13 NEARING THE END

After all that has been said, suppose it be stated in plain terms just what is considered necessary to have, or acquire, in some measure, before any degree of success can be had in any line of effort.

Let aspiration take precedence, inasmuch as there is included therein hope of future betterment, without which there can be no progress. In this condition one is never satisfied, which does not mean never contented. The feeling that there is more beyond remains, which is no impediment to perfect contentment, but rather does it augment that condition, producing the feeling that we are all right at this particular moment, and, when the future becomes the present, we will have become stronger and wiser and therefore better able to sustain ourselves.

Aspiration is not ambition. The one is hope, desire and expectation of your own and world betterment. The other a desire to outstrip your fellow men in the race for temporal glory and power. The first adds to your strength, builds up your conception, accustoms you to the idea of better things, brings peace to your mind. The second makes you jealous of others' success, hostile to the world, thereby bringing antagonism of others upon you, using your strength in useless resistance to that hostile thought, and this weakens you and prevents success.

Aspiration can be grown by suggestion. The attitude of peace, assisted by aspiration and developed by suggestion, prepares the mind for the induction of thought, of new ideas. As this is developed you see opportunities to make money that were hidden though in plain view. Hurried, impatient, angry thoughts become a thing of the past. Strong, forceful, quiet, concentrative ideas, one at a time, take their place, and from these you choose the one adapted to your own peculiar mental composition. The right one in its entirety will be chosen if the quality of truth in you is fully developed. If not perfectly developed, but only the foundation is there, such part as you are able to recognize will be accepted and your success will be limited to the degree in which the whole idea, free from intruding error; is worked out.

Then having chosen your work without any idea of shining as a great leader, free from every thought of the morrow, devote your energy to its being pushed on and on. There is a constant inflow of new ideas for its promotion, and as they are worked out life becomes one constant joy, each day bringing its new pleasure and its new work and the quality of determination holds you from deviating from that work, from chasing one idea, one occupation today, another tomorrow, and wasting your life in fruitless effort.

Good will to all is a wonderful lightener of mental burdens. Jealous, hating thought brings its burden of antagonism from the world and wastes strength in resisting it which could be used in pushing your ideas forward.

Then develop calmness, courage, push, confidence, determination, concentration, justice, truth, with any other qualities in which you are deficient. This produces the same effect in your personality that tempering does in steel. You are the man. Instinctively people feel your success is assured. They speak of you as a coming man. Ideas for making money will come to you unsought. The natural thing for you to do is always the right thing. You push those ideas forward and success comes as a natural result. Every effort brings some effect, every thought is an effort. Determined thought bent in the direction of success brings it to you. It becomes a natural evolution. As your personality grows the little business grows with it. Holding the mental habit is your natural condition and requires no effort to maintain it. You therefore only need study yourself, practice autosuggestion, use the Law of Vibration, employ the power of imagination, and the future is assured.

There, we are done. These ideas have lightened my burden. May they do as well for you. There is a great truth therein. What part of it we are able to see can only be determined by its effects. It must be measured by the amount of truth we have developed in ourselves.

This much I know and have proven autosuggestion or suggestion to self, the power of imagination, the Law of Demand, will build up your personality and increase your fortune; will make you contented and happy.

The best wish I can give you is that these old ideas as I have clothed them will do as much for you as they have done for me, and give you as much pleasure in the reading as has the writing given me.

According to your faith and works be it unto you.