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“We
are what we repeatedly do,”
Aristotle famously proclaimed.
Let’s look at this from William James:
most of us feel as if we lived habitually with a sort of cloud
weighing on us, below our highest notch of clearness in
discernment, sureness in reasoning, or firmness in deciding.
Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our
fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of
only a small part of our possible mental and physical
resources.”
We must present to our mind the image that we want to be. If we
want to lose weight, dieting without having first the image of
ourselves looking healthy and feeling happy about the way we
look, is certain to end with few results. The same goes for any
new positive idea we have for ourselves. I know people who have
joined and paid memberships in health clubs and gyms and never
went there for more than a few days. The image we hold in our
mind of ourselves is the driver of habit … as William James
tells us for either good or evil.
This good or evil, of course, is in most cases, based on
opinion. I read a News article this past week that there is a
state in this country that outlaws Yoga … seems as though the
lawmakers of that state see it as evil. It made me wonder if
even one of them had ever been to a Yoga class. Probably not.
But the idea that Yoga is evil didn’t come into their minds
overnight. There was an habitual thought about Yoga that made it
evil to them. What that thought might be I wouldn’t know … and
most likely they wouldn’t know for sure either.
Let’s look at this
from William James: most of us feel as if
we lived habitually with a sort of cloud weighing on us, below
our highest notch of clearness in discernment, sureness in
reasoning, or firmness in deciding. Compared with what we ought
to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts
are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our
possible mental and physical resources.”
“Compared
with what we ought to be, we are only half awake” … this
is a powerful thought. My hope is that we are more than half
awake, however. I don’t think “half awake” people listen to my
radio program or read my Weekly Messages. I believe you and me
and most everyone is seeking to find a way to be awake to a
greater Life; perhaps greater health, greater happiness, greater
wealth, greater love. It is keeping the ideas for ourselves
alive in our mind through “habit” that we find our way to
realize them. We have the power and the intelligence to
discern what ideas are for our good and which ones are not. When
we have ideas that we know deep in our soul will give us
something greater in life, we must never give up the thought of
it.
Let’s look at these words from Dr. Norman Vincent Peale:
“Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate. So
practice happy thinking every day. Cultivate the merry heart,
develop the happiness habit, and life will become a continual
feast.”
Keep the Faith!
Rev-Bates
(Reverend Dr. Henry Lee Bates)
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