My Estate of Gold: Habit
“God gave all men all earth to love, But since our hearts are small, Ordained for each one spot should prove, Beloved over all; That, as He watched Creation’s birth, So we, in godlike mood, May of our love create our earth, And see that it is good.”– KIPLING
We are creatures of habit in mind andbody. Our lives, our physical conditions, our environment, show unerringly what we habitually think. Some one has said: “Sow a thought and reap an action; sow an action and reap a habit; sow a habit and reap a character; sow a character and reap a destiny.”
The definition of the word “character” is: “The peculiar qualities impressed by nature or habit on a person, which separates the person possessing them from all others.” Thus we find that each individual is simply the product of his or her own prevailing habits of thought and by the Law of Attraction their bodies and environment reflect what they inherently are.
We generally think of liquor, drugs, or tobacco as injurious habits and so they are, but aimless drifting, fear, worry, anger, jealousy are habits that often bring disaster more swiftly than the first mentioned three.
You cannot always prevent unpleasant things from happening, but you can develop the habit of self-control and what happens does not matter but your reaction to them is what counts.
The same disaster that causes one man to commit suicide will cause another tore double his efforts and succeed. Train yourself to smile in the face of seeming defeat. The misfortunes of today are things to laugh about next year.
Every destructive emotion is a wasteful emotion. They always waste your energy and make you less able to meet a situation, whatever it may be. Great anger leaves you weak and unable to put forth your best efforts for some time, while suppressed, pent-up emotions are one of the surest causes of disease, for any destructive emotion disturbs the chemistry of your body and always causes illness in some measure.
If you find it impossible to prevent such emotions from getting started – take some sort of physical exercise while you force your thoughts into pleasant channels.
Make yourself repeat an affirmation that will counteract the emotions you are trying to control. Do not try to crush all emotion from your life.
Simply replace all destructive ones. Encourage and develop your capacity to express love, happiness, and contentment.
Take stock of any habit of thought and action that does not contribute to your happiness, then resolve to quit that habit right now. If your fall from grace a few times, do not waste time and energy being sorry and above all do not get discourage, but dig right in and break the habit.
Do not keep the habit on your mind, but find your days with constructive thought and action. There can be no set rule or formula for breaking undesirable habits, but the fact is that you can erase any impression on your soul, and earnest, consistent effort is your best assurance of success.
The majority of people have the poverty habit or poverty consciousness, and many other bad habits have their origin in this consciousness of lack.
When a man drinks to “drown his troubles”, prosperity will sometime restore his self respect and he loses the desire for liquor.
Whatever the cause for any habit, I have found that to acquire the hope of freedom from material want is to gain a new attitude toward life in general. Such a mental attitude brings a new set of bright new ideas and we find ourselves on a new plane with everything changed including our habits.
