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This carefully crafted ebook: "Be Good To Yourself (Unabridged)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Excerpt: "In order to keep himself at the top of his condition, to obtain complete mastery of all his powers and possibilities, a man must be good to himself mentally, he must think well of himself." Being Good to Oneself places the importance of a self-positive attitude in our everyday lives. Spread over twenty-two chapters and a conversational way of writing, this book would surely interest those who are looking for a well-rounded, successful life. Dr. Orison Swett Marden (1848-1924) was an American inspirational author who wrote about achieving success in life and founded SUCCESS magazine in 1897. He is often considered as the father of the modern-day inspirational talks and writings and his words make sense even to this day. In his books he discussed the common-sense principles and virtues that make for a well-rounded, successful life.
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Be Good To Yourself
(Unabridged)
Table of Contents
Chapter I. Be Good To Yourself
It is a rare thing to find a person who is really masterful in his personality, masterful in what he undertakes; who approaches his task with the assurance of a conqueror; who is able to grapple vigorously with his life problems; who always keeps himself in condition to do his best, biggest thing easily, without strain; who seizes with the grip of a master the precious opportunities which come to him.
In order to keep himself at the top of his condition, to obtain complete mastery of all his powers and possibilities, a man must be good to himself mentally, he must think well of himself.
Some one has said that the man who depreciates himself blasphemes God, who created him in His own image and pronounced him perfect. Very few people think well enough of themselves, have half enough esteem for their divine origin or respect for their ability, their character, or the sublimity of their possibilities; hence the weakness and ineffectiveness of their careers.
People who persist in seeing the weak, the diseased, the erring side of themselves; who believe they have inherited a taint from their ancestors; who think they do not amount to much and never will; who are always exaggerating their defects; who see only the small side of themselves, never grow into that bigness of manhood and grandeur of womanhood which God intended for them. They, hold in their minds this little, mean, contemptible, dried-up image of themselves until the dwarfed picture becomes a reality. Their appearance, their lives, outpicture their poor opinion of themselves, express their denial of the grandeur and sublimity of their possibilities. They actually think themselves into littleness, meanness, weakness.
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” His opinion of himself will be reproduced by the life processes within him and outpictured in his body. If you would make the most of yourself, never picture yourself as anything different from what yon would actually be, the man or woman you long to become. Whenever you think of yourself, form a mental image of a perfect, healthy, beautiful, noble being, not lacking in anything, but possessing every desirable quality. Positively refuse to see anything about yourself which would detract from your personality. Insist upon seeing only the truth of your being, the man or woman God had in mind when he made you, not the distorted thing, the burlesque man or woman, which your ignorance and unfortunate environment, wrong thinking and vicious living have produced. The estimate you have of yourself, the image of yourself which you carry in your mind, will mean infinitely more to you than other people may think of you.
If we would make the most of our lives, if we would be and do all that it is possible for us to be and to do, we must not only think well of ourselves, but we must also be just to ourselves physically, be good to our bodies. In order to be the highest, the most efficient type of man or woman, it is just as necessary to cultivate the body, to develop its greatest possible strength and beauty, as it is to cultivate the mind, to raise it to its highest power.
There are plenty of people who are good to others, but are not good to themselves. They do not take care of their own health, their own bodies, do not conserve their own energies, husband their own resources. They are slaves to others, tyrants to themselves.
Faithfulness to others is a most desirable trait, yet faithfulness to yourself is just as much of a requisite. It is as great a sin not to be good to yourself as not to be good to others. It is every one’s sacred duty to keep himself up to the. highest possible standard, physically and mentally, otherwise he can not deliver his divine message, in its entirety, to the world. It is every one's sacred duty to keep himself in a condition to do the biggest thing possible to him. It is a positive sin to keep oneself in a depleted, rundown, exhausted state, so that he can not answer his life call or any big demand that an emergency may make upon him.
There are many people of a high order of ability who do very ordinary work in life, whose careers are most disappointing, simply because they do not keep themselves in a physical and mental condition to do their best.
In every place of business we find employees who are only about half awake, half alive; their bodies are full of dead cells, poisoned cells, because of vicious living, vicious thinking, vicious habits. Is it any wonder that they get so little out of life when they; put so little into it?
I know men in middle life who are just where they were when they left school or college. They have not advanced a particle; some have even retrograded, and they can not understand why they do not get on, why they are not more successful. But every one who knows them sees the great handicaps of indifference to their health, neglect of their physical needs, dissipation, irregular living, slipshod, slovenly habits, all sorts of things which are keeping them down, handicaps which even intellectual giants could not drag along with them and make any kind of progress.
Everywhere we see young men and women crippled in their careers, plodding along in mediocrity, capable of great things, but doing little things, because they have not vitality enough to push their way and overcome the obstacles in their path. They have not been good to their physical selves.
An author’s book is wishy-washy, does not get hold of the reader because he had no vigor, no surplus vitality, to put into it. The book does not arouse because the author was not aroused when he wrote it. It is lifeless because of the writer’s low state of vitality.
The clergyman does not get hold of his people because he lacks stamina, force and physical vitality. He is a weakling mentally because he is a weakling physically. The teacher does not arouse or inspire his pupil because he lacks life and enthusiasm himself. His brain and nerves are fagged, his energy exhausted, burned out, his strength depleted, because he has not been good to himself.
Everywhere we see these devitalized people, without spontaneity, buoyancy, or enthusiasm in their endeavor. They have no joy in their work. It is merely enforced drudgery, a dreary, monotonous routine.
The great problem in manufacturing is to get the largest possible results with the least possible expenditure, the least wear and tear of machinery. Men study the economy in their business of getting the maximum return with the minimum expenditure, and yet many of these men who are so shrewd and level-headed in their business pay very little attention to the economy of their personal power expenditure.
Most of us are at war with ourselves, are our own worst enemies. We expect a great deal of ourselves, yet we do not put ourselves in a condition to achieve great things. We are either too indulgent to our bodies, or we are not indulgent enough. We pamper them, or we neglect them, and it would be hard to tell which mode of treatment produces the worst results. Few people treat their bodies with the same wise care and consideration that they bestow upon a valuable piece of machinery or property of any kind from which they expect large returns.
Take the treatment of the digestive apparatus, for instance, which really supplies the motor power for the whole body, and we will find that most of us do not give it half a .chance to do its work properly. The energy of the digestive organs of many people is exhausted in trying to take care of superfluous food for which there is absolutely no demand in the system. So much energy is used up trying to assimilate surplus, unnecessary food, improper food, that there is none left to assimilate and digest that which is actually needed.
Men are constantly violating the laws of health, eating all sorts of incompatible, indigestible foods, often when the stomach is exhausted and unable to take care of simple food. They fill it with a great variety of rich, indigestible stuffs, retard the digestive processes with harmful drinks, then wonder why they are unfit for work, and resort to all sorts of stimulants and drugs to overcome the bad effects of their greediness and foolishness.
Many go to the other extreme and do not take enough food or get enough variety in what they do eat, so that some of their tissues are in a chronic condition of semi-starvation.
The result is that while there is a great overplus of certain elements in some parts of the system, there is a famine of different kinds of elements in other parts of the system. This inequality, disproportion, tends to unbalance and produce a lack of symmetry in the body, and induces abnormal appetites that often lead to drinking or other dissipation. Many people resort to dangerous drugs in their effort to satisfy the craving of the starved cells in the various tissues when what they really need is nourishing food.
There are only twelve different kinds of tissues in the body and their needs are very simple. For instance, almost every demand in the entire system can be satisfied by milk and eggs, though, of course, a more varied diet is desirable, and should always be adjusted to suit one’s vocation and activities. Yet, notwithstanding the simple demands of nature, how complicated our living has become!
If we would only study the needs of our bodies as we study the needs of the plants in our gardens, and give them the proper amount and variety of food, with plenty of water, fresh air, and sunshine, we would not be troubled with disordered stomachs, indigestion, biliousness, headache, or any other kind of pain or ache.
If we used common sense in our diet, lived a plain, sane, simple life, we would never need to take medicine. But the way many of us live is a crime against nature, against manhood, against our possibilities.
It is amazing that otherwise shrewd, sensible men can deceive themselves into practicing petty economies which are in reality ruinous extravagances.
No good mechanic would for a moment think of using tools that are out of order. Think of a barber trying to run a first-class shop with dull razors! Think of a carpenter or cabinet-maker attempting to turn out finished work with dull chisels, saws, planes, or other tools!
The man who wants to do a fine piece of work, whether it be the painting of a picture or the building of a house, must have everything with which he works in the best possible condition, otherwise the quality of his work will suffer.
The great thing in life is efficiency. If you amount to anything in the world, your time is valuable, your energy precious. They are your success capital and you can not afford to heedlessly throw them away or trifle with them.
Whatever else you do, husband your strength, save your vitality, hang on to it with the determination with which a drowning man seizes and clings to a log or spar at sea. Store up every bit of your physical force, for it is your achievement material, your manhood timber. Having this, the man who has no money is rich compared with the man of wealth who has squandered his vitality, thrown away his precious life energy. Gold is but dross compared with this, diamonds but rubbish; houses and lands are contemptible beside it.
Dissipators of precious vitality are the wickedest kind of spendthrifts; they are worse than money spendthrifts; they are suicides, for they are killing their every chance in life.
Of what use is ability if you can not use it, of forces that are demoralized, weakened by petty, false economies; what use is great brain power, even genius, if you are physically weak, if your vitality is so reduced either by vicious living or lack of proper care, that your energy becomes exhausted with the very least effort?
To be confronted by a great opportunity of which you are powerless to take advantage, because you have let your energy leak away in useless, vicious ways, or to feel that you can only take hold of your great chance tremblingly, weakly, with doubt instead of assurance and a consciousness of vigor, is one of the most disheartening experiences that can ever come to a human being.
If you would make the most of yourself, cut away all of your vitality sappers, get rid of everything which hampers you and holds you back, everything which wastes your energy, cuts down your working capital. Get freedom at any cost. Do not drag about with you a body that is half dead through vicious habits, which sap your vitality and drain off your life forces. Do not do anything or touch anything which will lower your vitality or lessen your chances of advancement. Always ask yourself, “What is there in this thing I am going to do which will add to my life-work, increase my power, keep me in superb condition to do the best thing possible to me?”
Much precious energy is wasted in fretting, worrying, grumbling, fault-finding, in the little frictions and annoyances that accomplish nothing, but merely make you irritable, cripple and exhaust you. Just look back over yesterday and see where your energy went to. See how much of it leaked away in trifles and in vicious practices. You may have lost more brain and nerve force in a burst of passion, a fit of hot temper, than in doing your normal work in an entire day.
Some people are very careful to keep the pianos in their homes in tune, but they never trouble themselves about the human instruments which are out of tune most of the time. They try to play the great life symphonies on a living instrument that is jangled and out of tune, and then wonder why they produce discord instead of harmony.
The great aim of your life should be to keep your powers up to the highest possible standard, to so conserve your energies, guard your health, that you can make every occasion a great occasion.
The trouble with most of us is that we do not half appreciate the marvelousness of the human mechanism, nor the divinity of the man that dwells in it.
“Man is an infinite little copy of God,” says Victor Hugo. “That is glory enough for man. . . . Little as I am, I feel the God in me.”
Unfortunately most of us do not feel the God in us, we do not realize our powers and possibilities. We lose sight of our divinity. We live in our animal senses instead of rising into the Godlike faculties. We crawl when we might fly.
Chapter II. Economy That Costs Too Much
A Paris bank clerk, who was carrying a bag of gold through the streets, dropped a ten-franc piece, which rolled from the sidewalk. He set his bag down to look for the lost piece, and, While he was trying to extricate it from the gutter, some one stole his bag and ran away with it.
I know a rich man who has become such a slave to the habit of economizing, formed when he was trying to get a start in the world, that he has not been able to break away from it, and he will very often lose a dollar’s worth of valuable time trying to save a dime.
He goes through his home and turns the gas down so low that it is almost impossible to get around without stumbling over chairs. Several members of his family have received injuries from running against half-open doors, or stumbling over furniture in the dark; and once, while I was present, a member of the family spilt a bottle of ink upon a costly carpet in passing from one room to another in the darkness.
This man, although now wealthy, tears off the unused half-sheets of letters, cuts out the backs of envelopes for scribbling paper, and is constantly spending time trying to save little things which are utterly out of proportion to the value to him of the time thus consumed. He carries the same spirit of niggardly economy into his business. He makes his employees save strings from bundles as a matter of principle, even if it takes twice as much time as the string is worth, and practices all sorts of trifling economies equally foolish.
True economy is not stinginess or meanness. It often means very large outlay, for it always has the larger end in view. True economy means the wisest expenditure of what we have, everything considered, looking at it from the broadest standpoint. It is not a good thing to save a nickel at the expenditure of twenty-five cents’ worth of time.
Comparatively few people have a healthy view of what real saving, or economy, means. Many have been run over by street cars or other vehicles in New York while trying to recover a dropped package, a hat, an umbrella, or a cane.
I know a young man who has lost many opportunities for advancement, and a large amount of business, by false economy in dress, and smallness regarding expenditures. He believes that a suit of clothes and a necktie should be worn until they are threadbare. He would never think of inviting a customer or a prospective customer to luncheon, or of offering to pay his car fare (if he happened to be traveling with him). He has such a reputation for being stingy, even to meanness, that people do not like to do business with him. False economy has cost this man very dear.
Many people injure their health seriously by trying to save money. If you are ambitious to do your best work, beware of economies that cost too much.
No ambitious person can afford to feed his brain with poor diet or wrong fuel. To do so would be as foolhardy as for a great factory to burn shavings and refuse material because good coal was too expensive. Whatever you do, however poor you may be, don’t stint or try to economize in the food fuel, which is the very foundation and secret of your success in life. Economize in other things if you must, wear threadbare clothes if necessary, but never cheat your body or brain by the quality and quantity of your food. Poor, cheap food which produces low vitality and inferior brain force is the worst kind of economy.
There are lots of ambitious people with mistaken ideas of economy who rarely ever get the kind and quality of food which is capable of making the best blood and the best brain. Who that is anxious to make the most of his life can afford to stint and starve upon foods that are incapable of making him do the best thing possible to him?
The ambitious farmer selects the finest ears of corn and the finest grain, fruits, and vegetables for seed. He can not afford to cumber his precious soil with bad seed. Can the man who is ambitious to make the most of himself afford to eat cheap, stale foods, which have lost their great energizing principle?
Everywhere we see business men patronizing cheap restaurants, eating indigestible food, drinking cheap, diluted or “doctored” milk, saving a little money, but taking a great deal out of themselves.
The most precious investment a man can make is to be just as good to himself as he possibly can, and never, under any circumstances, pinch or economize in things which can help him to do the greatest thing possible to him. There is no doubt that the efficiency of numerous people is kept down many per cent, by improper diet, inferior foods. Many a man who thinks he is economizing because he spends only fifteen or twenty cents for his lunch may lose dollars in possible efficiency because of this short-sighted economy.
You should take as little as possible out of yourself during your work or recreation. This does not mean that you should not enter whole-heartedly, fling yourself with great zest into your work and play, but that you should not needlessly waste your vitality. When you are traveling long distances and can possibly afford it, take a chair car, a sleeper, and take your meals regularly, and thus save time and energy, and conserve your health.
Look at the people of means who are too stingy to take a chair or berth in a Pullman car, or to eat their meals in a dining car when they travel. They take many times more out of themselves by their cheap economy than the little money they save is worth. Their ideas are mean and stingy, their efforts lifeless and lacking in enthusiasm, buoyancy, because they have sacrificed their physical selves, have not taken food that can produce ideas, brain force.
Being good to themselves would have made all the difference between discomfort and irregularity and comfort and well-being, and the money spent would have brought them double returns, for when they got to their destination, instead of being jaded, depleted of their vitality, they would have been fresh, vigorous, and in condition to do effective work, or to enjoy themselves.
I used to travel with a business man who was much better off financially than I was, yet he would never take a sleeper at night, nor go into a dining car for his meals; but he would take his luncheon with him, or live on sandwiches or what he could pick up at lunch counters on the route. The result was that, when he arrived in far Western cities, he would be so used up and tired, and his stomach so out of order from irregular eating, that it would take him several days to get straightened out, and he lost a great deal of valuable time.
No man can afford to transact important business when he is not in prime condition, and it pays one in health and in comfort, as well as financially, to be very good to oneself, especially when health and a clear brain are our best capital.
Power is "the goal of the highest ambition. Anything which will add to one’s personal force, which will increase his vigor, brain power, is worth its price, no matter how much it costs.
Spend generously for anything which will raise your achievement power, which will make you a broader, abler man or woman.
Multitudes of people are handicapped for years because of constant nervous headaches, which are simply due to eye-strain. They oftentimes have some slight defect in the lens of the eye which causes a great deal of suffering, and which can be corrected and entirely removed by glasses, but because of mistaken ideas of economy they delay getting them.
I know a business man who lost a considerable amount of time periodically through neglect of his feet. Every step he took pained him, yet he could not bear the idea of paying money to a chiropodist and submitting to a simple operation, which finally, after years of suffering, was performed and gave him immediate relief.
Many people delay some needed trivial surgical or dental operation for months or even years, simply because they dread the expense, thus not only suffering a great deal of unnecessary pain all this time, but also incapacitating themselves from giving the best thing in them to their vocations.
The great thing is to make it a life principle never to delay the remedy of anything which is retarding our progress, keeping us down. We little realize what a fearful amount of energy and precious vitality is wasted in most lives through false ideas of economy.
Some people will waste a dollar’s worth of valuable time, and suffer much discomfort, in visiting numerous stores looking for bargains and trying to save a few cents on some, small purchase they wish to make. They will buy wearing apparel of inferior material because the price is low, although they know the articles will not wear well.
Bargain hunters are often victims of false economy. They buy, because they are cheap, a great many things they do not actually need. Then they will tell you how much they have saved. If they would reckon up what they have expended in a year, they would generally find that they have spent more than if they had only bought what they actually wanted, when they needed it, and had paid the regular price for it.
Many people have a mania for attending auctions and buying all sorts of truck which does not match anything else they have. The result is that their homes are veritable nightmares as to taste and fitness of things. Then, they never get the first, best wear of anything. These second-hand things are often just on the point of giving out, and constantly need repairing. Beds break down, legs come off bureaus, castors are always coming out, and something is going to pieces all the time. This foolish buying is the worst kind of extravagance. Quality, durability should be the first considerations in buying anything for constant use. Yet many people keep themselves poor by buying cheap articles which do not last.
“Thair iz sertin kinds of ekonomy that don’t pa,” says Josh Billings, “and one of them iz that thair iz a grate menny pepul in the world who try to ekonomize by stratenin’ pins.”
I have seen a lady spoil a pair of fine gloves trying to rescue a nickel which had fallen into the mud.
There are plenty of women who would not think of throwing away a nickel but who would not hesitate to throw fifty cents’ worth of good food into the garbage pail. It is a strange fact that people who are close and stingy with their money are often extremely liberal with what the money will buy, especially when put into foodstuffs. In their estimation, most of the value seems to evaporate in the cooking.
One should live between extravagance and meanness. Don’t save money by starving your mind. It is false economy never to take a holiday, or never to spend money for an evening’s amusement oil for a useful book.
P. T. Barnum once said: “Economy is not meanness. True economy consists in always making the income exceed the outgo.”
Most people fail to do their greatest work because they do not put the emphasis on the right thing. They do not always keep the goal, their larger possibility in view. They handicap their prospects and kill their greater opportunities by keeping their eyes fixed on petty economies.
Many men become slaves to the habit of economizing, and, without realizing it, constantly strangle their business.
There is no greater delusion than that cheapness is economy. I have watched for some time a New York skyscraper erected years ago under contract. The owners dickered with a great many builders, finally letting the contract to the one who bid the lowest. The original estimate, made by a reliable builder, for a thoroughly substantial, first-class building, was cut down over a hundred thousand dollars by this cheap concern. The result is that, in their grasping greed to save, the owners overreached themselves, and the building has been a source of anxiety to them ever since its erection. Everything about it is cheap, shoddy, or rickety. There is scarcely a day that something is not out of order somewhere. The walls crack, the floors settle, the doors warp, and the windows stick. There is constant trouble with the cheap elevators, and with the steam and electric fittings, and the boilers and all the machinery are frequently out of order. In the winter the building is cold, the pipes leak because of cheap plumbing, and the furnishings are constantly being damaged. As a consequence the occupants get disgusted and move out. Although the building is in a locality where rents are high, it is impossible to keep reliable tenants very long, because they become so exasperated. It attracts a class of people just like itself—cheap, shoddy, unreliable—and the loss in the rents and in constant repairs, in the rapid deterioration, to say nothing of the wear and tear on the nervous system of the owners, will be greater than the amount saved by the cheap contract.
No greater delusion ever entered a business man’s head than that cheap labor is economy. Trying to cut the pay-roll down to the lowest possible dollar has ruined many a concern. Business men who have been most successful have found that the best workmen, like the best materials, are the cheapest in the end. The breakage, the damage, the losses, the expensive blunders, the injury to merchandise, the loss of customers resulting from cheap labor are not compensated for by low wages.
Any one who tries to get superior results from inferior methods, from cheapness in quality of material or service deludes himself. Cheap labor means cheap product and cheapened reputation. It means inferiority all along the line. The institution run by cheap help is cheapened, and means a cheaper patronage.
Many a hotel has gone down because the proprietor tried to save a few thousand dollars a year by hiring cheap clerks, cooks, and waiters, and by buying cheap food. Just that little difference between the cheap and the best help and the cheap and the best food has made the fortune of many a shrewd hotel-keeper.
Some people never get out of the world of pennies into the world of dollars. They work so hard to save the cents that they lose the dollars and the larger growth—the richer experience and the better opportunity.
