People say: "One can't help one's thoughts." But one can.

The control of the thinking machine is perfectly possible.

And since nothing whatever happens to us outside our own

brain; since nothing hurts us or gives us pleasure except

within the brain, the supreme importance of being able to

control what goes on in that mysterious brain is patent.

This idea is one of the oldest platitudes, but it is a

platitude whose profound truth and urgency most people live

and die without realising. People complain of the lack of

power to concentrate, not witting that they may acquire the

power, if they choose.

And without the power to concentrate ultrasonic welding machine; that is to say,

without the power to dictate to the brain its task and to

ensure obedience; true life is impossible. Mind control is

the first element of a full existence.

Hence, it seems to me, the first business of the day should

be to put the mind through its paces. You look after your

body, inside and out; you run grave danger in hacking hairs

off your skin; you employ a whole army of individuals, to

enable you to bribe your stomach into decent behaviour.

Why not devote a little attention to the far more delicate

machinery of the mind, especially as you will require no

extraneous aid? It is for this portion of the art and craft

of living that I have reserved the time from the moment of

quitting your door to the moment of arriving at your office.

"What? I am to cultivate my mind in the street, at the

office, in the bus, and in the crowded street again?"

Precisely. Nothing simpler! No tools required! Not even a

book. Nevertheless, the affair is not easy.

When you leave your house, concentrate your mind on a

subject (no matter what, to begin with). You will not have

gone ten yards before your mind has skipped away under your

very eyes and is larking round the corner with another

subject.

Bring it back by the scruff of the neck. There you have

reached the station you will have brought it back about

forty times. Do not despair. Continue. Keep it up. You

will succeed. You cannot by any chance fail if you

persevere. It is idle to pretend that your mind is

incapable of concentration. Do you not remember that morning

when you received a disquieting letter which demanded a very

carefully worded answer? How you kept your mind steadily on

the subject of the answer, without a second's intermission,

until you reached your office; whereupon you instantly sat

down and wrote the answer? That was a case in which "you"

were focused by circumstances to such a degree of vitality

that you were able to dominate your mind like a tyrant. You

would have no trifling. You insisted that its work should

be done, and its work was done.

By the regular practice of concentration (as to which there

is no secret; save the secret of perseverance) you can

tyrannise over your mind (which is not the highest part of

"you") every hour of the day, and in no matter what place.

The exercise is a very convenient one. If you got into

your morning bus with a pair of dumbbells for your muscles

or an encyclopaedia in ten volumes for your learning, you

would probably excite remarks. But as you walk in the

street, or sit in the corner of the compartment behind a

pipe, or "strap-hang" on the Subterranean, who is to know

that you are engaged in the most important of daily acts?

Who can laugh at you?

I do not care what you concentrate on, so long as you

concentrate. It is the mere disciplining of the thinking

machine that counts. But still, you may as well kill two

birds with one stone, and concentrate on something useful.

Something that you like and are passionate about.

I wish you the best of luck in the control of your mind.

( Which by the way I don't belive in, I believe in

self-effort, not luck!). Persevere and be patient,

you will succeed!

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