The Secret Of Abundance

Poverty is as much a disease as pleurisy, only the former attacks the mind and the latter the body. You never knew an energetic, spirited and pushing man really poor. The poor in purse are almost invariably poor in mind. Of course, one must not include in this category people who prefer leading a simple existence, with no hankering after servants, motor cars,large establishments and a thousand-and-one et ceteras which characterize modern life. There are many who, with a humble cottage and plain fare, scarcely have any use for money, their wants being so few. By poverty I mean a state in which men can scarcely get enough to eat or cannot pay their way as they would like. Going a step higher, I should include among those whose ambitions rise above their means — but I am not concerned at present with this class. My present aim is to stimulate those who are in want of means to sustain life comfortably; to show them a way out; to revive that hope which once they had in abundance, but which contact with the world has well-nigh utterly obliterated.

The cure of poverty, it must be admitted at the outset, is no light task, but it is curable in nearly every case. It does not seem to have occurred to people (except a very few) that no one need be poor. The saying about the poor being always with us seems to have been taken as an utterance that applied to all countries and ages, and the problem of the unemployed,which every civilized nation has to face, lends color to the ideai

As matter of fact if we take Nature we see that she is almost wantonly extravagant. Look at the millions of seeds produced in flowers which cannot possibly grow up. Note the myriads of tiny cells which constitute the spawn of fish;mark the lavishness and prodigality with which vegetation covers our fair earth, and you will recognize that there is nothing miserly or stinting about Dame Nature. This is really a lesson for man, if he could but see it in the right light, and like many writers on the subjects of faith and confidence in ones self, have been endeavoring to the best of my powers to scatter broadcast during the last few years the conception that no intelligent, able human being need be in dire want .

One of the objections frequently raised by those opposed to a sensible socialism (not the view put forward today by socialists) is that there is not enough money to go round, and it has been affirmed that the earth could not produce sufficient food to maintain the inhabitants if the number grew beyond a certain proportion. These good people forget that not a tithe of the treasures of the earth have been extracted, and that science would have to be reckoned with where the question of food supply was concerned. I merely instance this objection because it stands in the way of reform with many people.

First, the well-fed moneyed class consider that the state of things is irremediable, and then the poor man imagines that conditions as we know them today are part of the natural order of things, and that if he were not in poverty somebody else would be, and that it might as well, perhaps, be himself who should suffer, and so he loses whatever grit he has in him, and he becomes what many would be inclined to call ''philosophic'but which I should prefer to designate ''resigned"

I trust I have effectually removed this barrier, and now comes another and important one which bars the way to plenty —the belief that the ability to make money is only given to a few people who are really clever; or that there are a class of people who may be termed "lucky." I think I have shown in this volume that there is no such thing as luck or chance.We must admit that people differ mentally as well as physically,but it is frequently more in degree than in kind, and it is often the case with those who have had a defective bringing up or a scanty education that they are prone to exaggerate their weaknesses. This exaggeration acts very prejudicially, and is at the root of much of the poverty amongst the people.

To cure poverty you must believe what is an absolute fact— that you are of use in some way; that you have something in you, that the impression of your acquaintances that you are a very common place person is merely an impression caused by your own conduct. In turn this impression has re-acted on you till you begin to believe firmly where before you had only a suspicion. It will show in your conversation, stamp itself in your walk, your features, your manner all round. You advertise your littleness wherever you go by your appearance,and servility clinches the unfavorable opinion formed of you by a prospective employer.

All that is written above should be read and re-read till it burns into the mind as the cure of poverty has been revealed.

To get a better opinion of yourself think. I know it is the most difficult task that could be set all poor folk. Had they learned to think they would not have been poor. They would rather do anything than think. Many will plead that they are not cut out for thinking; — they have had no education -Shakespeare hadn't, but it did not prevent his becoming a genius. Few self-made men have had any education, and many men highly educated are as poor as crows. We live in the busiest age on record, and the hands or brain of every human being are urgently needed. If you went to an employer of labor and told him you had an idea which would save his expenses by a third, or increase the efficiency of his business, do you suppose you would not gain his ear, if you approached him in the right attitude? Improvements are capable of being made in everything you can mention. Once you have learned to concentrate your mind and think you have solved the problem of poverty, and for this reason: You have opened up unsuspected avenues of thought, suggestions that will mean money to you in the long run. You have the same stuff in you as Milton, Goethe, Edison, but it never occurred to you, did it? It only wants rousing, bringing into activity. Every man is a gold mine to himself, and instead of letting others exploit him he should exploit himself

it is never too late to begin, unless you've turned eighty,and with some men this age would not be an insurmountable barrier.

With a better opinion of yourself and the habit of thinking and controlling your thoughts so as to concentrate them you will begin to make plans; judgment and tact — that rare virtue — will show themselves; means will come to you to overcome difficulties and you will come into possession of that priceless gem — initiative. You will see the necessity of being thorough in whatever calling you may take up, so that an employer can rely upon you. Once gain the confidence of an employer and poverty and you will rarely meet Make it a point to know your business from top to bottom; concentrate your mind on your duties willingly, with a light heart, for you are building for the future.

Get into close touch with the very poor and you will find that they invariably consider that only people with marked ability can ''get on." You can have ability just as well as any one else. It is not the prerogative of kings ; the poorest and humblest man may cultivate it, but, mark well, thinking is the basis of it, for by it you dispel ignorance, the greatest curse from which mankind suffers today. Willingness to learn is a sign of the successful man, and as ability is gained the other dread ally of Poverty — Fear — (they always go together, therefore by destroying the one you destroy both) will loosen its hold of your heart-strings, and hope will take up its abode.

At this point you should take stock of yourself. You will now have valuable assets, and the next step is to make the most of them. Are you working with system? Are you utilizing your time well? Are you getting the best and highest out of yourself? Do not be content till you do. Whatever plan you may have commenced give it a fair trial. Too many cases of failure have arisen from giving up too soon and not sticking with bulldog tenacity. To the man who sets his teeth and vows he will go through, whatever the cost Fate, gives way.

It is a well-known fact in psychology that an idea, even though devoid of truth, a mere delusion, if held sufficiently long in mind, becomes at length to be regarded as a truth.A knowledge of this law is of incalculable worth to you. Test it now if you are poor. Apply it to your own case. Banish for the time being the canker of care, the paralyzing effect of worry and doubt in yourself. Probably you have been indulging in the luxury of these mental visitors for days or weeks, so you can afford to dispense with them for ten or twenty minutes. I know full well the great sacrifice I am asking you to make, for you have an idea that by turning over these worries separately you are deriving a species of sympathy which is very comforting. You have, perhaps,poured your woes into the ears of friends, some willing and others the reverse. You have afforded the only solace that life holds out, just as some people are only happy when they are miserable. When you are miserable the state is so infectious that your friends avoid you when circumstances permit.

We are all familiar with the class of persons who are always finding fault and picking holes or criticising others or things generally, deriving immense satisfaction and comfort from the discomfort they cause. Probably they have seen no harm in this habit of supplying sympathy to themselves. As a matter of fact, their greatest enemy could not have inflicted a greater injury upon them. What practical good has it done them ? Has the habit solved their problem ? What it has done in reality is to have weakened their make-up to an incredible extent ; it has literally poisoned the spring of Success. It has magnified their weakness, and their want of self-reliance.Every time you sympathize with a weakness you strengthen that weakness, and render yourself less capable. You paralyze sources of action, destroy initiative, prevent the inception of new ideas, and clog the mental machinery, the one factor which is to lift you out of the slough of poverty. It deepens within you the feeling that you are hardly dealt with, that other folk are helped and are "lucky," while everything goes wrong with you — I know the feeling, which is better understood than expressed,Get among the unemployed and they will tell you how by a bad trick another fellow ''did them out of a job,"or how a chap who can't do his work a patch as well as you can has been in regular work for years. Cease whining, cease envying. The men who have kept their places have had some qualifications, for there is not much room for sentiment and favoritism in business. The man who holds a post because he is "in" with the foreman, or an official, is on very insecure ground, for changes are frequent, and removal of the foreman may be followed by the dismissal of the incompetent employee.If he does hold his position, however, it is no affair of the other fellow. Every man is concerned with himself alone. It is his business to see that he is thoroughly efficient in whatever his calling may be, quick, diligent, reliable, ready to be shown or to learn. Such a man is certain of regular employment ;he can employ himself, in fact, for as soon as a man has confidence in himself he is fit to be his own employer.

Each time an unkind, mean, angry thought passes through your brain, each time you criticise others, pass judgment on them, discuss their failings with others you are nursing the poverty habit, and for this reason: Poverty is a condition of inharmony; prosperity is a condition of harmony; all criticism, etc., creates inharmony, and it and harmony cannot exist in the mind at the same time. One inevitably neutralizes the other; inharmony antagonizes, and the antagonism being destructive in its character mental force, which is only generated in sufficient quantity to meet the demands made upon it by the body and mind, is wasted. This waste of energy might be turned into another channel and produce force which would enable problems to be solved and ideas carried to completion.

Further than this the entertaining of such thoughts cause physical changes in cell tissue, manufacturing by some of those marvellous processes of chemistry poisons which break down the health, and no one who is poor can afford to dispense with good health.

Men who are in poverty and rags do not trust themselves or they would never have been in poverty. They have placed their trust in other people, hoping that they would make it all right. If they did not, then fear rushed in, and away went their hope, followed in hot pursuit by self-respect. I do not care how low down a man may be, where he may be placed,however sordid, however apparently hopeless his position, he can remedy it; but the cure must begin by trusting in himself.He has the same force, the same powers at the back of his mind,as all of us. All that is needed is to use them, and a thing can only be used by bringing it into the daily life. By idealizing surroundings and the daily life as outlined above you are insensibly led away from poverty and its inevitable degrading surroundings. An actual ''new life" is lived, and in casting off the influences of the old the mind takes on new aspects —hope and trust are born into the nature, and ambition and determination are not far behind.

There will be the belief that circumstances are beginning to change. Poverty and doubt pulls down; hope raises. No one wants to engage a man soddened with the quality of misery or pennilessness; it would "get on the nerves" of many an employer, and when the staff was reduced the man stamped with these qualities would be the first to go.

A man of this type never does good work; he has no"heart," therefore his work is more or less mechanical, and this is soon noticed. We cannot expect employers to be philanthropists. Often they are driven on by the scourge of competition, and cannot help themselves. A bright face is often quite as much a tonic to them as it is to others, and brightness often goes hand-in-hand with intelligence and interest in one's work. A bright disposition often brings about an alert state of mind, frequently leading to keener observation, and inventions are frequently made by workmen of this type. Bright intelligence also often leads to smartness of movement, dexterity in one's calling, and the quick eye of the employer, who is always surrounded by the " clock-watchers" and "stallers,"soon detects the stuff a man is made of. When an employee really begins to take an interest in his work then he is on the right path.

But it does not necessarily follow that a man in poverty need be an employee. If he will faithfully follow the instructions given in this volume he may devise means by which he will free himself from his cramping environment. Not a quarter of the inventions possible have been invented, not a tithe of the riches in the earth has been suspected, not a thousandth part of the possibilities of existence has been touched up to the present, and all these possibilities are open to you! But you must think! When an idea comes along do not dismiss it as wild and improbable, but try and make it as clear as you would the idea of a house you would like to live in. When Professor Morse offered to sell his telegraph apparatus to the American Government in 1845 ^^^ a hundred thousand dollars the offer was refused. Today the Morse system is capitalized for two hundred and twenty-two million dollars.