessary to prepare the mind for sleep as it is to prepare the body. The following chapter offers some suggestions on this point.
Sleep, gentle sleep, how have I frighted thee?Shakespeare.
Not long ago I heard a young lady say that it was simply impossible for any woman to look charming or to be agreeable right after getting up in the morning. The Rev. Dr. Bushnell declared that "a man must be next to a devil who wakes angry." The way we feel when we awake in the morning depends on how we were feeling or thinking when we went to sleep.
If we retire holding a grudge against a neighbor, with a resolve to "get square" with somebody who has injured us; if we have hatred or jealousy in our heart; if we are envious of another's success, and if we go to sleep nursing these feelings, we awake in a depressed, exhausted state, feeling bitter, pessimistic, irritable, unhappy, about as nearly like a devil asit is possible for a human being to feel. The destroyer was at work all night, running amuck among the delicate brain and nerve cells, furiously tearing down what beneficent Nature had taken such pains to upbuild. But, when we take pleasant, kindly, loving thoughts to bed with us we awake refreshed, in a happy, contented frame of mind. Our sleepless faculties spent the hours in upbuilding, performing friendly offices for us during the night.
Few people ever think of preparing the mind for sleep, yet it is even more necessary than it is to prepare the body. Most of us take great pains to put the latter in order; we undress, take a warm bath, massage the face with some sort of refreshening salve, cold cream, or oil; we make sure that our sleeping room is properly ventilated and that our bed is clean and comfortable, but to the matter of preparing our minds we don't give a thought.
Instead of making our subconscious mental processes build for us in the night, we allow them to tear down much of what we have built during the day. Many of us grow old, haggard and wrinkled in the night, when just the reverse ought to be the case, for Nature herself has ordained that night should be the building, the renewing, time of life.
If we were only to prepare the mind for sleep with the same intelligence and care that we prepare the body; if we were to give it a cleansing mental bath, wiping from memory's slate all black, discordant pictures, all the worries and fears which vexed and perplexed us during the day instead of having the nightmare panorama passing and repassing before us during the night, robbing us of needed rest and neutralizing our upbuilding, recuperative forces, what a difference it would make in our achievement, in our lives!
I know men whose lives have been revolutionized by adopting the practice of putting themselves in a harmonious condition, getting in tune with the Infinite before going to sleep. Formerly they were in the habit of retiring in a bad mood, tired, discouraged over anticipated evils, worrying about all sorts of things. They would discuss their misfortunes at night with their wives and then fall to thinking over the unfortunate conditions in their affairs, their mistakes, and the possible evil consequences that might result from them. Naturally, theirminds were in an upset condition when they fell asleep, and, as might have been expected, the melancholy, black, ugly pictures of the misfortunes they feared, vividly exaggerated in the stillness of the night, became etched deeper and deeper on their brains and did their baleful work, making real rest and reinvigoration absolutely impossible. When they reformed their habits, changed their thought, and retired in a peaceful frame of mind with the intention of going to sleep, instead of tossing about thinking of their troubles, their business straightway began to improve. They were stronger, fresher, more vigorous, more resourceful, better able to cope with difficulties, to make plans and to carry them out than when they were depleting their physical and mental resources by robbing themselves of their best friend, Nature's restorative,—sleep.
Many people tell me they cannot stop thinking after they go to bed. Their brains are so active, doing their next day's work, that they cannot stop the mental processes for hours.
Of course you cannot stop all thinking the first night you begin to form the new habit, when you have practiced the old night-thinkinghabit for years; when perhaps as far back as you can remember you have gone to bed every night worrying, worrying, thinking, thinking, planning, planning ahead for days, for weeks, for months, planning ahead perhaps for the coming year. But if you persist, and make it a cast iron rule to allow no anxieties or fears, no business troubles or discords of any kind to enter your bed chamber, you will succeed in accomplishing your object.
Think of your chamber as the one place sacred to rest, where the things that trouble and harass and vex during the daytime shall find no entrance. Put this legend over the door, or in some conspicuous place where you can see it. "This is my holy of holies, the place of supreme peace and power in my life from which all discord must be shut out." When you undress and lie down, say to yourself, "I have done my best during the day. Now I am going to drop thinking, drop worrying and planning, and get good, refreshing sleep to prepare me for to-morrow's work."
Clear your mind not only of all anxious, worrying business thoughts, but also of all ill will or hatred toward another. Resolve thatyou will not harbor an unpleasant, bitter or unkind thought of any human being, that you will wipe off the slate of your memory everything you have ever had against any one; that you will forget whatever is unpleasant in the past and start with a clean slate. Just imagine that the words "Harmony," "Peace," "Love," "Good Will to every living creature," are emblazoned in letters of light all over the walls of your room. Repeat them over and over until that other self, that personal secretary just below the threshold of your consciousness, becomes saturated with the ideas they convey, and after a while you will drop into slumber with a serene, poised mind, a mind filled with happy, joyous, creative thoughts.
Of course, until the new habit is fixed, thoughts will intrude themselves in spite of you, but you needn't harbor them. You needn't allow yourself, under any circumstances, to go on thinking about business or any discordant thing after you retire any more than you would allow a madman to slash you with a knife without making any attempt to defend yourself. You can, if you only persist in the new and better way, fall asleep everynight like a tired child, and awake in the morning just as refreshed and happy. Your subconscious self will, after a while, carry out your behests without any conscious effort on your part. This sleepless subconscious self is, in fact, one of the most effective agents man has to help him accomplish whatever he desires. Insomnia, for instance, which is the curse of so many Americans, may be entirely overcome by its aid.
If you are a victim of insomnia, and go to bed every night with the thought firmly fixed in your consciousness that you are not going to sleep, you are, to a great extent, the victim of your belief. The conviction in your subconscious mind that there is something the matter with your sleeping ability is largely responsible for the continuance of your trouble.
We know by experience that we can convince ourselves of almost anything by affirming it long enough and often enough. The constant repetition, after a while, establishes the belief in our minds that the thing is true. We can establish the sleep habit just as easily as any other habit.
It is perfectly possible by means of affirmation, the constant repetition in heart to heart talks with yourself to regain your power to sleep normally. Your subconscious self, that side of your nature which presides over the involuntary or automatic functions during sleep, as well as while you are awake, as, for instance, walking, and other things which do not require volition of the mind or especial will power, can be made to obey your commands, or rather suggestions, to overcome insomnia. Say to this inner self: "You know there is no reason why you should not sleep. There is no defect in your physical or mental make-up which keeps you awake. You ought to sleep soundly so many hours every night. There is no reason why you should not, and you are going to do so to-night."
Repeat similar affirmations during the day. Say to yourself, "This sleeplessness is only a bad habit. If you were ill physically or mentally, if you had any serious defect in your nervous system which would give any excuse for insomnia, it would be a different thing, but you haven't anything of the sort. You are simply the slave of a senseless obsession and you are going to break it up. You are goingto begin right away. You are going to sleep better to-night, to-morrow night, and the next night. You are going to get through with this bogie you have built up in your imagination which has no existence in reality. Nothing keeps you awake but your conviction, your fear, that you are not going to sleep."
Prepare your mind for sleep in the way already suggested by emptying it of all worry and fear, all envy and uncharitableness, everything that disturbs, irritates, or excites. Crowd these out with thoughts of joy, of good cheer, of things which will help and inspire. Compose yourself with the belief that you will go to sleep easily and naturally; relax every muscle and say to yourself in a quiet drowsy voice, "I am so sleepy, so sleepy, so sleepy." The subconscious self will listen and in a short time will automatically put your suggestion into practice.
It is needless to say that if insomnia is a result of bad or irregular habits, the victim must first of all change his habits before he can expect any relief.
Man is a bundle of habits. We perform most of our life functions with greater or lessregularity, so that they become practically automatic. Regularity, system, order are imperative for our health, our success and our happiness. This is especially true in regard to sleep. We must keep regular hours, be systematic in our habits, or our sleep is likely to suffer.
If you play as hard as you work, refresh and rejuvenate yourself by pleasant recreation and a jolly good time when your work is done, and then at a regular hour every night prepare your mind for sleep, just as you would prepare your body, give it a mental bath and clothe it in beautiful thoughts, you will in a short time establish the habit of sound, peaceful, refreshing sleep.
Whatever else you do, or do not, form the habit of making a call on the Great Within of yourself before retiring. Leave there the message of up-lift, of self-betterment and self-enlargement, that which you yearn for and long to realize but do not know just how to attain. Registering this call, this demand for something higher and nobler, in your subconsciousness, putting it right up to yourself, will work like a leaven during the night; and, after awhile, all the building forces within you will unite in furthering your aim; in helping you to realize your vision, whatever it may be.
The period of sleep may be made a wonderful period of growth, for the mind as well as for the body. It is a time when you can attract your desires; it is a propitious time to nurse your vision.
Instead of making an enemy of your subconscious self by giving it destructive thoughts to work with, explosives that will destroy much of what you have accomplished during the day, make it your friend by giving it strong, creative, helpful thoughts with which to go on creating, building for you during the night.
There are marvelous possibilities for health and character, success and happiness building, during sleep. Every thought dropped into the subconscious mind before we go to sleep is a seed that will germinate in the night while we are unconscious and ultimately bring forth a harvest of its kind. By impressing upon it our desires, picturing as vividly as possible our ideals, what we wish to become, and what we long to accomplish, we will be surprised to seehow quickly that wonderful force in the subjective self will begin to shape the pattern, to copy the model which it is given. In this way we can correct habits which are wounding our self-respect, humiliating us, marring our usefulness and efficiency, perhaps sapping our lives. We can get rid of faults and imperfections; we can strengthen our weak faculties and overcome vicious tendencies which the will power may not be strong enough to correct in the daytime.
If, as now seems clear, the subconscious mind can build or destroy, can make us happy or miserable according to the pattern we give it before going to sleep, if it can solve the problems of the inventor, of the discoverer, of the troubled business man, why do we not use it more? Why do we not avail ourselves of this tremendous mysterious force for life building, character building, success building, happiness building, instead of for life destroying?
One reason is that we are only just beginning to discover that we can control this secondary self or intelligence, which regulates all the functions of the body without the immediate orders of the objective self. We are getting a glimpse of what it is capable of doing by experiments upon hypnotized subjects, when the objective mind, the mind which gets most of its material through the five senses is shut off and the other, the subjective mind, is in control. We are finding that it is comparatively easy while a person is in a hypnotic state to make wonderful changes in disposition, and to correct vicious habits, mental and moral defects, through suggestion.
There is no doubt that so far as the subjective mind is concerned we are in a similar condition when asleep as when in a hypnotic trance, and experiments have shown that marvelous results are possible, especially in the case of children, by talking to them, during their sleep, advising them, counseling them, suggesting things that are for their good.
Parents should teach their children how to prepare their minds for sleep so that the subconscious self would create, produce something beautiful instead of the black, discordant images of fear which so often terrorize little ones before they fall asleep and when they wake up in the dark hours of the night. Howoften have we noticed the troubled, fear-full expression on the face of a sleeping child, who was sent to bed with anger thoughts, with fear thoughts in its mind after a severe scolding or perhaps a whipping.
A child should never be scolded or frightened, or teased, especially just before bedtime. It should be encouraged to fall asleep in its sweetest, happiest mood, in the spirit of love. Then its sleeping face will reflect the love spirit and the child will awaken in the same spirit, as though it had been talking with angels while it slept.
Children are peculiarly susceptible to the influence of our thoughts, our suggestions to them during sleep. Their character can be molded to a great extent, their ability developed, their faults eradicated, and their weak points strengthened during sleep. In some ways the suggestions made to them in that state have more effect than those made to them when awake, because while the objective mind often scatters and fails to reproduce what is presented to it, the subjective mind gradually absorbs and reflects every suggestion. Many mothers have found this true, especially in correcting bad habits which seemed almost impossible to reach while the children were awake.
If you want to make your child beautiful in character, in disposition, in person, think beautiful thoughts into its mind as it falls asleep; speak to it of beautiful things while it sleeps. I believe the time will come when much of the child's training will be effected during sleep. Its æsthetic faculties, the love of music, of art, of all things noble and beautiful, special talents, and latent possibilities of all kinds will be developed through suggestion.
In the marvelous interior creative forces lies the great secret of life, and blessed is he who findeth it. Doubly blessed is he who findeth it at the start of life.
We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count.R. W. Emerson.The ability to hold mentally the picture of youth in all its glory, vivacity and splendor has a powerful influence in restraining the old age processes.Old age begins in the heart. When the heart grows cold the skin grows old, and the appearances of age impress themselves on the body. The mind becomes blighted, the ideals blurred, and the juices of life congealed.
We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count.
R. W. Emerson.
The ability to hold mentally the picture of youth in all its glory, vivacity and splendor has a powerful influence in restraining the old age processes.
Old age begins in the heart. When the heart grows cold the skin grows old, and the appearances of age impress themselves on the body. The mind becomes blighted, the ideals blurred, and the juices of life congealed.
Many people look forward to old age as a time when, as a recent writer puts it, you have "a feeling that no one wants you, that all those you have borne and brought up have long passed out onto roads where you cannot follow, that even the thought-life of the world streams by so fast that you lie up in a backwater, feebly, blindly groping for the full of the water, and always pushed gently, hopelessly back."
There is such a thing as an old age of this kind, but not for those who face life in theright way. Such a pathetic, such a tragic ending is not for those who love and are loved, because they keep their hearts open to the joys and sorrows of life; who maintain a sympathetic interest in their fellow-beings and in the progress and uplift of the world; who keep their faculties sharpened by use, and whose minds are constantly reaching out, broadening and growing, in the love and service of humanity. A dismal, useless old age is only for those who have not learned how to live.
Growth in knowledge and wisdom should be the only indication of our added years. Professor Metchnikoff, the greatest authority on age, believes that it is possible to prolong life, with its maximum of vigor and freshness, until the end of its normal cycle, when the individual will gratefully welcome what will be a perfectly happy release. At this point he claims that the instinct of death will supplant the instinct of life, when the bodily mechanism approaches the natural end of normal exhaustion. He believes that men should live and maintain their usefulness for at least one hundred and twenty years.
The author of "Philosophy of Longevity"tells us that man can live to be two hundred years old. Jean Finot says: "Speaking physiologically, the human body possesses peerless solidity. Not one of the machines invented by man could resist for a single year the incessant taxes which we impose upon ours. Yet it continues to perform its functions notwithstanding."
What we have a horror of is the premature death of the faculties, the cutting off of power, opportunity, the decay of the body many years before the close of the life on earth. We shudder at the giving up of a large part of life that has potency of work, of action and of happiness. This horror of senility increases, because life continually grows more interesting. There never was a time when it seemed so precious, so full of possibilities, when there was so much to live for, as in this glorious present. There never was a time when it seemed so hard to be forced out of the life race. We are on the eve of a new and marvelous era, and the whole race is on the tiptoe of expectancy. Never before was the thought of old age as represented by decay and enforced inactivity so repugnant to man.
But why should any one look forward to such a period? It is just this looking forward, the anticipating and dreading the coming of old age, that makes us old, senile, useless.
The creative forces inside of us build on our suggestions, on our thought models, and if we constantly thrust into our consciousness old age thoughts and pictures of decrepitude, of declining faculties, these thoughts and pictures will be reproduced in the body.
A few years ago a young man "died of old age" in a New York hospital. After an autopsy the surgeons said that while the man was in reality only twenty-three years old he was internally eighty! If you have arrived at an age which you accept as a starting point for physical deterioration, your body will sympathize with your conviction. Your walk, your gait, your expression, your general appearance, and even your acts will all fall into line with your mental attitude.
A short time ago I was talking with a remarkable man of sixty about growing old. The thought of the inevitableness of the aging processes appalled him. No matter, he declared, what efforts he might make to avert orpostpone the decrepitude of age there would come a period of diminishing returns, and though he might fight against it he would ever after be on the decline of life, going irrevocably toward the sunset, ever nearer and nearer to the time when he should be useless. "The conviction that every moment, every hour, every day takes me so much nearer to that hole in the ground from which no power in Heaven or earth can help us to escape is ever present in my mind," he said. "This progressive, ever-active retrogression is monstrous. This inevitably decrepit old age staring me in the face is robbing me of happiness, paralyzing my efforts and discouraging my ambition."
"But why do you dwell on those things that terrify you?" I asked. "Why do you harbor such old age thoughts? Why are you visualizing decrepitude, the dulling and weakening of your mental faculties? If you have such a horror of the decrepitude, the loss of memory, the failing eyesight, the hesitating step, and the general deterioration which you believe accompany old age, why don't you get away from these terrifying thoughts, put them out of your mind instead of dwelling on them?Don't you know that what you concentrate on, what you fear, the pictures that so terrify you, are creating the very conditions which you would give anything to escape? If you really wish to stay the old age processes you must change your thoughts. Erase everything that has to do with age from your mind. Visualize youthful conditions. Say to yourself, "God is my life. I cannot grow old in spirit, and that is the only old age to fear. As long as my spirit is youthful; as long as the boy in me lives, I cannot age."
The great trouble with those who are getting along in years is that they put themselves outside of the things that would keep them young. Most people after fifty begin to shun children and youth generally. They feel that it is not "becoming to their years" to act as they did when younger, and day by day they gradually fall more and more into old age ways and habits.
We build into our lives the picture patterns which we hold in our minds. This is a mental law. When you have reached the time at which most people show traces of their age you imagine that you must do the same. You begin to think you have probably done your best work, and that your powers must henceforth decline. You imagine your faculties are deteriorating, that they are not quite so sharp as they once were; that you cannot endure quite so much, and that you ought to begin to let up a little; to take less exercise, to do less work, to take life a little easier.
The moment you allow yourself to think your powers are beginning to decline they will do so, and your appearance and bodily conditions will follow your convictions. If you hold the thought that your ambition is sagging, that your faculties are deteriorating, you will be convinced that younger men have the advantage of you, and, voluntarily, at first, you will begin to take a back seat, figuratively speaking, behind the younger men. Once you do this you are doomed to be pushed farther and farther to the rear. You will be taken at your own valuation. Having made a confession of age, acknowledged in thought and act that, in so far as work and productive returns are concerned, you are no longer the equal of young men, they will naturally be preferred before you.
If people who have aged prematurely could only analyze the influences which have robbed them of their birthright of youth they would find that most of them were a false conviction that they must grow old at about such a time, needless worry,—all worry is needless,—silly anxiety, which often comes from vanity, jealousy and the indulgence of such passions as excessive temper, revenge, and all sorts of unhealthy thinking. If they could only eliminate these influences from their lives, they would take a great leap back toward youthfulness. If it were possible to erase all of the scars and wrinkles, all the effects of our aging thoughts, aging emotions, moods and passions, many of us would be so transformed, so rejuvenated that our friends would scarcely know us. The aging thoughts and moods and passions make old men and women of most of us in middle life.
The laws of renewal, of rejuvenation are always operating in us, and will be effective if we do not neutralize them by wrong thinking. The chemical changes caused in the blood and other secretions by worry, fear, the operation of the explosive passions, or by any depressingmental disturbance, will put the aging processes in action.
Whatever we establish as a fixed conviction in our lives we transmit to our children, and this conviction gathers cumulative force all the way down the centuries. Every child in Christian countries is born with the race belief that three score years or three score years and ten is a sort of measure of the limit to human life. This has crystallized into a race belief, and we begin to prepare for the end much in advance of the period fixed. As long as we hold this belief we cannot bar out of our minds the consequent suggestion that when we pass the half century limit our powers begin to decline. The very idea that we have reached our limit of growth, that any hope of further progress must be abandoned, tends to etch the old age picture and conviction deeper and deeper in our minds, and of course the creative processes can only reproduce the pattern given them.
Some men cross the zenith line, from which they believe they must henceforth go down-hill, a quarter of a century or more earlier than others, because we cross this line of demarcation mentally first, cross it when we are convinced that we have passed the maximum of our producing power and have reached the period of diminishing returns.
Many people have what they are pleased to call a premonition that they will not live beyond a certain age, and that becomes a focus toward which the whole life points. They begin to prepare for the end. Their conviction that they are to die at a certain time largely determines the limitation of their years.
Not long since, at a banquet, I met a very intelligent, widely read man who told me that he felt perfectly sure he could not possibly live to be an old man. He cited as a reason for his belief the analogy which runs through all nature, showing that plants, animals and all forms of life which mature early also die early, and because he was practically an adult at fifteen he was convinced that he must die comparatively young. He said he was like a poplar tree in comparison with an oak; the one matured early and died early; the other matured late and was very long-lived.
So thoroughly is this man under the dominion of his belief that he must die early thathe is making no fight for longevity. He does not take ordinary care of his health, or necessary precautions in time of danger. "What is the use," he says, "of trying to fight against Nature's laws? I might as well live while I live, and enjoy all I can, and try to make up for an early death."
Multitudes of people start out in youth handicapped by a belief that they have some hereditary taint, a predisposition to some disease that will probably shorten their lives. They go through life with this restricting, limiting thought so deeply embedded in the very marrow of their being that they never even try to develop themselves to their utmost capacity.
Our achievement depends very largely upon the expectancy plan, the life pattern we make for ourselves. If we make our plan to fit only one-half or one-third of the time we ought to live, naturally we will accomplish only a fraction of what we are really capable of doing. I have a friend who from boyhood has been convinced that he would not live much, if any, beyond forty years, because both his parents had died before that age. Consequently henever planned for a long life of steady growth and increasing power, and the result is he has not brought anything like all of his latent possibilities into activity, or accomplished a fourth of what he is really capable.
It is infinitely better to believe that we are going to live much longer than there is any probability we shall than to cut off precious years by setting a fixed date for our death simply because one or both of our parents happened to die about such an age, or because we fear we have inherited some disease, such as cancer, which is likely to develop fatally at about a certain time.
Just think of the pernicious influence upon a child's mind of the constant suggestion that it will probably die very young because its parents or some of its relatives did; that even if it is fortunate enough to survive the diseases and accidents of youth and early maturity, it is not possible to extend its limits of life much, if any, beyond a certain point! Yet we burn this and similar suggestions into the minds of our children until they become a part of their lives. We celebrate birthdays and mark off each recurring anniversary as a red-letter dayand fix in our minds the thought that we are a year older. All through our mature life the picture of death is kept in view, the idea that we must expect it and prepare for it at about such a time. The truth is the death suggestion has wrought more havoc and marred more lives than almost anything else in human history. It is responsible for most of the fear, which is the greatest curse of the race.
A noted physician says that if children, instead of hearing so much about death, were trained more in the principles of immortality, they would retain their youth very much longer, and would extend their lives to a much greater length than is now general.
I believe the time will come when the custom of celebrating birthdays, of emphasizing the fact that we are a year older, that we are getting so much nearer the end, will be done away with. Children will not then be reminded so forcibly once in three hundred and sixty-five days that each birthday is a milestone in age. We shall know that the spirit is not affected by years, that its very essence is youth and immortality. In our inmost souls we shall realize that there is a life principlewithin us that knows neither age nor death. We shall find that old age is largely a question of mental attitude, and that we shall become what we are convinced we must become.
As a matter of fact the average length of life is steadily increasing, because science is teaching men how to live so as to conserve health and youth. Formerly men and women grew old very much earlier than they do now, and they died much younger. We do not think so much about dying as they used to in the early days of this country, when to prepare for the future life seemed to be the chief occupation of our Puritan ancestors. They had very little use for this world and did not try to enjoy life here very much. They were always talking and praying and singing about "the life over there," while making the life here gloomy and forbidding. They forgot that the religion Christ taught was one of joy.
There is no greater foe to the aging processes than joy, hope, good cheer, gladness. These are the incarnation of the youthful spirit. If you would keep young, cultivate this spirit; think youthful thoughts; live much with youth; enter into their lives, into theirsports, their plays, their ambitions. Play the youthful part, not half heartedly, but with enthusiasm and zest. You cannot use any ability until you think, until you believe, you can. Your reserve power will stand in the background until your self-faith calls it into action. If you want to stay young you must act as if you felt young.
If you do not wish to grow old, quit thinking and acting as if you were aging. Instead of walking with drooped shoulders and with a slow, dragging gait, straighten up and put elasticity into your steps. Do not walk like an old man whose energies are waning, whose youthful fires are spent. Step with the springiness of a young man full of life, spirit and vigor. The body is not old until the mind gives its consent. Stop thinking of yourself as an old man or an old woman. Cease manifesting symptoms of decrepitude. Remember that the impression you make upon others will react on yourself. If other people get the idea that you are going down hill physically and mentally, you will have all the more to overcome in your effort to change their convictions.
When we are ambitious to obtain a certainthing, and our hearts are set on it, we strive for it, we contact with it mentally and through our thoughts we become vitally related to it. We establish a connection with the coveted object. In other words, we do everything in our power to obtain it; and the mental effort is a real force which tends to match our dream with its realization.
An up-to-date modern woman is a good example of what I mean. She does not act like an old lady, and does not put on an old lady's garb after she has passed the half-century milestone. We do not see the old lady's cap, the old lady's gown of the past any more. Women getting along in years nowadays dress more youthfully and appear younger than their grandmothers did at the same age. They do everything to make themselves appear young. Men are much more likely than women to grow careless in regard to personal appearance as they grow older. They wear their hair longer, they let their beard grow, they stoop their shoulders, drag their feet when they walk, and begin to neglect their dress. They are not as careful in any respect to retain their youthful appearance as women, who resort to all sorts of expedients to ward off signs of age and to retain their attractiveness.
The habit of growing old must be combated as we combat any other vicious habit, by reversing the processes by which it is formed. Instead of surrendering and giving up to old age convictions and fears, stoutly deny them and affirm the opposite. When the suggestion comes to you that your powers are waning, that you cannot do what you once did, prove its falsity by exercising the faculties which you think are weakening. Giving up is only to surrender to age.
We tend to find what we look for in this world, and if, as we advance in years, we are always looking for signs of old age we will find them. If you are constantly on the alert for symptoms of failing faculties, you will discover plenty of them; and the great danger of this is that we are apt to take our unfortunate moods for permanent symptoms. That is, some day perhaps you cannot think as clearly, you cannot concentrate your mind as well, you do not remember as readily as you did the day before, and you immediately jump to the conclusion that a man of your age mustbegin to fail, cannot expect as much of himself as when he was younger. In other words, a person whose mind is concentrated upon his aging processes is inclined to draw a wrong conclusion from his temporary moods and feelings, mistaking them for permanent conditions.
The majority of people who are showing the signs of premature aging are suffering from chronic thought poison, that is, the chronic old age poison. From the cradle they have heard old age talk, the reiteration of the old age belief that when a person reached about such an age he would then naturally begin to let up, to prepare for the end. And so instead of fighting off age by holding the eternal youth thought and the vigor thought they have held the thoughts of weakness and declining powers. When they happen to forget something, they say their memory is beginning to go back on them, their sight will soon begin to fail, and they go on anticipating signs of decline and decrepitude until the old age visualization is built into the very structure of their bodies.
Instead of forming the habit of looking forsigns of age form the habit of looking for signs of youth. Form the habit of thinking of your body as robust and supple and your brain as strong and active. Never allow yourself to think that you are on the decline, that your faculties are on the wane, that they are not as sharp as they used to be and that you cannot think as well, because your cells are becoming old and hard. He ages who thinks he ages. He keeps young who believes he is young.
We get a good hint of the power of mental influence in the marvelous way in which many of our actresses and grand-opera singers retain their youthfulness, because they feel that it is imperative that they should do so. Had Sara Bernhardt, Adelina Patti, Lily Lehmann, Madame Schumann-Heink, Lillian Russell, and scores of other actresses and singers pursued any other vocation they would undoubtedly have been at least ten, perhaps twenty years older in appearance than they are.
There are too many exceptions to the race belief that man's powers begin to wane at fifty, sixty or seventy to allow oneself to be influenced by it. We really ought to do our best work after fifty. If the brain is kept active, fresh and young, and the brain cells are not ruined by a vicious life, worry, fear, selfishness, or by disease induced by wrong living or thinking, the mind will constantly increase in vigor and power. Men and women whose faculties are sharp and whose minds are keen and vigorous at ninety, and even at a hundred, prove this. I know a number of men in their seventies and eighties who are as sturdy and vigorous physically and mentally to-day as they were twenty years ago. Only recently I was talking with a business man who broke down at forty from over strain but who is now, in his eightieth year, more buoyant and elastic in mind and body than many men at fifty. This man does not believe in growing old because he knows that ten years ago he did not have a bit of the cell material in his body that he has to-day. "Why should I stamp these new body cells with four score years," he says, "when not a single one of them may be a quarter of that age?"
Many of us do not realize the biological fact that Nature herself bestows upon us the powerof perpetual renewal. There is not a cell in our bodies that can possibly become very old, because all of them are frequently renewed. Physiologists tell us that the tissue cells of some muscles are renewed every few months. Some authorities estimate that eighty or ninety per cent. of all the cells in the body of a person of ordinary activity are entirely renewed within a couple of years.
One's mental attitude, however, is the most important of all. There is no possible way of keeping young while convinced that one must inevitably manifest the characteristics of old age. The old age thoughts stamp themselves upon the new body cells, so that they very soon look forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years old. We should hold tenaciously the conviction that none of the cells of the body can be old because they are constantly being renewed, a large part of them every few months. It is impossible for the processes producing senility to get control of the system, or to make very serious changes in the body, unless the mind first gives its consent. Age is not so much a matter of years as of the limpidity, the suppleness of the protoplasm of the cells of the body, and thereis nothing which will age the protoplasm like aging thoughts and serenity enemies, such as worry, anxiety, fear, anger, hatred, revenge, or any discordant emotion. If you keep your protoplasm young by holding youthful ideals, there is no reason why you should not live well into the teens of your second century.
Constantly affirm, "I am young because I am perpetually being renewed; my life comes new every instant from the Infinite Source of life. I am new every morning and fresh every evening, because I live, move, and have my being in Him who is the source of all life." Not only affirm this mentally, but also audibly. Make this picture of perpetual rejuvenation and re-creation so vivid that you will feel the thrill of youthful renewal through your entire system.
Some people try to cure the physical ravages made by wrong living and wrong thinking by patching their bodies from the outside. The "beauty parlors" in our great cities are besieged by women who are desperately trying to maintain their youthful appearance, not realizing that the elixir of youth is in one's own mind, not in bottles or boxes. Is there anything quite so ghastly as to see an old lady (really old because her heart is no longer young), with a painted or enameled face, dressed like a young girl? Such a woman deceives no one but herself. Other people can see the old, dry skin beneath the rouge. They can see the wrinkles which she tries to disguise. She cannot cover up her age with such frivolous pretenses. The painting of cheeks and wearing of girlish frocks do not make a person young. It is largely a question of the age of the mind. If the mind has become hardened, dry, uninteresting, if there is no charm in the personality one is old, no matter what his or her years count.
Idle, selfish women of wealth who live an animal life, who are constantly doing things which hasten the appearance of old age, overeating, over-drinking, over-sleeping, idling life away, having nothing to do but gratify every luxurious whim, are the best customers of beauty doctors, who try to erase the earmarks of old age by "treating" the skin and the hair. Doctoring the effects instead of trying to remove the cause of old age never has been, and never can be, really successful. You cannotrepair the ravages of age on the outside. You must remove the cause, which is in the mind, in the heart. When the affections are marbleized, when one ceases to be sympathetic and helpful and interested in life, the ravages of old age will appear in spite of all the beauty doctors in the world.
I know indolent wives of rich men, who cannot understand why they age so rapidly in appearance when living such easy, care-free, worry-free lives. They are puzzled to know why it is when they do not have to work, when they have no cares, when their wants are all supplied without any effort of theirs, they do not retain their youthful appearance many years longer than they do. The fact is those women stagnate, and nothing ages one faster than mental and physical stagnation. Work, useful employment of some sort, is the price of all real growth, of all real human expansion. He, or she, who indulges in continuous idleness pays the price in constant deterioration, physical, mental and moral. A ship lying idle in the wharf will rot and go to destruction much more rapidly than a ship at sea in constant use. Every force in nature seems tocombine in corroding, destroying the unused thing, the idle person.
Work, love, kindness, sympathy, helpfulness, unselfish interest—these are the eternal youth essences. These never age, and if you make friends with them they will act like a leaven in your life, enriching your nature, sweetening and ennobling your character, and prolonging your youth even to the century mark.
We are learning that the fabled fountain of youth lies in ourselves; is in our own mentality. Perpetual rejuvenation and renewal are possible through right thinking. We look as old as we think and feel, because thought and feeling maintain or change our appearance in exact accordance with their persistence or their variations. It is impossible to appear youthful and remain young unless we feel young. Youthful thinking should be a life habit.