He continues: "Saturate your thoughts with
peaceful experiences, peaceful words, and ideas, and
ultimately you will have a storehouse of
peace-producing experiences to which you may turn for
refreshment and renewal of your spirit. It will be a
vast source of power."
On energy:
"You only lose energy when life becomes dull
in your mind. Your mind gets bored and therefore
tired doing nothing. You don't have to be tired. Get
interested in something. Get absolutely enthralled in
something. Throw yourself into it with abandon. Get
out of yourself. Be somebody. Do something. Don't sit
around moaning about things, reading the papers and
saying, "Why don't they do something?" The
man who is out doing something isn't tired. If you're
not getting into good causes, no wonder you are
tired. You're disintegrating. You're deteriorating.
You're dying on the vine. The more you lose yourself,
the more energy you will have. You won't have time to
think about yourself and get bogged down in your
emotional difficulties." p. 42
One reason fear and guilt are self-defeating:
"The quantity of vital force required to give
the personality relief from either guilt or fear or a
combination of each is so great that often only a
fraction of energy remains for living. The result is
that he tires quickly. Not being able to meet the
full requirements of his responsibility, he retreats
into an apathetic, dull, listless condition and is
indeed even ready to give up and fall back sleepily
in a state of enervation." p. 45
[From my own experience, I
have found beyond a doubt that when I have things I
want to accomplish during the day, it is easy to wake
up, to get up and to stay awake and alert. When not
much is going on, or I don't know what to do with
myself, my mind does in fact get sleepy and feels
tired. I am convinced that thoughts can create
energy. - SH]
He goes on to talk about how we can not possibly
sleep well if we go to bed burdened with fear or
guilt. He says, "You must eradicate fear and
guilt before you will ever be able to sleep and
regain your strength." p.46
As he talks about prayers, I found the following
interesting: "Spend most of your prayers giving
thanks [not asking for things]" and "Only
use positive thoughts in prayers, never negative.
Only positive thoughts get results." p. 69
When they asked an obviously happy aged man his
secret to happiness he said, "I haven't any
great secret. It is as plain as the nose on your
face. When I get up in the morning, I have two
choices--to be happy or to be unhappy. And what do
you think I do? I just choose to be happy, and that
is all there is to it."
Abraham Lincoln also said, "People were just
about as happy as they made their minds up to
be." p. 70
Peale says, "You can be unhappy if you want to.
It is the easiest thing in the world to accomplish.
Go around telling yourself that nothing is going
well, that nothing is satisfactory, and you can be
quite sure of being unhappy. But say to yourself,
"Things are going nicely. Life is good. I choose
happiness," and you can be certain of having
your choice.
Peale asked his daughter if she was happy. She
said yes. He asked why. When pressed for an
explanation she said, "I'll tell you what it is.
My playmates make me happy. I like them. My school
makes me happy. I like to go to school. I like my
teachers. And I like to go to church. And I like
Sunday school and my Sunday school teacher. I love my
sister Margaret and my brother John. I love my mother
and my father. They take care of me when I am sick,
and they love me and are good to me." p. 71
[This reminds me of the song
"My favorite things" from The Sound of
Music.]
He tells a story of a man who seemed overly happy
and someone said sarcastically, "You certainly
seem to be happy this morning. Why all the
cheer?" "Yes," the man answered,
"I am happy. I make it a habit to be
happy." p. 74
So Peale says, "The happiness habit is
developed by simply practicing happy thinking. Make a
mental list of happy thoughts and pass them through
your mind several times each day. If an unhappiness
thought should cross your mind, immediately stop,
consciously eject it, and substitute a happiness
thought.
[personal note from 1995 ---
For me there are several things that I repeat on a
regular basis. That I am happy to be alive to have
another day to do what I choose and want to do. That
I am happy to be in Florida. That I am happy I am
getting my condo. That I am fortunate to be healthy
and to have the time to do what I want. My time is so
much more valuable to me now than it was before I
realized how much choice I had in how to spend it.
And before I really started to appreciate being alive
and realizing that it is a very temporary state. And
that each day gone is gone forever. So I feel it is
more important now how I spend my time. And now I
have so many things I want to do. I am much, much
more motivated than ever before. My days are fuller,
and I sleep better at night. If I can think of
nothing else to be thankful for, I can always be
thankful that I am single again! It is truly like
being let out of prison. I appreciate my freedom so
much more now, if I think about it. -- Note from
2006: now this is not so easy to do. I feel depressed
and too negative to even try these suggestions. But
they did help me back then. And maybe they would help
if I read them over a few more times or made a tape
of them and listened to it.]