📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 Getting back to our saying that self-confidence
is a kind of psychological credit card, I don't think enough has been said about the
power of positive expectation. It's truly amazing and there's simply no explaining
it. When we confidently expect something worthwhile
to materialize in our lives, it invariably does. It works like pure unadulterated magic. It gives each of us a kind of magic wand with
which we can bring all sorts of interesting and rewarding events and things into our lives. Those who have cultivated this power, who
consciously and actively work at it regularly do the most amazing things, as with neurosis. We're often taught as youngsters to expect
the worst. Uh, we have so often heard people say, well,
with my luck, the whole deal will fall through, indicating that their luck is usually bad. How many times have we heard someone say,
if you don't expect to succeed, you won't be disappointed? I. And learn to be content with what you get
on giveaway television programs. We watch people, young people playing it safe. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I read a financial column in the Miami Herald
the other day, in which a young man had just 20 wrote of his losses in the mutual fund
and commented that he'd been unable to sleep and he'd lost weight over it. And the columnist commented that he should
never risk his money. He should put it in the bank at a savings
loan where he knows it's safe. I think it's safe to say that the majority
of people have a suspicious and negative outlook toward those life situations, which to an
intelligent minority, represent virtually unlimited opportunities. Now, this is not to say that positive and
expect people do not occasionally lose money in their investments or have problems. I'm sure they do. It's just that it doesn't bother them the
way it seems to bother most people, and over the long haul, well, they're miles ahead of
the pack. They face their days with an attitude that
expects the best, and that's what they're going to get as long as they can maintain
it. What others worry and stew about, they confidently
expect a successful outcome, and most of the time they get it. If you have trouble maintaining this powerful
force for good in your life, a reminder card placed where you'll see it every morning when
you get up and at odd times during the day, can help you get on course and form a very
valuable new habit. In his excellent book on becoming a person,
Dr. Carl Rogers spelled out some of the characteristics of the new powerful person who is emerging
in our culture today and the vital different set of values he both maintains and lives
I stressed. He writes his hatred of phoniness, this new
person, his hatred of phoniness, his opposition to all rigidly structured institutions, his
desire for intimacy. Closeness and community. His willingness to live by new and relatively
moral and ethical standards. His searching quality, his openness to his
own and others feelings, his spontaneity, his activism, and his determination to translate
his ideals into reality. I'm talking, he wrote about a relatively small
number of people, but I believe that these people constitute the change agents of the
future. When some part of a culture is decayed at
the core, a small group with new views, new convictions, and a willingness to live in
new ways is a ferment that can't be stopped. Let's take a look at that new person emerging
in our culture and see if you and I qualify, I'd like to think that the total subscription
list of direct line is made up of these powerful, new, emerging people. First, his hatred of phoniness. Our new powerful person sees through facades
and tinsel outmoded in ridiculous customs and beliefs, free of the tyranny of things
and the opinions of others. He and his family, she and her family live
in a kind of solid serenity where true values count, where the ities things like truth and
justice, the family and work take on real meaning. It is in the avoidance of phoniness that real
freedom may be found and one can drop off the rat race with a great sigh of relief. There are no inner circles to which these
people need apply for membership. They are the centers of their own circles. This person is opposed to all rigidly structured
closed institutions. Such institutions are saying by the fact that
they're rigidly structured and closed. We have the answers we need. Look no further. This is it. The new powerful person knows that at this
early stage of our development, such thinking as infantile, we do not have all the answers
about anything, and just as the maturing person is in a stage of growth of becoming so is
a vital institution. It uses what it has and what it knows as. Springboards into the future and assiduously
avoids becoming closed and rigidly structured. A good and viable institution like a self-actualizing
person is always in a state of growth of becoming. He has a desire for intimacy, closeness, and
community, and a willingness to live by new and relative moral and ethical standards. This person has a searching quality and an
openness to his own and others' feelings. He's spontaneous unafraid of what others will
say of his enthusiasms and ideas. And is determined to translate his ideas and
ideals into reality. Now, of course, these people must constitute
a relatively small number of people, a true inner circle, the most important and influential
club of human beings on earth. The qualifications for membership are tough. To meet them. Takes work, thought, and study, a willingness
to find oneself and be oneself. But the perquisites of membership are great
indeed. One of them is freedom. Another is joy. One of the world's greatest cartoonists to
my mind is Fernando Kran. Many years ago, I cut one of his. Cartoons out of the reporter, which depicted
the entrance and exit to a subway. Coming out of the exit is a crowd of adults. Going down into the entrance is a crowd of
children. All the children are laughing and smiling
and enjoying themselves, but on the faces of the adults coming out of the subway. Our expressions of anger, boredom, worry,
and not one smile, a joyful expression in the lot. There's no caption, none is needed. The cartoon very graphically asks the question,
what happened to all of those smiles and happy expressions between the ages of childhood
and adulthood? Well, what did happen to them? Are we to say that adult life is so full of
sorrow and pain and problems, that it cannot be experienced in a consistently happy way? No. In fact, a little later I'm gonna give you
some statistical data pertaining to happiness, who's happy and why, but this group of powerful
people, emerging people in our society, while more aware of the world's problems than 95%
of their fellows still enjoy their lives. And do not belong to that sad group. Coming out of Fernando Kran Subway, I've stood
at the exits of subways and watched the people coming up. Nobody expects 'em to be doubled over with
helpless laughter or skipping and playing like children, but their expressions seem
to indicate that life for them is an extremely serious and is yet un fathom griddle. And they give the impression that they're
not growing as persons and are perhaps in fact drawing back, shrinking into their little
mos and hardening like concrete. Incidentally, my all time favorite Fernando
Crown cartoon portrays a man on the end of a pier who is obviously bent on suicide. He has a rope tied around his neck with the
other end tied around a great stone. In attempting to throw the stone over the
end of the pier, all he has accomplished is to drop it on his foot. The cartoon shows him hopping on one foot. Holding the injured foot in his hands. The caption of the cartoon is simply incompetence. And if we ever needed proof that the only
way to growth and maturity and knowledge lies in the lonely and arduous hours spent alone
in thought and study. This thought from the German philosopher,
Arthur Schopenhauer should convince us truth that has merely been learned is like an artificial
limb, a false truth, a wax and nose. It adheres to us only because of this. Put on. But truth acquired by thought of our own is
like a natural limb. It alone really belongs to us. And if you wonder from time to time why so
many of the adults you see and know about you shackle themselves with the outmoded ideas
of the past. Chop also wrote, there is no absurdity, so
palpable. But that it may be firmly planted in the human
head if only you begin to inculcate it before the age of five by constantly repeating it
with an heir of great solemnity. When a child asks his parents what he should
be when he grows up, they often, and with the very best of intentions, try to steer
him toward a particular calling and profession. I remember my parents wanted me to be a lawyer. When children seek advice, here's a pretty
good answer. Look for the truth. Look for the truth in everything. Spend your entire life looking for truth,
and you will suspend it as nobly as any human being who ever lived, and the calling that's
right for you. Will come along. Archibald McLeish wrote, what is freedom? Freedom is the right to choose, the right
to create for oneself the alternatives of choice without the possibility of choice. In the exercise of choice, a man is not a
man, but a member, an instrument, a thing. Dr. Carl Rogers says that responsible personal
choice is the most essential element in being a person and is the core experience in psychotherapy. Francis Bacon said If a person will begin
with certainties, he will end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts,
he will end in certainties. Isn't it true that we try to raise our children
to begin with certainties in which we ourselves have no deepen abiding faith? And isn't it also true that most people reach
adulthood in frustration and doubt and fear because those childhood certainties have crumbled
and fallen apart? Could this be why the people coming out of
Fernando Crown Subway appear to be marching to a death camp? Now, let me read something to you. You'll see what you think of it. 40,000 years ago in the bleak uplands of Southwestern
Asia, a man in the Undertold man once labeled by the Darwinian proponents of struggle as
a ferocious ancestral beast. A man whose face might cause you some slight
uneasiness. He sat down beside you. A man of his thought existed with a fearful
body handicap in that ice age world. He had lost an arm, but still he lived and
was cared for. Somebody, some group of human things in a
hard, violent, and stony world. Loved this. Maim the creature enough to cherish him. And looking so across the centuries, in the
millennia toward the animal, men of the past one can see a faint light, like a patch of
sunlight moving over the dark shadows on a forest floor. It shifts and widens. It winks out. It comes again, but it persists. It is the human spirit, the human soul. However, transient, however faulty men may
claim it to be in its coming man had no part, it merely came that. Curious, light and man, the animal sought
to be something that no animal had been before. Cruel. He might be vengeful, he might be, but there
had entered into his nature a curious, wistful, gentleness and courage. It seemed to have little to do with survival
for such men died over and over. They did not value life compared to what they
saw in themselves. That strange inner light, which has come from
no man knows where and which was not made by us. It has followed us all the way from the age
of ice, from the dark borders of the ancient forest into which our footprints vanish. It is in this that ki glimpse, the eternal,
the way of the heart, the way of love, which is not of today, but is it the whole journey. And may lead us at last to the end. Through this, he thought the future may be
conquered. Certainly it is true for man may grow until
he towers to the skies, but without this light, he's nothing and his place is nothing. Even as we try to deny the light, we know
that it has made us and what we are without it. Remains meaningless. We have come a long road up from the darkness
and it well may be so brief. Even so is the human story that viewed in
the light of history. We are still uncouth barbarians. We are potential love animals wrenching and
floundering in our larval envelopes, trying to fling off the best your past. That's good, isn't it? It's from the book that belongs in your library
and mine. The Firmament of Time by Lauren Isley, published
by Athenian. Dr. Isley taught Anology at the University
of Kansas in Oberlin College before he was named chairman of the Department of Anthropology
at the University of Pennsylvania, where he later became provost. This is the kind of book that helps us grow,
that helps us move closer to the truth about ourselves. And here's something we should read or listen
to once a day for the next 45 years. It was written back at the turn of the Century
by William George Jordan. He was editor of several magazines during
his lifetime, including The Ladies Home Journal and the Saturday Evening Post. He wrote, calmness is the rarest quality in
human life. It is the poise of a great nature in harmony
with itself and its ideals. It is the moral atmosphere of a life. Self-reliant and self-controlled. Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute
confidence and conscious power, ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis. Thes is not a true type of calmness. Petrol faction is not calmness. It's death. The silencing of all the energies. While no one lives his life more fully, more
intensely, and more consciously than the person who is calm, the fatalist is not calm. He's the coward slave of his environment. Hopelessly surrendering to his present condition,
recklessly indifferent to his future. He accepts his life as a regular ship drifting
on the ocean of time. He has no compass, no char, no known port
to which he's sailing. His self-confessed inferiority to all nature
is shown in his existence of constant surrender. It is not calmness. The person who is calm has his course in life,
clearly marked on his chart. His hand is ever on the helm. Storm fog, night, Tempest danger, hidden reefs. He's prepared and ready for them. He's made calm and serene by the realization
that in these crises of his voyage, he needs a clear mind in a cool head. That he has nothing to do but do each day
the best he can. By the light he has that he will never flinch
nor falter for a moment that though he may have to attack and leave his course for a
time, he'll never drift. He'll get back into the true channel. He'll keep ever headed toward his harbor. When he will reach it, how he will reach. It matters not to him. He rests in calmness knowing he's done his
best When the worries and cares of the day fret you and begin to wear upon you, and you
chief under their friction, calm, stop rest for a moment and let calmness and peace assert
themselves. If you let these irritating outside influences
get the better of you, you're confessing your inferiority to them by permitting them to
dominate you. When the tongue of malice and slander, the
persecution of inferiority tempt you to retaliate. When, for an instance, you forget yourself
so far as a hunger for revenge. Be calm. When the gray heron is pursued by its enemy,
the eagle, it does not run to escape. It remains calm, takes a dignified stand and
waits quietly facing the enemy unmoved with a terrific force with which the eagle makes
its attack. The boasted king of birds is often impaled
and run through. On the quiet length like Bill of the Heron,
no person in the world ever attempted to wrong another without being injured in return some
way, somehow sometime remain calm. Now, all of that was written at the turn of
the century and in language that today might sound a bit affected in archaic. It's a good message. If ever there were a quality needed in the
crisis filled world of today, it's calmness and the kind of clear thinking calmness produces
another attribute of that new emerging person we were talking about. I wonder how improved our days would be if
we would make it a point to go over that little message every morning. Here's a quotation I like. It's by William Gruman, he who will not reason. Is a bigot. He who cannot, is a fool, and he who dares
not is a slave. The distinguished psychologist, the late Dr.
Maslow said something that should be kept in mind by every parent and businessman and
executive teacher by every person in any sort of position of authority. He said, everyone seems to be aware at some
level of consciousness of the fact that authoritarian management outrages the dignity of the worker. He then fights back in order to restore his
dignity and self-esteem. He will do this actively with hostility and
vandalism and the like, or passively as a slave does with all sorts of underhanded,
sly, and secretly vicious countermeasures. These reactions are puzzling generally to
the dominator, but on the whole, they're easily enough understood and they make very real
psychological sense if they're understood as attempts to maintain one's dignity under
conditions of domination or of disrespect in the forward to his book. If men were angels, Milton Mayer writes of
When he was a youngster, his mother would say, where are your rubbers? Oh gosh, ma. Don't, gosh, me wear your rubbers. Why do I have to wear my rubbers? Because I say so. That's why. Or to his big brother, I want you to take
care of your little brother this afternoon. Gosh, ma, why do I have to take care of him? Because I say so. That's why now because I say so, has never
been a very good reason for doing anything, not as a child and not as a grownup. Whenever we're faced with arbitrary authority,
we burn and wrinkle, whether it's a worker, a secretary, a wife, husband, or child. His self-esteem is his most valued possession. If you heard it, he'll find a way of getting
back, of restoring his self-esteem in his own eyes. If not, he will be diminished in his own eyes. The juvenile delinquent, the adult delinquent
are examples of this kind of thing. Human beings avoid being manipulated, dominated. Pushed around, determined by others. Misunderstood. People don't like and will not stand for being
a nothing rather than a something unappreciated. Not respected, not feared, not taken seriously. Laughed at people will not tolerate even though
they may appear to be doing so. Being ludicrous figures, they don't like being
treated as a physical object rather than as a person. As a rule, they don't like to take orders,
be forced, used, exploited, controlled. They don't want to feel that they're helpless,
compliant, different and interchangeable person. What human beings are seeking is to be prime
movers, self-determination, to have control over their own destinies, to determine their
own movements, to expect success, to be active rather than passive, to be a person rather
than a thing. To have others acknowledge their capabilities
fairly to succeed as a manager of others in getting along with people generally and our
families, we must avoid anything that tends to diminish another person's self-esteem because
people must then find a way to build it back up and will generally do it in a negative
fashion. They will strike back at us directly or indirectly. People will willingly follow the direction
of another who directs them in such a fashion as to bolster or at least keep intact their
feelings of self-esteem. And one of the ways to keep good employees
is to keep the level of noise to the absolute minimum. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer
wrote the amount of noise anyone can bear. Undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to
his mental capacity and may therefore be regarded as a pretty fair measure of it. Noise is a torture to all intellectual people
in good indication of the truth of that can be observed by watching children grow up in
their first few graves. They shout at each other constantly at the
very top of their lungs. Anyone who. Has had to take a small child to a children's
mat naked and attest to that, or listen to them on the school playground. As they move up. In the grades though, the noise level drops. And even in a class of very young people,
it's generally thought to be true that the quietest children are the more intelligent,
and finally, young people in their teens are far quieter than children are seven or eight,
except when it comes to their music. The more intelligent a person becomes, the
more his voice will diminish in volume. The quiet controlled voice is infinitely more
afraid when dealing with others. Small children included. Shouting or loud talking is almost always
a sign of inferiority, real or imagined. It hurts the ears and greets on the nerves
and causes real fatigue. People who tend to raise their voices when
they get angry should try to do just the opposite. They'd be far more effective and would tend
to retain better control of themselves. A person's intelligence can be said to be
an inverse proportion to the amount of noise he can tolerate. A couple of my acquaintance with three small
children bought a secondhand limousine with a glass divide here between the front and
back seats on long trips. They simply roll it up and drive along in
blissful peace and quiet while the kids play, scream, and fight in the back seat. I visited an instant company in Dallas, Texas,
sometime back whose offices, even though they required several floors of a large office
building, had only about three traditional offices. As such, they were offices, I believe, for
the president, the chairman of the board in the conference room. All the other people occupied spaces surrounded
by movable modules, telephone and electrical cables, came down from the ceiling. Now the entire floors were deeply carpeted
with good acoustical material on the ceilings. There were was a marvelous silence about the
place after a trial period. The people were pulled as their opinion in
the new setup, and they were virtually unanimous in their acceptance of it. It's very difficult to imagine an intelligent,
thoughtful, poised person making a lot of noise. Shouting or losing control. A person should speak just loudly enough to
be heard clearly, under all circumstances. A distinguished American psychotherapist has
said that no one, as far as we know is born neurotic. We learn to become neurotic as a result of
our upbringing. We are raised by other human beings, and they
literally teach us to become neurotic. If a child is raised to believe that intelligence
and beauty are worth, Wild traits and that he is bright and handsome. Well, he will tend to look upon himself as
good and have a favorable self-concept. But if he's raised to believe that he is stupid
and ugly, he will tend to look upon himself as bad and to have a poor self-concept. Our early self-concepts depend upon the concepts
that others have tor us. If those who are important in a life, a child
generally blame him, he will learn to blame himself. If they consistently accept him, he will learn
to accept himself. That does not mean that the self-concept a
child first learns is absolutely fine and crucial. He can later in life change it for better
or worse, but it's hard and his early self-concept is most important, and it does tend to set
the pattern for later attitudes and behavior. I read somewhere that self-confidence is like
a psychological credit card, and I can still remember my mother telling me that I could
do anything I set my heart upon to tell a youngster. He, she is great, is to give him the kind
of self image he needs to build a meaningful life for himself. I. Youngsters will discover their limitations,
their blind spots, the areas in which they have little or no aptitude. Soon enough without our help, self-confidence
is a kind of psychological credit card and is of far greater value than any other we
can carry. When we see someone who is neurotic, it should
e lit our sympathy in the realization that the person was not born that way. He was taught to be neurotic by his elders. Neuroses are like chains that are put on children
to hinder them in their development. And activities if you'd like to examine yourself for traces
of neurosis, Dr. Albert ELLs in his book, how to Live With a Neurotic, gives us a list
of popular beliefs, irrational ideas, really each of which indicates a neurosis. You can check your own against the list. Remember, each of the following statements
is false and indicates a neurosis an adult must be approved of or loved by almost everyone
for almost everything he does. What others think of him as most important,
depending on others, is better than depending upon oneself. A person should be thoroughly competent, adequate,
talented, and intelligent In all possible respects, the main goal and purpose of life
is achievement success. Incompetence in anything whatsoever is an
indication that a person is inadequate or value. One should blame oneself severely for all
mistakes and wrongdoings punishing oneself for errors will help prevent future mistakes. A person should blame others for their mistake
or bad behavior. A. He should get upset by the heirs and stupidities
of others. One should spend considerable time and energy
trying to reform others. One can best help others by roundly criticizing
them and sharply pointing out the error of their ways because a certain thing once strongly
affected one's life. It should indefinitely affect it because a
person was once weak and helpless. He must always remain so because parents or
society taught the acceptance of certain traditions, one must go on unthinkingly. Accepting these traditions. If things are not the way one would like them
to be, it is a catastrophe. Things should be better than they are. Other people should make things easier for
us. Help with life's difficulties. No one should have to put off present pleasures
for future gains. Avoiding life's difficulties and self responsibilities
is easier than facing them. Inertia and inaction are necessary and or
pleasant. One should rebel against doing things however
necessary if doing them is unpleasant. Much happiness is externally caused or created
by outside persons and events. A person has virtually no control over his
emotions and cannot help feeling bad. On many occasions. If something is or may be dangerous or injurious,
one should be seriously concerned about it. Worrying about a possible danger will help
board it off or decrease its effect. Well, how did you do that was a list of beliefs. Indicating neurosis.
