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The Art of Making Sense Or How to Develop the Faculty of Reasoning

Logical consequences are the scare crows of fools and the beacons of wise men. T.H. Huxley An acid test of the mental calibre of a person is his ability to reason correctly. Correct reasoning is logic. What is Logic? The C.O.D. defines logic as science of reasoning, proof or inference. James Dorever, (A Dictionary of Psychology) defines it as The branch of science which investigates the principles of reasoning, deductive and inductive or more generally the principles of thought. According to Chase Logic is the process of drawing a conclusion from one or more statements or propositions called premises. For our purpose, the definition given by Morris R. Cohen and Ernest Nagel will do: Logic is correct reasoning. To be logical is to argue reasonably. By means of logic we can find out what follows if we accept a given statement as correct. Logic is also explained as an analysis of because. Logical fallacies occur when the because does not follow, does not make sense. Sound logic occurs when it does. Here is a statement supported by four becauses all wrong: The earth is flat. Why? Because it looks flat.
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Because people would fall off the underside if it were a ball. Because the gods say it is. Because my father (or teacher) told me so. It is unsound logic which cannot tell the valid reason why: I do not love thee, Doctor Fell, The reason why, I cannot tell, But this alone I know full well, I do not love thee Dr Feel. It is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from sufficient premises. For example: All men are mortal, Sultan is a man. Therefore Sultan is mortal. The following instances does not satisfy this test: Fish live in water. Whales are not fish. Therefore Whales do not live in the water. The following is not a valid argument although premises and conclusion are true: Fish live in water. Monkey are not fish. Therefore Monkeys do not live in the water. Deductive/Inductive Logic Deductive logic means reasoningly deduction, that is, inferring from premises or prepositions representing already known facts; it is inference from general to particular. Inductive logic means reasoning by induction that is inferring of general law from particular instances. Induction is the basis of the scientific method. Inference is the process of drawing a conclusion or a conclusion reached on the basis of previously made or accepted judgements.
Illustrations Deductive Reasoning If A is true and B is true then C follows necessarily. Inductive Reasoning He is good at heart, honest in dealing, generous towards others; so he is true Christian. Main Principles of Logic There are three main principles of logic: (1) The principle of identity Illustration: If anything is A it is A. (2) The principle of contradiction Illustration: Nothing can be both A and not A. (3) The principal of excluded middle Illustration: Anything must be either A or not A. Uses of Logic Bacon observes that Logic enables man to contend i.e., argue with methodical reason. Logic also teaches us that things are not always what they seem. Those who rush at things without using judgment run themselves into strange and unexpected danger. There is the Aesop fable of a dog which was fond of eating eggs. Mistaking a shell fish for an egg one day, he opened his mouth wide and bolted it with one great gulp. The weight of it in his stomach caused him intense pain: Serve me right, he said for thinking that anything round must be an egg. Logic provides an indispensable discipline. It teaches us the art of making sense. Though it does not provide us with an error-proof grammar of thinking, it guarantees our reasoning against many errors. It makes our minds flexible and agile. It guards us against haste and prejudice in thinking. It enables us to organise our thoughts in regular order. It saves us from the traps of sophism (false argument intended to deceive). Fallacies Logical fallacies are obstacles to straight thinking, road blocks
that throw us off the track and detour our reasoning. In our effort to master the method of logical exposition it is of the utmost importance to detect fallacies and to avoid them carefully. Fallacies are defined as errors in reasoning. Logical fallacies are types of false reasoning. In each the reason which follows the term because fails, under analysis, to make sense. Either the facts are inadequate or the logic is bad or both. Here we have space to mention only principal logical fallacies: Pot Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc: Cause and Effect This form of fallacy is based on the assumption that whatever follows an event is therefore caused by it. It is a Latin phrase meaning, after this therefore on account of this. It indicates a tendency to confuse sequences with consequence. Illustrations A woman breaks a mirror and later in the day loses her purse. The broken-mirror she says caused the loss. The reason that breaking a mirror caused some misfortune is pure post hoc. There is the story of the Oxford student who drank numerous whiskies and sodas every night and could not think clearly. He gave up whisky and took brandy, then gin with his soda, but the effect was the same. Undoubtedly, he concluded, It was the soda. (if he tried the whisky, brandy and gin without the soda, he would have discovered his error.) That a war broke out after an eclipse does not prove that the eclipse caused it. Arguing in a Circle This fallacy consists in proving a proposition from another that rests on the first for proof. It attempts to use a conclusion to prove itself. In it one goes round and round and at the end of the argument one knows no more than at the beginning. Illustrations Two men go into a bank. One steps up to the cashiers counter and asks if he can cash a cheque. Who can identify you, asks the cashier.
My friend here, says the man. But, I do not know your friend. Thats O.K. Ill introduce you. Man is made in the image of God, since it is well-known that God is not coloured, it follows that a coloured person is not a man. Wisemen cannot be wrong This fallacy consists in an attempt to click an argument by an appeal to authority. As a writer puts it, Quoting authorities is of course, entirely legitimate and only when pushed too for, when the Big Name freezes mental activity, does it become a fallacy. Illustrations It says so in the Bible. My daddy said so. My grandma used to say so. Guilt by Association This logically fallacy arises when unlike things are equated and the identification is supurious. Illustrations Communists are opposed to segregation. The Supreme Court is opposed to segregation. Therefore the Supreme Court is following Communist line. Who thrusts a knife into an other person should be punished A surgeon in operating does so. Hence he must be punished. Your logic will have validity and force if you bear in mind the logical principles mentioned in this paper and keep a good watch on any of these fallacies creeping up in your reasoning. We may close with wise words of Will Durant: ....We cannot rise forth on our quest of truth without determining in advance what we are looking for, by what road we propose to seek it, and how we shall know it if we come upon it. Any other order would not be logical.
How to Overcome Inferiority Complex

What is Inferiority Complex? Inferiority complex means strong feelings of inadequacy and insecurity which colour an individuals entire adjustive efforts. It should not be confused with inferiority feelings which arise when the individual feels a sense of incompleteness or lack of fulfilment in any life area. Such inferiority feelings are normal driving forces which push him towards improvement and superiority, a higher level of development or a better integrated personality. Inferiority feelings, however, may be exaggerated into an inferiority complex which leads to unhealthy over-compensation. Most neurotics suffer from an inferiority complex. Some admit it, and others deny it. The others quite often claim they feel superior to most people. But this sense of superiority in itself is evidence in disguise of feelings of inferiority. As Dr Alfred Adler, worldfamous psychologist and founder of this theory put it, Behind every one who behaves as if he were superior to others we can suspect a feeling of inferiority which calls for very special efforts of concealment. Thus the neurotic person may strive for power and selfaggrandisement in order to compensate for underlying feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. It needs emphasis that the feeling of inferiority in the sense of incompleteness and unfulfilment is a normal feeling. As Adler observes To be a human being means to possess a feeling of inferiority which constantly presses towards its own conquest. He elucidates, Man, seen from the standpoint of nature, is an inferior organism. This feeling of his inferiority and insecurity is constantly
present in his consciousness. It acts as an everpresent stimulus to the discovery of a better way and a finer technique in adjusting himself to nature. This stimulus forces him to seek solutions in which the disadvantages of the human status in the scheme of life will be obviated and minimized. He thus emphasized the importance of deep-seated feelings of inferiority in relation to the abilities and accomplishment of others. He believed that it is only in the neurotic that such underlying feelings are exaggerated into an inferiority complex which leads the individual to overcompensate for his feelings of inferiority by striving to triumph over others and dominate them in order to prove his superiority, or to avoid competition and comparisons with others by getting sick. Roots of Inferiority Complex The roots of inferiority complex are: A Feeling of Unreality: One of the roots of this complex is the feeling of unreality. It is as if a kind of false self has taken control because the real self has absconded. Hence the inferiority victim is assailed by self-doubt and inadequacy. He cannot face people because he is not a real person. He plans to do great things, but when it comes to their actual implementation he has no self with which to realize his intentions. An apparently capable person in charge of an office said, I hate it because I am no really there. I can never be one and I become hopelessly weary and exhausted. A Sense of Inner Rottenness: The victim of inferiority complex suffers from a sense of inner rottenness, he is constantly trying to conceal from the world. He moans: I am just as bad smell, or I feel maggotty inside, Or I am just not worth caring for. He has a desperately poor estimate of himself. He finds that he cannot stand up for his own rights or seek promotion or protest against an injustice, or mix with the opposite sex because he assumes a rottenness within him that makes him totally unacceptable to the common run of people. Over-sensitivity to Physical Handicaps: Most of us over- compenPersonality and YOU 7
sate for our physical handicaps by working that much harder towards the attainment of a worthwhile goal. There are innumerable examples of persons whose individual handicaps or afflictions gave them the stimulus to achieve more than average success. F.D. Roosevelt refused to allow a physical impediment to interfere with his political goals. Helen Keller, Beethoven, Edison and a host of others, have left us the philosophical legacy, Be glad you feel inferiorif your inferiority feelings give you a greater will to succeed. But there are others, the over-sensitive, whose inferiorities block their roads to success. To the physical handicap they add a self-pity type of psychic invalidism. The Need to be Loved: An inferiority complex may be the explanation for ones failure to find love or to make marriage a success. Unloved neurotics fail to realize that to be loved they must love and be lovable. As a psychologist puts it, One need not search the far corners of the earth to find love. The capacity to love is present in the soul of everyone. But like the absent-minded philosopher who searches for his spectacles only to discover that he has them on, we seek everywhere except within ourselves. The man with an inferiority complex may drive himself into a frenzy in his determination to push himself ahead in his work, to win attention. Or he may turn to escapethrough alcohol, or flirtation or in a hobby that will absorb him so completely that he cannot think about his humiliating standstill at work. He may take refuge from a hostile world through sickness and turn his grievance against the world into hypochondria. This he will not do deliberately, of course, but he may drift gradually and unconsciously into the comforting excuse. Selfishness: The common denominator of all forms of neurotic inferiority is selfishness. We discover, on analysis, that the sufferer has been wasting a lot of energy fighting a misfortune of fate. No one has ever been able to undo the work of fate (for example, giving themselves new parents and new childhood or changing the colour of their skins or their lines of descent); any attempt to do so is like beating ones head against a wailing wall. George Santayana well put it, There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
One must put up with misfortunes of fate philosophically. Lack of Self-discipline: People who suffer from inferiority complex find it almost impossible to take disciplinary measures to develop self-confidence. It needs sustained efforts to overcome any kind of complex. But the self-pitier wants a simple way out. He is reluctant to suffer physically or mental discomfort for the sake of attaining his goal. He wishes to enter an obstacle race without having to jump the hurdles. You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs. Techniques for Overcoming Inferiority Complex (1) If you have an inferiority complex find out why. Use this a-bc approach by asking yourself these questions. (a) What are some of the whys and wherefores of my feelings of neurotic inferiority? How did my inferiority complex come about? Am I trying to attain an unattainable goal? (b) Have I been resorting to negative forms of over-compensation? (c) What disciplinary steps can I take to eliminate the handicap of feeling inferior? (2) Have a conscious recognition of your major limitation or deficiency. Do not try to dodge. Dr W.W. Dyer aptly observes, Just learning to appreciate life without cursing reality all the time, and so destroying your one chance for happiness now, can be both the first and last step in your pursuit of complete fulfilment. (3) Dont worry about having to impress people. Adopt a relaxed attitude. Be your real you. It is the key secret of feeling at ease around people. (4) Avoiding things you dislike only deepens your feelings of inferiority. You cant overcome social shyness or awkwardness by being a stay-at-home. Get to meet people and try to be a good mixer. (5) Stop walking backwards. If you do nothing else, stand still until you are able to take a step forward. Remember that selfreliance comes with acceptance of responsibilities and discharging them. Take the responsibility on your shoulder and it will leave no room for chips. (6) If you want to feel bigthink big.
(7) Convince yourself that you get what you give. (8) Decide realistically what you want out of life. Go after it zealously. (9) Develop the will to achievethe iron determination to live a richer, happier life. As Robert Frost has it, The best way out is always through. (10) Heart-satisfying outlets in music, reading, art, liteature, sports are specific remedies to overcome inferiority feelings. (11) Avoid self-denunciation. The girl who stays away from dances because she is self-conscious about her figure is making it more difficult for herself to ultimately overcome her inferiority complex. Becoming an excellent dancer will rid her of that particular anxiety. (12) Dont build a wall around yourself. (13) Remember that every one has feelings of inferiority. Peoplebig or smallare so nearly alike that no one needs to feel inferior in the presence of another. We are all exposed to the same disappointments, frustrations, threats, illness, storms, accidents and wars. Our best defence is to build up an inner immunity against their impact on our morale. To accomplish this you start with the confidence that you can survive physically and emotionally the painful realities of life. If others can do you can too. Doing Rings the Bell In every situation try to be constructive and creatively alive. As Dr Dyer points out action is the single, most effective antidote to depression, anxiety, stress, fear, worry, guilt self-pity and immobility: Just doing is such an important part of being a fully functioning person. He adds, If you decide to do something about your problem, rather than grumble about it, youll be on the road to changing things around for yourself. If you find yourself asking yes, but can I do? the answer is really very simple. Anything is a lot more effective than nothing. With determination and perseverance all things are attainable.
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How to Turn Failure into Success

Nothing is difficult to a man who has persistence. (Chinese Proverb) It is easy as A.B.C. to envy highly successful people who have reaped laurels in their fields. What is not often realised is that the secret of their success stories lies in their indomitable courage, working hard like blazes, and persistence in the face of overwhelming odds. For years on end hey have been enduring failure and frustration. The common denominator of their dazzling success stories is their poin-blank refusal to give up and this quality enabled them in the end to turn failure to success. Their motto was: Stick to it and you will achieve your aim. The secret of their success can be put in six little words: Never let down! Never let up. What is Failure? According to Henry Ford the habit of failure is purely mental and is the mother of fear. In other words it is a state or land-scape of the mind. You will be surprised to hear this, says Dr W.W. Dyer, but failure does not exist. Failure is simply an opinion of how a certain act should have been completed. Like success, failure in any endeavour is more often caused by mental attitudes than by mental capacities. It is in short a reaction. No condition or set of circumstances is in itself a calamity to be feared. It is your reaction to it that makes it a Waterloo or a field of triumph. In his psychological makeup man is made for success NOT failure. It is normal to be successful. Alfred Adler, father of individual psychology observes: Life (and all psychological expressions as part
of life) moves ever toward overcoming, toward perfection, toward superiority, toward success. You cannot train or condition a living being for defeat. Success is the law of life: man is not man as yet. Why People Fail? More people are beaten than fail. It is not wisdom or money or brilliance or push or pull which they lack but just plain gristle and bone. This rude, simple primitive power which we call stick-toit-iveness, Ford calls the uncrowned king of the world of endeavour. People who fail throw their aims overboard and give up at the first sign of opposition or misfortune. Lack of persistence is the major cause of failure. Fear of failure also immobilizes some people. They doubt their capacity to succeed in achieving their object and dont make the effort. Shakespeare wrote: Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt. (Measure for Measure) You can never get far in any activity if you mind falling down. In the park a little girl was learning to skate by a sort of trial-and-error method, and experiencing falls in the process. She was resting from her labours when a boastful boy rolled up to her side and taunted, I can skate better than you can. Yes I suppose you can, the little girl agreed. But, she added proudly, Ill bet you mind falling down more than I do. Failures shirk hard work, an indispensable factor of success. To quote Ford, It is failure that is easy; success is always hard. A man can fail in ease; he can succeed only by paying out all he has. Other causes of failure are: procrastination, usually with a host of alibis; indecision, the habit of passing the buck on all occasions instead of facing problems squarely; lack of clear-cut plans; wishing rather than willing; fear of criticism; failure to map out plans and to execute them because of what other folk will think, do or say. Technique for Turning Failure into Success Persistence: Give up your giving up and replace it with dogged
perseverance. As T.F. Buxlon has it With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable. It is dogged as does it, is an old well-tried recipe. It means stick to it and you will attain your goal. Every failure you take in your stride takes you nearer your goal. Never give up too soon for success may be just around the corner. Ralph Charell in his book How I Turn Ordinary Complaints into Thousands of Dollars: The Diary of a Tough Customer depicts an inspiring chronicle of how his determination and iron-will to fight all the way paid off for him against would-be consumer exploiters. Genius itself is indefatigable persistence. Edisons definition of it is well-known: Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. Inspiration is useless without perspiration. A stout-hearted man, Major General Goethals dug the Panama canal. One day, when the job was half done, a big land-slide wrecked the canal. It ruined the work of many months. His principal assistant asked him in a voice of dark despair, What will we do now? Goethals lit a cigarette, tossed the match away and replied, Well; dig it out again. Have the courage to start over again and yet againif need be. Then like Edison, you may go on to triumph. An assistant found him one morning at two Oclock, wreathed in smiles. Expecting that Edison had solved the problem in research he had been carrying on for years, the assistant said: Youve solved it; youve found the answer? And Edison said: not a blamed thing works: now I can start over again. An old boatman was asked: If a man fell off this pier would he be drowned? No, he replied, It is not falling into the water that drowns a man; its staying there. Persistence being a state of mind can be cultivated. Napoleon Hill has listed four steps which can lead to the habit of persistence: (1) A definite purpose backed by burning desire of its fulfilment. (2) A definite plan expressed in continuous action. (3) A mind closed tightly against all negative and discouraging influences, including negative suggestions of relatives, friends and acquaintances.
(4) A friendly alliance with one or more persons who will encourage one to follow through with both plan and purpose. Analysis Analyse carefully and objectively your failure to determine where you made your mistakes. Whatever the causes of your setback, you are taking a definite step forward when you lay bare what they were. You are already on the road towards turning your failure into successes. Never make the same mistakes again. Return to the fight more determined than ever to take the sting out of failure, to wrest victory from defeat, to turn failure into success. Dont be discouraged by your initial set-back. You are on the road to success when you realize that failure is merely a detour, when you think of yesterday without a regret and of tomorrow, without a fear. Dont trot out alibis and dont blame others. A man may fall many times, says Elmer G. Letterman, but he wont be failure until he says that some one pushed him. Challenge Take your set-backs as a challenge. Look upon a defeat as a single round in the contest. Yes you have been knocked down, but you are not yet beaten. Seize that brief time of apparent defeat to regain your breath and to re-plan your strategy, then spring back on your feet and into the fight once again. Let your fighting instincts be aroused, and take up arms again, knowing that you will turn defeat into victory, advises a psychologist. Ford writes, Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently, and we will add with greater enthusiasm than ever before. Never equate your failures with your own self-worth. If you do so you will be doomed to feelings of worthlessness. Not to succeed in a particular enterprise is not to fail as a person. It is just not being successful with that particular trial at that particular moment. Of course the setbacks or mistakes were your but never forget they were not YOU. So beware of thinking that you are failure simply
because you made a few mistakes. Self Depreciation Dont wallow in self-depreciation and self-pity. He who depreciates himself becomes worthy of his contempt and is justly depreciated by others. Dont let perfectionism immobilize you. As Dr Maxwell Maltz has it, Differentiate between your self and your behaviour. You are not ruined, nor worthless because you made mistake or got off course any more than a typewriter is worthless which makes an error; or a violin which sounds a sour note. Dont hate yourself because you are not perfect. Value of Failure A set-back cannot hurt you if you learn from it and try again. It does not hurt you unless it stops you. It does not hurt you if after it you look up with bright eyes and say. Now, let us see why I failed and have an other go. Failure, says Dr Dyer, can be instructive, it can be an incentive to work and explose. It can be thought of as success if it points the way to new discoveries. The proverb nothing succeeds like success, is well-known. But Kenneth Boulding thinks otherwise. Say he, I have revised some folk wisdom lately. One of my edited proverb is Nothing fails like success because you do not learn anything from it. The only thing we ever learn from it is failure. Success only confirms our superstitions. Get rid of the Fear of Failure Fear of failure is simply a bogey. Fearany sort of feardoes not exist out there in the world. It is something that you do to yourself by thinking fearful thoughts and having fearful expectations, says a psychiatrist. All disasters you visualize will rarely surface. In getting rid of the fear of failure take a tip from animal behaviour. Cats hunt mice; if they are not successful in one attempt, they just make anotherand yet an other. They dont lie down and whine grumbling about the one that escaped or have a nervous breakdown because they failed. Apply the same logic to your behaviour to elimPersonality and YOU 15
inate the fear of failure. Healthy, self-actualized or self-fulfilled people are not afraid to fail. In fact they often welcome it. They dont equate their worth with their failures and successes. They realize that failure is simply someone elses opinion and not to be feared since it cannot affect self-esteem.
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How to Cultivate a Balanced Personality

His life was gentle, and the elements So mixed in him that Nature might stand up, And say to all the world, This was a man! ShakespeareJulius Caesar A fully developed and mature personality is an infinitely complex structure of many traits, elements and influences. Perhaps the words variety and balance give us the key to it. What Shakespeare made Antony say of Brutus in Julius Caesar assumes great significance in the context of variety and balance to personality. Mature and well-rounded personality demands a balanced mixture of elements. To be one-sided or lop-sided is necessarily a flaw in personality. An angular personality lacking poise is a poor personality for it will be off the hinges. Both our physical activity and our mental processes involve certain contrasts. We are pulled in different directions by various elements in our make-up. When we allow ourselves to be pulled too far in one direction or the other then personality becomes warped and lopsided or unevenly balanced. For the development of personality, balance in various spheres of life is essential. Work and Play Almost every one would accept it as self-evident that we must work in order to live, not everybody believes that we must play in order to live, not everybody believes that we must play in order to live. Play has been defined as a pleasure activity in which the means is more important than the ostensible end. The most refined stylized forms of play are dancing, art and music. One can enjoy them
by participation or by seeing or hearing them. They enable people to live out unsatisfied instinctive urges in a way not hampered or restricted by reality considerations. Dr Karl Menningers, M.D., urges that we should work as hard as we can but hold on to our hobbies: If the proper direction and encouragement of play can be therapeutically useful, it can also be prophylactically useful. If it is good for sick people it is even better for healthy people. We are all subject and liable to the disease of disturbed morale (demoralization) and one of the best antidotes against this is to be found in recreation. Another psychologist underscores the need for striking a balance between work and relaxation. We can work better if we are relaxed; and enjoy our leisure more when we go to it with the satisfaction of work well done. Hence, the balance and relationship between the two is vital for dayto-day living with full satisfaction. The art of relaxing indeed is part of the art of working. The human organism cannot live without alternating periods of work and relaxation. Psychosomatic Well-being Doctors and psychologists tell us that mental and physical wellbeing are intimately connected. While recognising the interaction of body and mind we must pay adequate attention to each. To develop one at the expense of the other is to produce a life that is lacking balance. Proper concerns about each help the other. Regular exercise, adequate sleep and sensible diet are factors which count for a balanced personality on the physical side. Dr W.W. Dyer warns us against misbehaving towards our body. By letting yourself get fat through improper diet or lack of exercise, you victimise yourself. By allowing your body to become addicted to pills such as tranquillisers, or alcohol, or tobacco, you are a very effective self-exploiting victim. By not giving your body adequate rest periods or by fouling it up with stress and tension, you are allowing yourself to be victimised. Your body is a powerful, well-tuned, highly efficient instrument, but you can abuse it in so many ways by simply
rejecting it, or fueling it with low-calibre fuels and addictive substances that will only demolish it in the end. The spirit of open-mindedness, freedom from prejudice, development of a variety of interests, the habit of asking intelligent questions, reading worthwhile books and straight thinking provide stimuli that keeps the mind sound and alert. Remember what Leonardo da Vinci said about disease of the mind: Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, even so does inaction sap the vigours of the mind. A famous Roman poet said, Your prayer must be that you have a sound mind in a sound body. With a sound mind in a sound body you can take on the characteristics of a fully-functioning personality. Give and Take If you want friends, be a friend. Our ability to attract towards us material things, friends, cultural enrichment, is in direct proportion to our readiness to imbibe the attitude of give and take. The constant receiver, says Dr J.A. Schindler, M.D., never learns what great enjoyment giving can bring; he does learn how his cramped, grasping, tight emotions produce almost constant illness. Erich Fromm says Giving is more joyous than receiving not because it is a deprivation, but because in the act of giving lies the expression of my aliveness. The teacher is taught by the students, the actor stimulated by his audience, the psychoanalyst is cured by his patientprovided they do not treat each other as objects, but feel related to each other genuinely and productively. The ability to give is the hall-mark of a well-rounded mature personality. It presupposes the attainment of a predominantly productive orientation. In such an orientation the person overcomes dependency and acquires faith and courage to rely on his own powers in the attainment of his goal. In the sphere of material things, giving means being rich. Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much. The hoarder who is anxiously worried about losing something is, psychologically speakPersonality and YOU 19
ing, the poor impoverished man regardless of how much he has. Whoever is capable of giving is to be considered as rich. This attitude is a plus point of ones personality. Society and Solitude Mans constant striving to realise his full inherent potential is regarded by psychologists as the most fundamental goal of human personality. Maslow formulated a list of fifteen characteristics of self-actualised persons. Two of these characteristics are: (1) They are capable of very deep satisfying inter-personal relations; (2) They have a need for privacy and solitude at times and are capable of looking at life from a detached objective point of view. If we are to actualise our full inherent potential we have to understand the contrasting needs of our personalities at times when we can mix freely with other people, and at times when we can be alone. Human beings are gregarious creatures, made for fellowship. No man is an island: We are bound together in the bundle of life. But solitude is equally essential to man. Constant gregariousness militates against balance in personality development. It is the refuge of mediocrity. If we fail to strike a balance between fellowship and solitude the odds are that we shall become either lone wolves or social butterfliesneither of which form of life is human. Solitude is essential for creative work and for meditation upon ourselves. It is in solitude that we can transcend the barriers of time and space. It is not a narrowing experience; it is just the opposite in fact. Our privacy is a very important part in our lives. It is necessary to our own sense of well-being. Thoreau, who lived alone for almost two years at Walden Pond, wrote about his feelings of privacy in Walden: To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. While we are not all Thoreaus, and this is the twentieth century, his observations are still more appropriate today. We do not have to
be always around others, or to always have others around us. How true is Wordsworth. When from our better selves we have too long, Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop, Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, How gracious benign is solitude! At times solitude is best company for a respite from the stress and strain, noise, hectic fever, of modern life far from the madding crowds ignoble strife. It is not escapism but reality. The fusion of fellowship and solitude is a hall-mark of a balanced personality. Conformity and Independence The present age is called the Age of Conformity (to say nothing of the Age of Anxiety, the Age of Togethernessall of which designations are, in fact, psychologically related). The term conformity means the yielding of the individuals judgement or action to group pressure arising from a conflict between his own opinion and that maintained by the group. Independence of judgement is a form of behaviour in the group pressure situation in which the individual judges and acts mainly on the basis of his own position and is neither unduly susceptible to the group norms nor unduly driven to deviate from them. Independence of judgement is to be distinguished from counter-conformity. The latter is the case in which the person is actually opposing the group, hostile and compulsively dissenting from it. Conformity, independence, and counter-conformity are not three points along a single continum. Rather they represent three vertices of a triangle. Conformity or independence of the individual under group pressure depends on the nature of the situation and the characteristics of the individual. For balance in personality structure, use your own inner commonsense in each situation. Perceive, think and feel and act in your own way. As prof P.C. Sexton puts it, Conformity is like a sleeping pilla small dose is all right in order to give rest to the organism, but too much is lethal.
How to Acquire a Charming Pesonality

The dialogue of man with others is life. Martin Gray Personality, literally means the mask worn on stage by actors in ancient dramas. It is used synonymously with character. It is limited to denote interpersonal role, both explicit and implicit. Role means the form and style of interpersonal relationship. The explicit role is verbal; the implicit role is non-verbal, Charm is a sort of bloom on a personality. It strikes the sight, it magnetizes. This invaluable asset of personality is not inborn. It can be developed by any one by following certain techniques. Here are the main techniques: Be Nice to People Be nice to people. This is the essence of charm. Real charm does not seek to please so much as demonstrate concern. When you meet somebody, say with genuine warmth: Well! Hello! How pleasant to see you! How are you? This greeting not only gives pleasure, it also gives an extra little psychological lift. Believe that given patience on your side it is possible to tolerate awkwardness and unkindness and manage to agree to differ. Dont ride rough shod on others feelings by asking tactless questions and making thoughtless remarks. According to Cardinal Newman a gentleman is one who never inflicts pain. Be a gentleman, and scrupulously avoid hurting people. Look pleased to see people Dont keep your face impassive when you meet or begin dealing
with another human beings. Demonstrate some sort of positive responsepleasure, interest, enquiry, curiosity, friendliness, willingness to help. Look every inch alive, alert, and vibrant. Speak with animation, warmth, enthusiasm and humour. Aim at looking pleased when you meet people at all costs. Reinforce your greeting with warmth, and friendliness in your voice. Show interest We all yearn for others to be interested in us. Showing interest in others is a must if you want others to like you and feel that you are a charming and pleasing personality. If you want to make people like you, says Dale Carnegie, talk in terms of the other mans interests. Avoid fault-finding This bad habit is basically rooted in envy and jealousy of others. As J.K. Lavater has it, If you are pleased at finding faults, you are displeased at finding perfections. A fault finder is a non-doer. The real doer has no time for criticising others. He is too busy doing his own work. Look Cheerful No one is attracted to the pessimist, the moaner, the grouch, the sourpuss. The cheerful person is one who smiles readily; he is much more charming. He looks younger, more attractive, more confident. A cheerful person is welcome everywhere. An old Irish proverb has it, continual cheerfulness is a sign of wisdom. An unknown poet has written: Tis well to walk with a cheerful heart Wherever our fortunes call, With a friendly glance and an open hand, And a gentle word for all, Since life is a thorny and difficult path, Where toil is the portion of man, We should all endeavour, while passing along, To make it as smooth as we can.
Dont desire to be the centre of attraction According to a psychologist, the desire to attract and hog attention can make us so insensitive to other peoples feelings and wishes that we are domineering, selfish, rude and cruel. You can be so eager to talk that you continually interrupt other people. You may go on talking when people want you to be quiet, or prefer to let a subjet drop, or want to switch on to something else. You can play the buffoon or hurt people with your wit. You can spoil somebodys attempt to do something. Dont be like the Aesops fly that sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot wheel and said, What a dust do I raise. Avoid desiring to be considered superior If you are all wrapped up in yourself, you are overdressed. It is well to remember that the whole sense of ones importance is merely an evaluation of self by self. People who give themselves airs are shunned. Their whole life and outlook are geared to keeping their own end up and this gives them no time to like people and be concerned about them. Do play the game of one-up-manship. Control Your Moods Socially speaking it means trying to be always nice to people, not nice to them only when you feel like it. Recognize a mood before it takes firm hold of you. Make a habit of breaking any bad mood. It is unreasonable and stupid to antagonize people simply because you happen to feel a bit off-colour. Co-operate and be Helpful If you like people, you will no doubt want to help them. It is natural to offer to do things for people, not because you feel you should, but because that is the way you are. People who are genuinely charming are willing to co-operate and remain open-hearted with their time and money. They do not hold back, waiting to be asked or wondering whether they will look silly. Instead, they say, Ill do it!, Ill try!, Ill go!, Ill help you!. Remember it is natural to co-operate. Marcus Aurelius well said. We are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower
teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to Nature, and it is acting against one another to be waxed and turn away. Give Encouragement and Appreciation People also yearn for encouragement and appreciation. Mark Twain said: I can live for two months on a good compliment. It doesnt cost us much to encourage others in their activities or in coping with their problems. A few words, a question or two, a scribbled note are all that is required. Resolve to go through life giving new zest and joy to people by dispensing encouragement and appreciation at every opportunity. As a psychologist puts it, Old and young, skilled and unskilled, expert or novice, the intelligent and the not-so-bright, all thrive on a few well chosen words. Les Giblin in his: How you can have Confidence and Power in dealing with People, says, People everywhere ... are hungry for praise and appreciation. When we give them what they are hungry for, they are much more likely to be generous in giving us, what we want from them, whether it is their skill, manual work, ideas, co-operation, or what not. Offer Understanding and Sympathy To be understanding and sympathetic is another way of helping our fellow-beings. As Harry and Bonaro Overstreet put it: The drama of understanding is the drama of going forth to meet life more than half way. It is the drama of trying to see the other pesons point of view; of trying to look at foibles through other peoples concerns and life conditions. Nothing in a fellow human being can be alien to us. As Rabbi Leo Baeck puts it. To be a man means to be a fellow man. I am to make the man beside me my fellow man by my will and my deed. Be Enthusiastic Apathy never attracted anyone or anything. Whoever minted the phrase: I couldnt care less has done considerable harm. In all your transactions with others try to show enthusiasm, zest, keenness, liveliness, aliveness. These qualities should be evident on your face
and in your voice. There is nothing smart, nothing clever, nothing attractive in your looking surly, bored, casual, apathetic. Healthy, fulfilled people are enthusiastic about life. They like life. Others like to have such people around because enthusiasm is contagious. Show Genuine Love Lastly to be a charming personality, cultivate the habit of showing genuine love to other people. Says H.N. Casson, The supreme h.p. is not horse power. It is the heart power. It is the greatest of all prime movers.... It is love that makes the world go round, says an old song. It is not money. It is not rank, it is not power. It is love. Love is the ultimate human answer to the ultimate human question.
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How to Stand on Your Feet

It is an absolute perfection, and it were divine to get the very most out of ones own individuality. Montaigne The importance of standing on your own feet can hardly be overstressed. This is what makes for full flowering of personality, selffulfilment and high achievement. Refusing to follow the crowd, to follow your own bent of mind, to be nobody-but-yourself, is what pays the ultimate dividends. Some people just drift. They go with the tide, follow the line of least resistance, just think and do as others think and do and thus deny their individuality and personality. Self-denial amounts to selfbetrayal. To be self-reliant, self-fulfilling and achieving personality you must master the techniques of standing on your feet. Art of standing on your feet The techniques of the art of standing on your own feet are as follows: Think for yourself: Thinking, says Henry Ford, is the hardest task any one can do, which is probably the reason why we have so few thinkers. How many of us think for ourselves? Says, Gordon Byron, a lot of people think they think but they dont. Often they jump from an observation to a conclusion without any reasoning whatsoever. It is merely a mental impulse. Orderly thinking is comparatively rare. There is no expedient, said Edison, to which a man will not go to avoid the real labour of thinking. Some people are so well-adjusted to society that in Rome they
would not only do as the Romans do, but think and feel as the Romans. As they do not do their own thinking they are mental slaves. It takes courage to be a non-conformist and think differently from your group, and the crowd you are with. And yet that is what you owe to yourselfyour self-esteem, your uniqueness in the world, the fact that there is only one you. No one, says Dr W.W. Dyer, is even remotely like you in terms of your innermost feelings, thoughts and desires. You must remember famous rules of Descarts art of thinking: (1) accept a thing as true only when you clearly recognize it as such; and (2) be careful to avoid haste and prejudice. Test your ideas with facts. Give up every preconceived notion and follow your intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Avoid sweeping statements like Everybody says. How can you possibly know? It will be fair to say many but not everybody. In any case truth is not always what the majority think. Often the exact opposite of what is generally believed is the truth. Thinking for yourself can be only purposeful if it is given scientific orientation. Science is rigidly accurate in observation and ruthless to fallacy in logic. Scientific orientation is contrasted with anti-scientific orientations which are the nemesis of correct and logical thinking. These are: (i) The orientation of dependency, in which statements are accepted not because they are verifiable or logically consistent, but because they originate from a parent or parent-surrogate which may take the form of a person, a professor, a philosophical system or a sacred book. The general motto of this orientation may be: Daddy says so, or the Bible says so. (ii) Word-mindedness: This orientation involves the tendency to word-mindedness as distinguished from fact mindedness. Examples are: If a statement sounds true, it must be true; If it is eloquently stated, it must be true; If the speaker has a beautiful voice, it must be true; and If a statement logically follows from self-evident
truths, it must be true. (iii) According to this orientation whatever we want passionately enough to be so is so. We believe what we want to believehowever absurd and improbable. This kind of orientation is encouraged by mass media especially the dream factories of advertising and movies. There is Aesops story of an amateur singer who hadnt a voice but used to sing all day accompanying himself on a lyre in a house with plastered walls, which amplified the sound so much that he thought himself to have a first rate voice. His conceit made him think that he was cut out for the stage. But when he appeared in public he sang so atrociously that he was chased off with a volley of stones. (iv) Yes-but orientation: This is the orientation of people who are willing to make verifiable statement, except when they arrive at subjects involving their special moral, cultural, or class prejudice at which point they dig their heels into the ground and cry, Yes, but .... The yes-butter is not willing to apply the scientific orientation to some area in his thinking. He makes the motto of Emersons statement: There are two laws discrete ... Law for man, and Law for thing, and justifies throwing out the scientific orientation in the discussions of human problems. Be Autonomous Give full expression and scope to your personality. Do things your own way. Act on your own initiative. Initiative has been defined as a special kind of action. It is doing something worthwhile without being told to do so. It has been said that the supreme success quality of a man is initiative. Perhaps it is. At any rate no man ever yet made a big success unless he had it. Many people have far more knowledge and ability than they use. Their brains appear to have no self-starter. And there are no handles on them whereby they can be moved to action. The mass of the people do only what they are told to do. Without instructions they stand idle. They seldom start anything. They shrink from doing anything on their own. They play safe
preferring to accept orders in a subordinate position to responsibility as executives. We see them everywherepeople of outstanding ability who have no push and never succeed in life. Every person who ever started anything had to face difficulties and doubts. Very often we have to start something which we dont know how to finish, but we learn as we go along. To start anything new always requires some courage and to persevere requires a bit of stamina. As a Chinese proverb has it, Nothing is difficult to a man who has persistence. The people who have initiative are the people who count. It is they who take the cake. Dont listen to people who say, This is how things are, and you cant change them. It has always been that way. Dont be afraid of striking out on the new and untried roadyour way. Be your own man. Get rid of your idols. Be your own hero. Have courage of your convictions Courage is not absence of despair; it is rather the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair. It means willingness to confront fear, flying in the face of criticism, relying on yourself; believing enough in yourself and in living your own life as you choose. William Manchester in his recent biography of Douglas MacArthur, American Caesar, (1979) pinpoints one outstanding trait of MacArthur, who has been compared to Alexander the Great. What Douglas MacArthur believed in most was Douglas MacArthur. The most shining example of the courage of ones convictions was Martin Luther who said in his famous speech at the Diet of Worms (1521), Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. It was Magellan who said, the Church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the Church. You may remember Galileos reply to the Inquisition, Nevertheless it (earth) does move. It is a blessed thing indeed if you have individuality enough and courage to stand by your own convictions, and have the grandeur to say your say. But you must make sure that your convictions are in
fact true and not false. According to Dr Theodor Rick, Freud told his circle of students in Vienna that only those convictions are lasting and valuable which one acquires after overcoming objections and added. Convictions and women one can get easily are not highly appreciated. The English physicist, John Tyndall in his Fragments of Science for Unscientific people, wrote, The brightest flashes in the world of thought are incomplete until they have been proved to have their counterparts in the world of facts. Your convictions, in short, must be dynamic, founded on reason and fact. Self-belief Believe in yourself. Have a passionate faith and enthusiasm in what you are doing. As the leading Polish spiritual writer M. Malinski puts it, You have enough strength to do what you have to do. Dont be afraid of the people who are in your way or maliciously put obstacles in front of you. Dont be afraid if the world is difficult. Everything depends upon you, on your trust in yourself. At the same time dont worry overly about the result of your endeavour to reach your goals. We tend to be so obsessed about the result of our effort that we fail to enjoy the effort itself. We become so concerned that our effort should result in future success that we often fail to watch, regulate and take pleasure in the present moment. Aldous Huxley warns us against the exclusive worship of success. The bitch-goddess successin William Jamess phrase demands strange sacrifices from those who worship it. Dont undervalue the importance of the effort itself. I have, says B.T. Washington, learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. This is not to suggest that there should be no persistent effort to succeed in our endeavour. It is not to be taken as an invitation to apathy or idlenessfar from it. The suggestion is to do whatever task presents itself to the best of our capabilities with all possible care and concentration and with all possible enjoyment. How well a
task is done can be so hampered by worrying about the result and being prejudiced as to what the result would be. Let the result take care of itself, because we can never guarantee it; we do not have the power to manipulate all the factors which account the result successful. Man is a deciding animal. He can decide to eliminate worry if he learns to take life as an adventure, as a game, as a risky but enjoyable sport. Life, says Hebbel, is not anything; it is only the opportunity for doing something. Conclusion The man who stands on his feet is not only qualified for self-fulfilment and high achievement he has also the character of a happy life. How happy is he born and taught that serveth not anothers will; Whose armour is his honest thought, And simple truth is his utmost skill. (Henry Wotton)
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How to Develop Tenacity of Purpose

A man can still go a long way when he is tired. Dont give up. Herbert Casson Importance of Tenacity of Purpose Success in life depends on tenacity of purpose more than on any other single factor. A moderate ambition seen through to a successful conclusion is far more worthwhile than a grandiose scheme abandoned when difficulties crop up. A Rolling Stone ..... Many people appear to fritter away their abilities and talents on incompleted tasks. They launch many ventures but finish few. When they meet setbacksthey set off for some new objectivesthey are ready to throw their goals and purposes overboard, and give up at the first sign of opposition or misfortune. A few carry on despite all obstacles and opposition, until they attain their goal. Yet any long term goal in life can be attained only by mastering the obstacles encountered on the way. True success can be achieved by facing problems and snags but not in abandoning the task and running away. You know the famous proverb: A rolling stone gathers no moss. The wanderer with no specific destination gets lost on the side roads. He never arrives. Choice of Single Objective For successful achievement and fulfilment, a single objective must be chosen and attained over a period of time. It must not be given up the moment a snag arises, or the moment you learn of
other possible and attractive goals or objectives. Keep your attention focused on the bulls eye till you attain your target. Andre Maurois admires Americans with single-track minds, their tenacity and their obsession are sometimes boring, but they succeed, by repeated attacks in demolishing the obstacles that hinder their progress. He further advises: age quod agis (do what you are doing i.e., with all your powers). Put your whole heart into it. Strive with both your body and your mind towards the goal. When it has been reached, you may retrace your steps, explore the path that cuts across your own, and feast your eyes upon the view. But until the task is done, no exploring or loitering. Life is not All Beer and Skittles To develop tenacity of purpose you must comprehend clearly one fundamental principle of life. Life is not all smooth-sailing, it proceeds by fits and starts. Periods when things go well alternate with slow periods when progress appears almost at a standstill. You can observe the operation of this great rule in your own life. Some weeks all goes well, things work out as you planned, progess is rapid, your morale is high and enthusiasm aglow. Then you run into a sluggish phase. Obstacles crop up; delays occur; progress comes to a halt. Your enthusiasm wanes. Your morale sags. You say, I thought it was too good to last or This is not, after-all, my cup of tea. To achieve tenacity of purpose, you must recognise that these bad patches are part of the natural order. They occur to every one and in all endeavours. Eventually success comes to the person who keeps on regardless of setbacks, working like blazes and striving whole-heartedly just the same during the time when things look dim and he can see little result for his efforts. Out of sight events are slowly shaping themselves in these bad times. Suddenly the work done without result leads to a breakthrough and another fine period of progress and manifest achievement ensues. Never forget that life is not all beer and skittles (fun and games). The following technique will help develop tenacity of purpose.
Definite Goals: Set for yourself realistic and exact goals. Vagueness about ones purpose leads inevitably to lack of tenacity. Decide on your aims and purposes. Know clearly what you want from life. Stick-to-it-iveness: Once you have chosen your goals stick to them just as limpet sticks to rocks. Changing your ideas about your goal in life produces only confusion and elaborate effort with no result. Take a firm decision even it it is an unpleasant one, and then stick to it. Hasty action is to be avoided, but once a decision is taken, it has to be carried through. Put in full effort for achieving your newly acquired goal. Make no compromises. Adopt no half measures. Waste no time in regrets. Winning Attitude: Cultivate a winning attitude. Expect to be successful. Concentrate your thoughts on the reasons why you will succeed, not on possible failure. Queen Victoria said to her Prime Minister A.J. Balfour, We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. Remember that everyone of you is made for success, not failure. To quote Alfred Adler, Life moves ever toward overcoming, toward perfection, toward superiority, toward success. You cannot train or condition a living being for defeat. George Bernard Shaw has said: He who flees from the battle, lives to fight another day. So it is with problems of life. It is better to flee from the battlefield of problems, only to re-assemble our resources of thought and energy; to fight again. Life is more important than certain concepts we cherish. Despite setbacks and disappointment, there is always a chance. But if we stubbornly exhaust our energy in wild goose chases and hug illusions, we spoil our chances of staging a come-back. Where do you begin your battle? You have to learn to declare war on your tendency to hug illusions. The battle has to be won in the battlefield of your mind. Your mind is a battlefield. And if you win, you will experience a new one emerging from the debris of the dead thoughts. You are the cluster of your attitudes. The winning attitude leads you to talk, think, and act for success. You can soon
come to take it for granted that what you start you will finish. Tenacity can easily be made a habit. Every successful action you perform leaves a trace on your mind that makes it easier to be more successful next. Nothing succeeds like success, is a true proverb. It means that it is not easy to achieve success, but once you have achieved it, the way is open to even greater success. For example, a novelist may write nine books and yet remain comparatively unknown. Then the tenth book becomes a best-seller, which not only ensures success for any further books that he may write but also creates a demand for the first nine. Will Power: Marshal Foch said, Victory is a thing of the will. Tenacity is helped by will-power. Particularly at the outset of any venture, will-power is needed to help you keep at it until the habit of persistence is formed. According to Gordon Byron, will-power depends on the following five factors: 1. Keep your health in good shape by living sensibly. 2. Use auto-suggestion to train your mind and will as you want them to be. 3. Develop the habit of will-power by accomplishing small things successfully. 4. Do something everyday for no other reason than that it is difficult, such as counting and re-counting a collection of small objects aloud for five minutes. 5. Carry out instantly and without second thoughts the little chores of the day. The most useful and universal of these is getting up in the morning the moment you should. The habit of concentrating ones thoughts on the building of plans for the attainment of a definite purpose leads to tenacity. Intense Desire: Build up an intense desire to attain your goal. It is comparatively easy to acquire and to maintain tenacity in pursuing the object with a burning desire. Self-reliance: Believe in your ability to carry through your plans. Make your plans definite, organising them properly into a time-table or action programme. A definite plan, expressed in terms of continuous action will ring the bell.
When you face uncertain situations and suffer from indecision, you must ponder and analyse the situation. Think it over. Do not live under illusions. Knowledge: Acquire knowledge of the matters that will help you in the attainment of your goal. Base your plans on knowledge, not guess-work. Put your experience and observation to good use. Cooperation: Tenacity is also helped by harmonious cooperation with others. Napoleon Hills recommends a friendly alliance with one or more persons who will encourage you to follow through with both plan and purpose. Negativism: Negativism is lethal to success in any enterprise. Keep your mind tightly closed against all negative and discouraging influences, including negative suggestions of relatives, friends and acquaintances. Declare war on your negative feelings, your failure mechanism. Resolve that the basic aim of the re-orientation of your life is the destruction of poisonous, destructive thinking. You will then find peace, happiness and success. Doing to a finish: A man must have some self-control. He must have a bit of self-mastery. When he starts a thing, he must hold himself at it until it is done. The quitters are never heard of. They never attain success. To go through life leaving a trail of unfinished tasks can lead to failure. Summing Up To develop tenacity of purpose 1. Get a clear vision or picture of exactly what you want to do or to accomplish in life. 2. Believe that you can and will succeed in doing it. 3. Start doing it and keep at it. 4. Do not go about chanting tales of your failures and what you might have been. It is a pernicious habit of getting sympathy from others and using it as an emotional crutch. It weakens your moral fibre. Throw away this crutch. Have a clearly defined objectivea specific goal to work towards a bulls-eye to shoot at. Know what you want and make a bee-line for
it. Having set a goal, believe firmly, deeply, unflinchingly that you will attain it. You have your objective; you have built your dream castle in the clouds. You firmly believe that you will realise it. Start right now! Keep on working at it and you will work a miracle as surely as day follows night. Tale-Piece One cold windy day in the late spring, a snail started to climb a cherry tree. Some sparrows in a neighbouring oak enjoyed a good laugh at his expense. Finally, one flew over and addressed the snail, Aay, you sap, dont you know that thee are no cherries on this tree? The little fellow didnt pause as he replied out of the corner of his mouth, But there will be when I get there. Moral If you expect to reach a desirable destination make a startright here and now, and do not be deterred by discouraging comments from those who lack enterprise and vision.
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The Success Factors

Life is not anything; it is only the opportunity to do something. Hebbel What is Success? Success consists in doing and accomplishing things. It is the accomplishment of an end aimed at. It is doing ones best to make the most of oneself. It is not something that can be measured in relation to the accomplishments of others. It is an individual matter and must always be determined by the degree in which a specific person has attained his own highest potentialities. A Goal The first success factor is the formulation of a goal. The general causes of our mediocrity in performance or our failure in accomplishment are not lack of ability, unwillingness to work, or indifference or lack of earnestness. The real cause is that we do not formulate specific, concrete goals towards which to direct our efforts. We aim our efforts at vague generalizations, and not at bulls-eye. Always specify your goals in such a way that it has four characteristics: (1) It is specific; (2) It is positive; (3) It is realistic; and (4) It locates the goal within some environment or situation. Occasionally it is necessary to break the end goal into sub-goals and set periodic goals to achieve the targeted end-goal gradually. Passion To attain your goal pursue it single-mindedly and with passion and strong enthusiasm, which moves heaven and earth. As Emerson has put it, nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The father of modern psychology, William James, expressed this point beautifully: In almost any subject your passion for the subPersonality and YOU 39
ject will save you. If you only care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich; if you wish to be learned, you will be learned; if you wish to be good, you will be good. Only you must then really wish these things and wish them with exclusiveness, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly. To pursue a goal passionately is the best possible assurance of success in it. If there is a way to success, passion finds it and is cowed by few difficulties or obstacles. It enlists the whole body and soul of man to achieve its coveted objectives. The American motion picture pioneer, Samuel Goldwyn, used to say: No person who is enthusiastic about his work has anything to fear from life. Passion is the indispensable condition or qualification for a great achievement. We may affirm, says Hegel, absolutely that nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion. Passion is the prime success factor. All other needed factors follow as a matter of course in its wake. Driving force Closely related to passion is driving force that there is no gain without work. The old saying has it, Through hardship to the stars. Anyone can be successful if he is prepared to pay the price for it. But the price you have to pay is a continual once. If you stop paying the price when you have achieved some success, then you will slip back. It means that the driving force has gone and the price is no longer being paid. The trouble with some people is that they want to get to the promised land without going through the wilderness. Pay for it and take it, said Emerson. Everything worthwhile has a price and to make it meaningful we must pay that price. Beware of the philosophy of Something for nothing. Two young men of equal abilities start in the business world at the same time. One remains stuck in a small job all his life, while the other climbs to the top in his trade. What is the difference? Just this, the one who was stuck refused to pay the price of success.
Courage Another essential success factor is courage. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Camus and Sartre have proclaimed that courage is not the absence of despair; it is rather the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair. It is the willingness to confront fear. It means flying in the face of criticism, relying on yourself, being willing to accept and learn from the consequences of your choices. Courage is the recognition that failure is a genuine possibility and that absolute certainty is an illusion. This is what Sydney Smith said about courage: A great deal of talent is lost in the world for want of a little courage. Everyday sends to their groves obscure men whom timidity prevented from making a great effort, who, if they could have been induced to begin, would in all probability have gone great lengths in the career of fame. The fact is that to do anything in the world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can. It will not do to be perpetually calculating risks and adjusting nice changes, but at present a man waits, and doubts and consults his brother, and his particular friends, till one day he finds he is 60 years old and that he has lost so much time in consulting cousins and friends that he has no more time to follow their advice. As Core Harris advises, The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly. The idea of professing courage is sound because the important thing to do is to act, rather than to try to convince yourself of how brave you are or arent at any given moment. Self pity does no one any good. Success visualization The effectiveness of the foregoing success factors will be greatly enhanced if you visualize yourself as a success and act accordingly several times a day. Success or failure in any enterprise is caused more by mental attitude than by mental capacities. The success attitude magnetizes success, the failure attitude, failure. Conduct yourself as if you were what you want to be. As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, Assume a virtue if you have it not. Build up a very vivid
picture of yourself behaving in the way you want to behave, being the sort of person you want to be and let this image drift into your mind. On this plus success factor Dr H.E. Stanton observes, Perhaps the greatest power we have as human beings is to use our imagination to help us change in the ways we want to change ..... The way to do this would appear to be to create in ones mind an image of the person one wants to be. The value of this approach ..... has been repeatedly affirmed in my own therapy. Firmly fix in your mind what you would like to do, and then, without veering off course, you will move straight to your goal. Preserve the success attitude. All things come through desire. We become like that on which our hearts are fixed. Set your heart on a goal, visualize its attainment, work for it like blazes, give it that little extra, and with Gods help you will achieve it. Persistence The spirit behind the above success factors is the unbending spirit called persistence. It enables you to hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to you, Hold On. The magic formula of success is: Never let down! Never let up! Give up your giving up and replace it with dogged persistence. If you persist and follow up tirelessly, never even entertaining the idea of being put off, then you will almost always emerge not only having reached your goal, but often having far exceeded your initial expectations. Checking up Cy Youngs pitching record, Henry Himmill noted that the great baseball star won 511 out of 906 games, a record that has never been equalled. Young won a few more than half his games. To be an outstanding success in any endeavour, it is not necessary to be right all the time. If you are right more than half the time, you may win a medal or make a million dollars. The idea is to keep pitching. In the art of success there is no substitute for persistence. The slogan Press On has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Open-mindedness Yet another vital success factor is open-mindedness. The ability and willingness to learn from our errors, no matter how painful they may be. The only complete mistake is the mistake from which we learn nothing. Samuel Smiles remarks, We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. As the Overstreets have it: Man is a mistake-maker. This fact points out our obligation to let one another make a normal quota of mistakes, acknowledge them, learn from them and move beyond them, keeping intact, all the while, a reasonable self-respect and self-confidence. As C.G. Jung points out in his autobiography, when one lives ones own life one must take mistakes into the bargain. Life would not be complete without them. There is no guaranteenot for a single moment that we will not fall into error or stumble into deadly peril. We may think there is a sure road. But that would be the road of death ... Any one who takes the rule road is as good as dead. So take mistakes for granted like measles and bad weather. Dont make the same mistake twice. It is better to look forward and to make new mistakes than to look back and do nothing The worst mistake you can make is to lose your initiative. It is the man who keeps on who climbs to the top rung of the ladder. The will to succeed Succees comes to the person who has the will to succeed. It is no bonanza, it does not come as a gift of heaven. It is the end product of our own efforts. It is the result of our will to succeed. The individual who has the will to succeed takes charge of his success. He knows what he wants and he plans the steps by which to achieve it. He directs and bends the force of his life to the attainments of his goals. He does not expect fate to throw success in his lap, nor does he rely on other people to give it to him. He knows what he wants, and he regulates his daily actions to attain it. He succeeds because he has the will to succeed. At the back of 99 out of 100 assertions
that a thing cannot be done is nothing but unwillingness to do it. When you attempt to do a thing you should do it with a will and be confident that you will succeed. You should act as if it were impossible to fail. It is will-power that makes the dreams come true. Dont pray for lighter burdens but for stronger backs. Do your best The last success factor is Do your best, and leave the rest. Success for any sane adult, says Dorathsa Brand, is exactly equivalent to doing his best. What best may be, what its farthest reaches may include, we can discover only by freeing ourselves from the will to fail. In his recent autobiography Unfinished journey the great violinist, Yehudi Menuhin, says: Striving to do my best, I have found fulfilment. Perfection, he adds, cannot be achieved unless its pursuit becomes a way of life. At no given point can a sincere and developing person feel that he has arrived. For, success is a journey, not a location. Winning attitude To approach setbacks properly and effectively you need a winning attitude, a positive mind. The famous psychologist Adler, founder of the school of Individual Psychology, was a delicate rickety child and a mediocre student. His teacher advised his father to take him out of school and apprentice him to a shoe-maker because he was not fit enough to do anything else. But, says his biographer, N. Orgler, winning attitude was his watchword and difficulties were to be faced as spurs to increased efforts to reach the goal. Failure is only the opportunity to begin againmore intelligently. Looking ahead Hope is the first and the most basic of vital virtues, that animate men. Dont dwell or brood on the past. Give the best you have got today. That is a recipe for a better tomorrow. The past is just a bucket of ashes. Never regret it. It is just as futile as trying to cry over
spilt milk. In a letter to George Brandes the great Norwegian dramatist, Isben, wrote, I hold that man to be right who is most closely in league with the future. The above plus success factors will work if you work them honestly and determinedly. Good luck!
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Have Faith in Yourself

What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. H.D. Thoreau A mans success in any enterprise is not the end-result of magic, miracle, or fluke. It is, by and large the fruit of his iron faith in himself translated into action. People fail to make it because they lack dynamic faith in themselves. Admiral Dupont was explaining to Admiral Forragut the reasons why he failed to enter Charleston harbour with his feet of iron-clads. Forragut listened until he was through and then said, Dupont, there is one reason more. What is that? questioned Dupont. You did not believe you could. Strong feelings of inferiority and lack of faith in themselves hinder them so that the fine qualities they do possess cannot be realized. The Importance of Self-Faith Faith is the starting point of all achievements. It is the only antidote for failure. It is the magic formula, the open sesame to success. It does move mountains. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn, says Albert Camus. This surmounting of fate is a positive triumph of faith in yourself. A man of unconquerable self-faith says, To hell with fate. Says Dr W.W. Dyer, You are worthy not because others say so, or because of what you accomplish or because of your achievements. Rather, you are worthy because you say so, because you believe it, and most importantly, because you ACT as if you are worthy. Faith is an indispensable condition of human life. Says the well-known psycho-analyst, Erich Fromm, Faith in oneself is a condition of our ability to promise something
and as Nietzsche pointed out, man can be defined by his capacity to promise, that is one of the conditions of human existence. No man comes to the end of his rope until he loses faith in himself. Then, indeed his life is bound in shallows and in miseries. With faith and fire in us, nothing is impossible : with them we build our destiny with our own hands. What is Self-Faith? Faith means trust and reliance or belief in ourselves. It cannot be adequately defined verbally. It can only be experienced. According to Vernon Howard, Faith is what you are, faith is how you talk, faith is how you live, faith is action, not merely an isolated principle. It is one of the major positive emotions. It has also been defined as a state of mind which may be induced or created by affirmation or repeated instructions to the subconscious mind, through the principle of auto-suggestion. How to develop faith in yourself? Self-faith being the magnet of success, it is worth your while to learn how to develop it and harness its tremendous power. This is especially important if, for any reason, you feel that you have lost your self-confidence or stopped to believe in yourself. Self-Analysis: How to go about it? First of all know yourself as you really are. Ask yourself why you have lost faith in yourself or feel inferior or inadequate. If you can find the cause, look at it objectively and recognise it for what it is. If you cannot find the cause, just accept that there is some reason deep down in the unconscious and leave it at that. Realize what you can do and what gifts and abilities you have. Admit them gratefully. Ask yourself about your goal in life. Have you a definite and realistic goal? Or are you just drifting through life without any aim? If you havent got a goal, select one and focus your mind on it. Belief in Success Believe in the possibility of success in the attainment of your
goal. If the goal has been well chosen, your powers will enable you, barring accidents, to achieve it. It is futile and dangerous to undertake unattainable objectives. Failure in their attainment can destroy self-confidence and energy. Combine Faith with Action Wed faith to action. Action produces faith and faith induces action. A young squirrel who eagerly wanted to climb to the top of his first tree in order to enjoy the wide wonderful world, asked his mother, How do I get faith enough to climb this tree? Do it, she said. But if I slip? Do it. But if I slip? Do it. But if I slip? Do it. So he did and did it. From that day onwards he had an eager mind that could climb any tree. And he did. On the necessity of combining faith with action, Kenneth Hildebrand remarks, But faith cannot become tested power for us until we venture on it in the practical affairs of life. Psychologists point out that both belief and doubt are living attitudes, and involve conduct. We express belief or doubt by living. Doing is having. You may put it thus : Faith is performance towards the thing in which you have faith. The performance of your faith even though at first performed in doubt and weakness ultimately produces the object of your faith. It is actionoriented faith that moves mountains. Combine Faith with Commonsense Combine faith with commonsense. Neither faith alone nor commonsense alone will produce results. You need both. If you have faith only you may be led to believe in some wild scheme for abolishing poverty by an Act of Parliament; and if you have only commonsense, you may be wholly satisfied with things as they are. When you have both, then you will have your head up and your feet on the ground, and you will move forward steadily and surely. Auto-suggestion As faith is a state of mind that may be induced by self-suggestion, start each day by a positive thought and affirmation. This is psychologically sound. As a psychologist has it, Our lives are govPersonality and YOU 48
erned mainly by our unconscious minds and the most important thing is to get positive thoughts into them. You do this by repetition of positive affirmations. It is an established psychological truth that thoughts sent into the unconscious mind tend to actualize themselves. So begin with an affirmation. Say to yourself: I believe in myself and the work I am doing. I am doing my best and, therefore, I will succeed. I am one with the Infinite power of the Universe and, therefore, have no need to fear anything. Take one of these sentences or one like them, and repeat it several times when you wake up. Repeat it at times during the dayeven if you are not thinking what you are saying. According to Napoleon Hill Repetition of affirmation of orders to your subconscious mind is the only known method of voluntary development of the emotion of faith. Any impulse of thought which is repeatedly passed on to the subconscious mind, which proceeds to translate that impulse into its physical equivalent, by the most practical procedure available. Psychodrama Another method for developing faith in yourself is the technique of psychodrama designed by Dr J.L. Moreno. For instance, a shy person is assigned the drama role of a bold hero such as Richard the Lion-hearted. The shyness soon disappears as the assumed role is absorbed into the very character of the actor. By speaking and acting the bold role he actually takes on the bold traits of the person he represents. After a while it is no longer an assumed role, it is a permanent trait of the persons personality. It has proved to be a surprisingly helpful method for building faith in ones self. You can use it for generating practical faith which will turn hoped-for traits into present powers. Choose your desired roleone that depicts confidence, or trust. Forget who you are. Concentrate only on the triumphant person you are becoming. Act out your role by every means possible; in speech, thoughts, attitudes, physical movements. After a while the role will become you. The ideal will become the real.
Bright Vision Keep a bright vision in the front of your mind of yourself succeeding. With each job tackled, imagine a successful result. Think always in terms of possibilities and never of failures. Compare yourself with the topmost standards. Dont compare yourself with others. Remember you are inferior to no one. You are only different. Whenever you accomplish a task, however small, congratulate yourself. Chalk it up as a success. It is by building on success in little things that you will become confident to tackle really big things. Faith building needs patience and perseverance : Rome was not built in a day. Sensible Approach to Problems Face your problems sensiblyconfident of success. Accept the viewpoint that every problem has a solution and approach your problems in this spirit. When you come to face a problem, relax and dont panic. Try to face it objectively. Write down the facts. What possible solutions are there to that problem? Is there anything you yourself could do at this moment to solve it? If so, resolve to do it as soon as possible and act on your resolve. If there is nothing you can do about it presently, accept that fact. With the passing of time a solution may be found. At present it is impossible. Turn away from your problem knowing that you have done all you could do at this stage. If necessary, make a date in the future when you will consider it again. But dont carry it about you all the time. It is much more likely that your unconscious mind will work out a solution if you consciously turn away from it. How often we find that a problem with which we have wrestled at night is impossible. Yet in the morning we see a solution clearly. This is because our unconscious mind has been working while we have been asleep.
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Personality and Tension

Personality is infinitely more than your books and your popularity; it is youbody and mind and emotionsliving at your peak. Karin Roon How tension affects personality? Tension affects personality in the following ways: (1) It fosters a sense of inferiority. (2) It develops a negative mental attitude. (3) It leads to the danger of becoming Napoleon-type which attempts to compensate for small size by too much drive and too great an expenditure of energy. (4) It inhibits concentration and through the confusion of nerve impulses makes a person all mixed up mentally so that he finds it difficult to make decisions. (5) Tension encourages the chronic worrier because worry grows out of unfinished problems and the inability to make decisions. (6) Tension leads to delinquency and to crime. (7) Tension creates frustration. (8) Tension can frequently cause personality distortions. Habits of a tense person A tense peson has the following cluster of habits: (1) He wets his lips with the tip of his tongue. (2) He clamps his teeth hard together while working or reading. (3) He bites his nails. (4) He is a pencil tapper. (5) He performs a drum beat with his fingers on the arm of his chair.
(6) He frowns most of the time. (7) He constantly glances at his wrist-watch. (8) He has acquired a tic around his mouth. (9) He cracks his knuckles. (10) He is a chain-smoker. Havoc of tension Tension plays havoc with our physical, mental and emotional health. It immobilises us and keeps us from living. It can bring ulcers, hypertension, cramps, tension headaches, backaches and the like. It makes us jittery. Tension as a whole-time state is a killer. Says a doctor, If you go through life under tension you are like an automobile racing its motor at full throttle, in high gear, with the clutch out and the brake on. Sooner or later something lets go and there are damned few spare parts to repair in a human body. When tension becomes dangerous Tension is a part of normal living and so long as it can be released, can often be an agreeable sensation. Itself not an evil, it can help to contribute to our great moments of happiness, buoyancy and achievement. A psychiatrist observes, Tension is not a bad thing in itself, but for a balanced life we require the alteration of tension and release, with intervening rest and relaxation. It is the continual stimulation of tension without release that is one of the biggest dangers of our over-active civilization. What is tension? Tension is defined as a condition arising out of the mobilisation of psycho-biological resources to meet a threat; physically it involves an increase in muscle tonus and other emergency changes, psychologically it is characterised by feelings of strain, uneasiness and anxiety. In simple terms tension is unreleased energy.
Causes of tension Tension can be physical, mental and emotional. It is caused by faulty physical habits or emotional maladjustment. According to an eminent psychologist, there are two basic reasons why tension builds up: In the first place, there is an influx of excitement that tends to go beyond tolerance. And in the second place, the opportunities for discharge of excitement are blocked. The excitement is locked up uneasily in the personality and breeds tension. If the incessant influx of excitement produces tension, equally it is true that the blocking of discharge of excitement (efflux) tends to maintain tension, and shows itself in neurosis. It is not the amount of work you are doing but the way you are doing that generates tension. A competent business executive, who had been working for 12 hours a day, was warned by a friend that his overwork would cause a breakdown. He replied, When you push your business, there is nothing to fear, as far as overwork is concerned. Its when the business pushes you that trouble starts. How to manage tension? Broadly speaking the management of overtension is simple. If the influx of your excitement is too great, and the efflux of your stimuli is limited or blocked, the solution is to limit and control the influx and to widen and facilitate the efflux. For instance if you are in a state of tension because shocks, alarms and crises constantly get at you, the only sensible course is to reduce the number of aisles that make your tension intolerable. At the same time you need to facilitate the efflux. In other words you need to unlock your personality and to express your emotions. For example, if you are tension-ridden as your boss has been irritating for months, it is about time you spoke to him in reality rather than waste sleepless hours at night ticking him off only in
imagination. Action In any tension charged situation action is a sure-fire remedy. Tension is a stimulus that calls for action because it can be discharged and its accompanying unpleasantness relieved by some kind of acivity. In this sense, tension functions as a powerful drive in its own right. Doing rings the bell. By overcoming your inertia and acting you can release tension. As Dr Dyer observes Action is the single most effective antidote to depression, anxiety, stress, fear, worry, guilt, and immobility. If you find yourself asking, Yes, but what can I do? The answer is really very simple. Anything is a lot more effective than nothing. The action-oriented person seldom suffers from over-tension. This old saying has a lot of truth in it: Even when youre on the right track, youll get run over if you just sit there. Tennyson wrote: I myself must mix with action lest I wither by despair. Walk it Out Walking is an excellent way to relieve tension. It tones up circulation and makes the body feel better. A psychologist advises, So, in this hectic fast-moving world, with its tensions and pressures, let us seize as often as we can the opportunities which walking affords for health and quietness of mind, and human fellowship. Talk it Out Talking out is a sound method of releasing fear and bottled up tension. The old saying getting it off your chest has a literal meaning. Talk to a person who will listen to you with sympathy and understanding. Dont Give Way to Despair In a situation of crisis, be calm, and strong, and patient. Meet frustration and failure with courage. Rise superior to the trials and turbulations of life, and never give in to hopelessness or despair. It
is time to keep on bravely. To the brave and resolute, to those with faith to believe and God-given strength to endure, there is one thing only to do ... plod on and on and on, advises Francis Gay. With a positive outlook on life, say to yourself, Certainly it can be done and I can do it. We were born to succeed not to fail. Overcoming Sense of Inferiority Study the situation, estimate why you feel inferior and then try to rectify the situation. Realised that there is no such thing as an inferior person. If you find a difficulty in facing, some situation, you can always take Dr Weekes advice and float into it. Let life carry you instead of struggling to force yourself. Here are five tips for overcoming the sense of inferiority: (1) Get to know yourselfyour weaknesses and your strength. (2) Build up the image of yourself succeeding. (3) Minimize the difficulties. (4) Dont be afraid of other people but learn to appreciate them. (5) Do your best and leave the rest. Relaxation Apart from the above strategies there is another way of releasing your tension. It is that of cultivating the habit of relaxation. Indeed as Dr D.H. Fink has it: Learning how to relax is an important step towards better living. Relaxation not only prevents disease and increases your energy but it also enables you to think clearly and it frees the personality. It gives you a sense of aliveness. Relaxation means more than supple muscles and freedom from fatigue. It means the ability to bend with the storm, to adjust yourself to unforeseen difficulties. For with this flexibility comes self-reliance, a freedom from the fear of the future which spoils today for many people. Only a person relaxed physically, mentally and emotionally is the fulfilled happy person. Observes Dr Rogers Vittoz, When the
human personality is completely freedthat is when the mind, emotions and body are working in harmonythe person is not only without fear but is also able to make decisions easily and frequently taps a source of creative ability of which he was completely unaware. He is then happy. Three Ways to Relax There are three kinds of relaxation: (1) physical, (2) emotional and (3) philosophical. If you practise them they are yours for they will reduce unwanted tension to the minimum. (1) Physical Relaxation: Throw yourself on a bed two or three times a day and let yourself go limp like an old sock. Really limp I mean. The catnappers probably have the most valuable approach to physical relaxation. Edison, Roosevelt and Churchill were masters of the art of cat-napping. As Dr C.W. Dail has pointed out diversionattending cricket games, reading exciting books, going on long trips in the automobile and the likeis not true relaxation. Most of these activities tend to excite and produce muscular tension and loss of sleep. It is difficult to imagine a person relaxed while attending an exciting sports event or while enthusiastic about some hobby. True relaxation consists of perfect muscular rest. In it there is not even a muscular flicker. There is complete muscular rest with tendency to sleep. The best example of muscular relaxation is seen in a baby soon after he falls asleep in your arms. His arms, legs and neck are limp and he feels heavy and difficult to handle. Your aim should be to relax your whole body perfectly during sleep and rest. (2) Emotional Relaxation: Dont take your worries to bed. Pour down the drain all your irksome injustices, your resentments, jealousies and possessiveness, and cultivate a positive attitude. Says a psychologist, We hug our negative feelings to ourselves because we are afraid that without them we shall be nothing. We shall not exist. But it we put positive-mindedness in place of our poisonous resentPersonality and YOU 56
ments, we not only lose our tensions but we discover a new world of serenity and enjoyment. Dr John A. Schindler advises: When you catch yourself starting a thought that will produce a stressing emotion like worry, anxiety, fear, apprehension, discouragement or the like, STOP IT, and substitute thinking that brings a healthy emotion like equanimity, resignation, courage, determination and cheerfulness. Negative thinking weakens and poisons the psyche; positive thinking heals, strengthens, relaxes and enlivens the psyche. (3) Philosophical Relaxation: Dont be the prisoner of despair, fear and pessimism. Things need never remain the same. Relax into the philosophical awareness that attitudes, not circumstances, create events. If at the same time you can let go of self pity, bitterness and possessiveness, you will find yourself in a world that has no use for tension. The importance of personal hope and trust cannot be over-emphasized. Regardless of your circumstances you can still decide to think hopefully. Prisoners who have survived affirm the importance of a willingness to always think hopefully. William Nichous who rescued from more than three years imprisonment in a Venezuelan jungle where he was held by rebels in the most primitive conditions attributed his survival to never abandoning hope and living one day at a time. Hope is upto you and it comes from deciding to trust yourself. Always look ahead with hopefulness. That is the point. And as Casson puts it, You cant be beaten unless you surrender.
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Get Out of the Comparison Trap

Endemic Disease Comparing yourself with others to determine how you should conduct your own life is an endemic disease in the world. It takes a lot of self-confidence for people to consult their internal resources to determine what they want to do, and when people dont have that self-esteem, they use the only other standards availablecomparisons with others. Following ones own bent is a tough job. To be nobody but myself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting. How easy it is to follow the crowd and take refuge in gregariousness. Two Games There are two games in the comparison trap : the game of selfcomparison and the game of allowing yourself to be compared. The first is a destructive art; the second, still more destructive. Self-comparison is virtually a universal malady, afflicting all but the toughest of resisters. You look outward for your behavioural cues and consequently comparison-vision dictates most of your judgements. How do you know that you are intelligent?you compare yourself to others. How do you know if you are stable? Charming? Poised? Successful? Actualized?by checking out how others around you are doing and then deciding where you fit in the comparison scale. Cooley calls a social self of this sort the reflected or looking-glass self: Each to each a looking-glass Reflects the other that doth pass
The looking-glass self, in other words, is the persons self-image which is formed on the basis of perceiving how others react towards him. A recent research study indicates that high-status persons tend to get cues from others that further enhance their high status; low status persons tend to get cues from others that further depress their low status. The self of a high-status person is reflected from a magnifying glass, that of a low status person from a reducing looking-glass. The self-comparison game is deadly because in it your assessments of yourself are always controlled by something outside you which you cannot regulate. It deprives you of internal security as you cannot be certain how others assess you. You are robbed of your individuality and by playing the sedulous ape to others you become a lost and hopeless victim of the pernicious gamea sort of copy cat or a discreet sheep. You dont have to be a compulsive non-conformist who looks at the way people conform and sets out to be exactly the opposite. You have to use your inner commonsense, when it comes to deciding what you want, without needing to be like everybody else if only because you are a unique personality and couldnt be just like all the others even if you really wanted to be. You must outgrow your pernicious self-comparison habits and develop internal standards to evaluate your life and its style. Even deadlier is the game of allowing yourself to be compared by others. They play a variety of comparison games to keep you from realizing your objectives or to manipulate you into doing what they want you to do. They use such sentences to keep you from reaching your own goals: Why arent you more like...? Why cant you be like your father? This is what God wants you to do. They want it this way. They dont allow that. Thats the way they do things. Be on the alert: dont walk into these traps. Einstein once said, Great spirits have always encountered vioPersonality and YOU 59
lent opposition from mediocre minds. As a psychologist has it, If you want to achieve your own greatness, youll have to use your self as your first and last consultant. Avoid Hero Worship Be your own hero. Dont expect to be like any one else. A French proverb has it, To compare is not to prove. As George Santayana puts it, Comparison is the expedient of those who cannot reach the heart of things compared. Preserve your identity. That way lies fulfilment. Man is always an individual, but he is not always himself, says Jung. Be yourself. Shakespeare has the last word on the need to avoid the comparison trap: To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. Avoiding the comparison trap is essential to the development of personality which means fidelity to the laws of ones being. As Jung observes perceptively: Personality can never develop unless the individual chooses his own way, consciously and with moral deliberation. While the conformists follow, they never create. The non-conformist alone is a creative person. He is an inner-directed person, rather than an other-directed or tradition-directed person. He does not walk on the well-trodden path; he blazes a new trail. Have a good look at yourself and your very personal aspirations, and appreciate the absurdity of running your life on the basis of comparisons with others. People who are interested in having you to be as they are, or as they want you to be, will repeatedly remind you of how others are doing things to give you solid examples to follow. Resist their suggestions and your own temptation to look outside yourself for model. Comparisons make no Sense Comparisons in fact make no sense, for two reasons: you are unique in the world and you are always alone.
There is only one YOU and you take that YOU wherever you go. No one is even remotely like you in terms of your innermost feelings, thoughts and desires. Life, says Jung, is always an exception, a statistical random sample. It is so because it is always the life of an individual who is a distinct, unique and inimitable being and not life in general since there is no such thing. In the light of this notion it hardly makes sense that you should use anyones example as a reason for your doing or not doing anything. In spite of all pressure on you and the constant reminders that you must be like other folk, you can never do it. You will still perceive, think and feel in your own unique way. As a grown up, ultimately each one of you is alone. No one can do for you what you must do for yourself: You got to walk that lonesome valley, You got to walk it by yourself; No body else can walk it for you, You got to walk it by yourself. No other solution will do. Your inevitable existential aloneness means that your human existence is inescapably predicated on your being along with your unique feelings and thoughts. Existential aloneness can be a source of great strength as well as a source of big trouble. Whenever you are tempted to use other peoples lives as models of how you should run your own, think of this line by Ibsen: The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone. Must you conform? The answer is a resounding No! As Robert M. Linder puts it, Man is a rebel. He is committed by his biology not to conform. Give free play to your individuality. Follow your own bent of mind no matter what other people say. Never follow the crowd. Design your own life style and follow it with calm self-confidence, and creative courage.
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Step Out from Your Erroneous Zone

There could be more than one erroneous zones for an individual. He may be aware of some, unaware of others. One person may be handicapped because of his unhappy past, regrets gnawing at his heart. Another may feel hurt because he has not achieved what he wanted because of his laziness or insufficient zeal and effort. Others have identified their erroneous zones as inability to identify their goals properly. Yet others may have wasted precious time and energy seeking others approval which was not needed. Some could not break away from the past or free themselves from wasting emotions like worry and guilt. There could be some who procrastinated beyond what was necessary. Some suffered from security complex and remained tied to the present stagnation. While most remain undeveloped because they do not have the enough courage to break loose from convention. The erroneous zones could be multiplied. These could form separate themes for further issues. The most significant, however elementary it might seem or sound, is ones failure to take charge of ones self. The drifter, like the waif on the turbulent waters of the sea, does not reach anywhere. You have to take charge of yourself. Stop being a drifter, a waif. There are powerful reasons for it. Dr W.W. Dyer gives an excellent reason which cannot be improved upon. Look over your shoulder. You will notice a constant companion. For want of a better name, call him your-owndeath. You can fear this visitor or use him for personal gain. The choice is up to you. ...... Death is inevitable, certain as well as it keeps no time-table. Even if it does, we mortals know nothing about it. Now, life being uncertain and short, should you remain at the mercy of circumstances.
Others? Not do things which you want to do? The point is: you can let death make you ineffectual or use it to help you learn effectively. The next time you think about yourself and your priorities, you will think of taking charge of yourself. Make your own choices. Here is a useful tip: Ask yourself: How long am I going to be dead? Most people ask themselves: How long they are going to live? See the point? The first question will awaken you from your mental stupor, put you on trail of success and achievement. You will shed crippling doubts and fears. If you do not, the alternative is obvious. You will live all your life the way others say you must. If your stay on this earth is so brief, it should be yours and you should be able to put it to the best use. When you prepare yourself to take charge of yourself, you will be confronted with several mental ghosts which will begin to haunt you. You have to look them straight in the face and bury them. The most haunting will be the notion that intelligence is measured by ones ability to solve complicated problems. To read, write and compute at fast speed which will astonish others and flatter you. You may also think that solution of abstract equations is yet another. In other words, you have been nursed on the notion that intelligence involves formal education, bookish excellence and a measure of achievement. It encourages a kind of intellectual snobbery. It is bound to rub you the wrong way. Let the opportunity arise. You will be deflated. Lets have a look around. It is commonly believed that a person who has a staggering memory, has mastered one subject or has a sponge like mind remembering dates, time etc. of superfluous events is very intelligent. Shed this notion. It is not accumulation of such information that counts. It is its right application. A true index of intelligence is an effective, useful life lived from moment to moment. You must have come across scores of people who are unable to overcome some personality minus points all their life. For example, a neurotic remains a neurotic. He continues to spread unhappiness,
is suspicious, thinks that the whole world is hostile to him. What happens to him ultimately? He suffers from a nervous breakdown. The reason? He has not taken charge of himself. He lives on others thinking. He has not emerged from his particular erroneous zone. The astonishing truth is there is no breakdown because the nerves do not break. People who have stepped out from their erroneous zones, do not suffer from nervous breakdowns because they have taken charge of themselves. Their nerves are under their control, not vice versa. They remain in control of themselves because they are in full awareness of their potential. They know how to ward of depression. It might surprise you to learn that this does not necessarily mean solving their problems in a jiffy or with a magic wand. Not the least. Rather than measuring their intelligence on the basis of whether they can solve a problem or not, they do it on the basis of whether they can keep their balance in the face of it or not. Do they succeed? Watch people carefully. Successful people do keep this balance. Dr Dyer says, You can begin to think of yourself as truly intelligent on the basis of how you choose to feel in the face of trying circumstances. With some variations here and there each one of us has to face problems whose nature is not very different. Conflicts, sorrows, deaths, disease, injury, disagreements, frustration and failure are common to us all. How is that despite this some people are able to steer clear of unhappiness and dejection that stem from these circumstances while others buckle down and sink in blues? Those people who have conditioned their thinking in such a way that look upon problems as human condition and do not measure happiness by an absence of problems are the most intelligent. When you decide to take charge of yourself, you will have to recast your thinking. Additionally, there are always forces working against the individual in society. Hence the task is not easy but it is not impossible. The only sure way is to put faith in your own ability to feel emotionally whatever you choose to feel at any time in your life. This may read sensational. Because you must have been
nursed on thinking that you cannot control emotions because they are natural. They just happen as day and night and nobody can do a thing about them. It is not necessary to control them. It is absolutely necessary to accept them. Suppose death may occur. What happens. What are your options? Feeling sorrow is natural. Emotion is justified. But if you refuse to accept the unhappy event you will find yourself wasting away without knowing what is happening to you. You have not controlled death You have not controlled sorrow. Yet you have come out of it unscathed. What is the logical consequence of this reasoning? It is simple: feelings are not just emotions which occur to us. These are reactions we have conditioned ourselves to produce for given situations. It is up to us. We can choose destructive, negative reactions. We can choose positive encouraging reactions. Two youngmen sit in a prestigious examination. Both fail. One commits suicide, the other tries again and succeeds. See the difference! It is absolutely important for you to know that you can choose your reactions. That is taking charge of yourself. That is emerging from your erroneous zone. Direct advantages flow from your realisation that you can choose your reactions. The most important is that even without bookish excellence you would be called and known as intelligent. There is a compelling need to control your thinking apparatus. You alone control the entry of thoughts into your mind. You are the sentinel guarding your mental gates. If you think, it is untrue, ask yourself who is then? Is it your shadow? Your father, mother, friends or what? If any of these are guarding your mental gates, you are unguarded. You have not taken charge of yourself. One can draw only one sure and irrefutable conclusion from the foregoing: if you control your thoughts (your feelings stem from them) then you are capable of controlling your feelings too. The control over feelings does not begin directly. It begins from working on your thoughts. Thoughts come first. Many a time you must have thought that certain situations, things or individuals hurt or make you unhappy. Nothing could be more misleading. Your hurt, your unhappiness stems not from them
but from your thoughts about them. That is why betrayal from a stranger does not hurt you but betrayal from a friend does. Simply, it is because you have thoughts about the friend that he would be faithful. Had you nursed yourself on the thought that he could let you down any time, there would be no hurt. Shedding your complexes, stepping out from your erroneous zone means becoming a free and mentally, emotionally healthy person. It involves adopting a different thinking approach. Once you embark upon the interesting journey of changing your thoughts, your new feelings will begin to emerge and you will have taken the most vital and significant step towards emerging from your erroneous zone.
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Discover Your Creative Channels

One great secret of success and achievement, often overlooked, is creative visualization. This is a broad term. It is a process by which you can consciously create your own reality and can create it the way you want. In fact, creative visualization is something which most of us do in our daily life almost each minute. Think for yourself. Is it not a fact that your mind is filled with an endless succession of images and thoughts? You are constantly projecting these images onto the world, creating your experiences. It is a serious fallacy to think that this creative visualization is rather hard to acquire. On the contrary, it is quite easy. The first requisite is an open, receptive mind. You must clear the decks of your mind for further action. The simple technique employed here is to consciously choose mentally acceptable images. If necessary, these have to be created. But you must choose or create those images which you want to manifest clearly in your life. The next step is to project them with confidence and self-assurance. The entire exercise besides being profitable is highly pleasurable. It is almost like creating a golden dream and then putting it into practice. It is not important how clearly you see the mental image because you may also hear, sense or just feel what you are creating. By picturing or sensing what you want to manifest in life, you are, during the course of your thinking and living, attracting those very forms to yourself. These images can be called the blue-prints of your creative thinking. S. Gawain, an eminent authority on the subject says: This image magnetizes and guides the energy of the universe to flow into the form you are creating, and eventually it manifests on the physical plane.
In simple terms, you attract into your lives whatever you think about the most. What you believe in. The world is here to give you what you want provided you make the right amount of effort in the right direction. You can, in your own limited way, have a sense of perfection. This is possible only when you change your beliefs and thought-patterns. You have to work on dissolving your self-made limitations. It is pertinent to ask: why do many people fail to create positive visualization? Why do they impose on themselves miserable, shrunken and negative lives? The answer is plain and simple: you get into your life whatever dominates your thinking. Call it visualization. To go a step further ahead, it may be said that this visualization means whatever you think of yourself at the deepest level. It is an amazing phenomenon of nature and human psychology that the positive manifests in your life straight but the negative does it indirectly. If you are negative and afraid, lack self-assurance and are ridden with anxiety, you will attract the very situations you are seeking to prevent. It may be equally or more surprising to know that many of us have a difficult time accepting what we want because we adopt limiting beliefs about ourselves right from the early stages of our life. If you want creative visualization to be an operative factor in your life, you should be willing to accept the best. Nothing short of it. Another pertinent question is: what can one do when the phenomenon refuses to work? Lets prevent the negative. This should be viewed as an opportunity for development, for getting closer to those forces which transform human life. It is these forces which have lifted millions of so-called ordinary mortals and converted them into immortals. One need not give examples. There is another dimension to it. Think cool. Review your visualization. You may be pursuing goals which are opposed to your creative visualization. You may be striving foolishly hard to create something not in harmony with your real essence. Even if your objectives are in harmony with your real essence, there could be other limitations. For example, you may be nursing
feelings of unworthiness about your own self. It is quite possible that you have accumulated negative attitudes on life itself. Your ideas about people might be equally discouraging. All these factors taken together prevent the desired visualization. Nonetheless, it is possible to get beyond their crippling effects. You must be willing first and then make the necessary effort to go past such barriers. You can certainly become bigger than your difficulties. Another serious setback or danger you are likely to face involves defaulting on your responsibility system. Without your knowing you could be acting is irresponsible manner. Or you could be avoiding things which need immediate attention. Unconscious procrastination in a serious problem. It may read far fetched but it is a telling psychological reality that you could be mistreating yourself. Your visualization could be correct and high but if you are not treating yourself well, your creativity is bound to suffer. You have to be equally considerate to your intuitive self. For, this is the part of your being which feels and is really receptive. If the intuition tells you to go ahead with something and you go on ignoring its dictate, you reduce your creative potential. This is a potentially vast area where lots of people trip. They have lofty ideals and aspirations but in actual conduct of themselves they do not treat themselves as well as they should. In other words, even if you visualize the best but treat yourself in an unworthy fashion, you are setting counter-currents to your own creative ability. Unless you honour your whole self, the manifestation of creativity will not be whole. Modern scientific research has discovered that the two hemispheres of the human brain perform two separate functions. The left one is for thought which is concerned with rationality, activity, masculinity and is out-going. The right one, on the other hand, is involved with what may be called ferminine. It deals with intuition and feeling. If you want to cash on the creativity to the optimum, you have to use both hemispheres equally well. If you do not listen to your intuition, you run the risk of clogging your creative channels.
You are aided by an infinite intelligence which is ever at your beck and call. But sometimes you must be willing to let go of your own ego-plans to let the powerful force shape itself. Since the mind has two sidesmasculine and feminineboth should be allowed to play their respective parts. The rational or the masculine part seldom inspires. It acts as a kind of censor board over the feminine or the intuitive part. It is the latter which originates ideas. Lest these impulses should play havoc, the censor board begins to operate by checking, correcting, analysing and applying brakes. Thus it is essential for you to have a trusting relationship with your intuitive self so that you are not misled by wayward impulses. Let the impulses be originated, then rationally processed by the masculine part. This effective balance will result in maximum utilization of your crativity. This will be your creative channel. You must be on guard against two conflicts. The first is that supporting the intuitive channel in the physical world means asserting yourself. Often people who develop the channel tend to withdraw from life failing to assert themselves. Withdrawal from the physical, wrapping yourself in a cocoon in order to safeguard this energy will result in stoppage of the source itself. The well-springs of creative channels once found should not be permitted to rest. Or they will begin to rust. Once they close off, it will be difficult to recharge them. Last, do not confuse creative channels and their use with hackneyed phrase positive thinking. The two are vastly different in concept and application. In positive thinking, there is an attempt to eliminate negative thinking, and replacing it with brighter thoughts. In creative-channel process, you need not struggle against negative thoughts. Experience them, instead. The main stress is on discovering the hidden creativity and putting it to the maximum use. This is the know-how of latest in creativity which can be termed as the technology of the soul.
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Its Human to have Troubles

You cannot stop the birds of trouble from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from making nests in your hair. Chinese Proverb We All have Our Troubles All of us have troublessome problemsemotional ups and downscaused by lifes frustrations, money problems, job worries and a host of other kinds of frustrations. Rich or poor, troubles, come to all of us. No one knows with certainty from one day to the next just what the next day will bring. Life is very unpredictable. The fact that none can feel totally secure in anything subjects us to a common frustration. We are all in the same boat trying to make the most of life, adopting ourselves to each changing situation. Duty to Survive Lifes Troubles True, many of us bring on our own misfortune. But it is also true that many of us often become the innocent victims of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Assuming the philosophical attitude that any one at any time can suddenly be confronted with a serious problem because of unforeseen circumstances makes us realize that no one is exempt from lifes frustrations: Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upwards. We can only be held responsible for those troubles which we have deliberately brought on ourselves, due to faulty judgement or some other reason. While we are all capable of making serious mistakes the important thing is profit from our said experiences. We cannot always zigzag from lifes difficulties. When troubles come to us, and often
they come not single spies but in battalions it is only natural that we should have our moods of depression and discouragement. It is only human to find ourselves in trouble and reacting to it with temporary despondency. Nevertheless to remain continually in the doldrums because of some major frustration is an emotional reaction that is morbid and capable of making you sicker than you would ever want to be. As Martin Gray says in his A Book of Life (1975) Lifes pendulum swings between darkness and light, despair and hope, torment and peace. Life has always to be reconquered. All existence is a struggle; life is simply winning through. Are You a Chronic Worrier? By worry we mean an abnormal concern over something existing or something unpleasant you fear may happen to you. It is defined as being immobilized in the present as a result of things going or not going to happen in the future. It is a contrivance that keeps you immobilized in the now about something in the future frequently something over which you have no control. Abnormal worry is frequently the root of unrelieved depression and unhappiness. A chronic worrier dissipates his energy because the things he worries about seldom happen. As Dr Lloyd Foster aptly puts it, To worry is as foolish and wasteful as driving ones car into the garage and leaving the motor running all night. A tremendous amount of energy would be consumed, but the car would not be going anywhere. Excessive worry can bring ulcers, hypertension, cramps, headaches, and the like. It destroys health : it can cause premature ageing. It is a form of self-torment. The famous Dejerine of Paris said, In our lives there are mountains and molehills, but in the lives of neurasthenics there are ony mountains. Worry Test Dr Caprio has formulated the following worry test. It will enable you to gain some inkling as to whether you are a chronic worrier. Ask yourself the following questions. Check the Yes or No column. If the majority of your checks are Yes answers, you no doubt have the personality of neurotic worrier:
Questions (1) Do you bring your work troubles home? Yes/No (2) Are you constantly pre-occupied with Health problems? Yes/No (3) Does the least emotional stress give you a feeling of butterflies in your stomach? Yes/No (4) Do you go from doctor to doctor trying to find out whats wrong with you? Yes/No (5) Are you overly cautious about everything? Yes/No (6) Do you take a pessimistic view about most things? Yes/No (7) Are you inclined to make mountains of mole-hills? Yes/No (8) Are you over-concerned about what other people think? Yes/No (9) Are you continually worried about the welfare of members of your family? Yes/No (10) Do you dwell on past mistakes? Yes/No (11) Do you worry about going insane, dying or developing cancer? Yes/No (12) Do you lack confidence in the future? Yes/No (13) Are you superstitious? Yes/No (14) Do you worry about God punishing you? Yes/No (15) Are you a perfectionist? Yes/No (16) Were you brought up by parents who worried to excess? Yes/No (17) Have you always been serious-minded? Yes/No (18) Are you over-sensitive to criticism, easily offended, and addicted to brooding over slights? Yes/No (19) Can you trace your worry habit to some painful frustration in the past? Yes/No (20) Do you worry about everyday responsibilities? Yes/No (21) Do you worry about the kind of impression
you make on other people? (22) Do you constantly talk about the things that worry you to those around you? (23) Must you be constantly reassured that nothing will happen to you? (24) Are you dependent on others to solve your troubles? (25) Do you worry excessively about other peoples troubles and misfortunes? (26) Are your imagined fear associated with something you have read or heard? (27) Are you over-suspicious and doubt the integrity of your friends? (28) Are your money troubles a constant source of worry? (29) Do you have a compulsive need to worry? (30) Are you the type to bite off more than you can chew and then worry about it? (31) Do you lack a sense of humour? (32) Are you afraid to enjoy life?
Yes/No Yes/No Yes/No Yes/No Yes/No Yes/No Yes/No Yes/No Yes/No Yes/No Yes/No Yes/No
How to Manage Your Troubles? Here are some psychologically sound techniques for the management of your day-to-day troubles and frustrations: Dont Cross a Bridge till You come to it That is to say, dont worry about something before it has happened. Your fears may be groundless, for it may never happen. Remember: Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. Dont think about you all the time If you do so your troubles are likely to get out of hand. Molehills will grow into mountains, and any setback will be seen as more of an obstacle than it actually is. It is necessary to look beyond yourself. Then you recognize for instance that you are not the only person experiencing the loneliness of the hospital bed, or the aching
emptiness of bereavement, or the cruel frustration of another failure, or the nagging pain of unavoidable frustration. Dont ever be too sorry for yourself. Every minute of every day, somewhere, some one lands in trouble similar to yours. You are not the only target of trouble. Convince yourself that every problem has a solution Every situational problem has a proper solution. It is just a matter of being patient and finding the right answer to your situational-problem, by study and planning. Dont leap in the dark Think carefully before you act. People are easily frustrated when they allow themselves to act on an impulse. Act with clear understanding to avoid disappointment. Haste makes waste runs the old saying, and waste makes want, and want makes strife between the good man and his wife. If you must hasten, hasten slowly. Dont be a Perfectionist Perfectionists are disposed to be easily frustrated because they expect too much of themselves and others. They are too idealistic and less realistic. Says Bertrand Russell, Real life is, to most men, a long second-besta perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible. Perfection spells immobility or paralysis. Dont Look for Trouble An optimist and pessimist went into business together. Trade flourished. Well, said the optimist, Weve had a wonderful month. It has been one constant run of customers. Yeah, agreed the pessimist dourly, We have had some good business. But look at those front doors! If people keep shoving through them, the hinges will be out in another week. Dont meet trouble half-way. Talk Out Your Problems Talk out your problems with someone you think can help you. Merely talking things over with someone provides an outlet for fear and tension. Never be too proud or shy to seek outside help.
Simplify Your Life Dont deliberately invite complications that will cause worry and anxiety. Learn to Live Now Learn to live in the present and not waste your current moments in immobilizing thoughts about the past or future. There is no other moment to live but now, says Dr Dyer. Lewis Carroll in his Alice Through the Looking-Glass speaks about living in the present: The rule is jam less tomorrow and jam yesterday ... but never jam today. It must come sometimes to jam today Alice objected. How about you? Any jam today? Since it must come sometimes, how about now? At the same time dont look too far ahead. Live one day at a time. Make the best and most of here and now. Worry-killer Question Ask yourself this worry eradicating question, Whats the worst thing that could happen to me (or them) and what is the likelihood of it occurring? You will discover the absurdity of worry in this way. You cannot please Everybody You cannot always please everyone. To run into people who dislike you, is to be expected. Accept rejection stoically. Be Practical Be strictly practical and down-to-earth about your troubles. Accept them as a challenge to your courage, guts and ingenuity. Lift of Laughter When things go wrong try the lift of laughter. Think of something to smile or laugh about. Use your sense of humour when you need it most. Dont take yourself and your problems so seriously that you cannot stand back and view the absurdity of taking anything so solemnly. Appreciate the immense value of humour, says H.N. Casson, No man ever laughed himself mad; but millions have laughed themselves into sense and sanity.
Power Within Sell yourself the idea that you have a power within you that will help you to meet your adversities courageouslythat will enable you to surmount any obstacle. There are still potentialities in you that you cannot even feel, says M. Malinski in his One Daily Bread (1979). You are capable of deeds you never thought of in your wildest dreams. Greatness slumbers within you. Have confidence in yourself. Control Your Emotions Learn to control your emotions. Coping with your day-to-day frustrations successfully depends on how well you can control your emotions. Act Action is the single most effective antidote for depression, worry and tension. It is virtually impossible to be depressed and active at the same time. If you decide to do something about your problem rather than grumbling about it, you will be on the road to changing things around yourself. If about your situational-problem you find asking yourself, Yes, but what can I do? the answer is really very simple. Anything is lots better than nothing. Be an actionoriented person. Your troubles will pass away if you overcome your inertia and act in the spirit of old song. Here We are! Here We Are Again Here we are! here we are!! here we are again!!! Theres Pat and Mac and Tommy and Jack and Joe When theres trouble brewing, When theres something doing, Are we down-hearted No! Letem all come! (Charles Knight) Trying is all. Never stop trying. It is not given to man to know the worth of his efforts. His business as a man is to try (W.J. Gardner). Say yes to trying, yes to striving, yes to attempting.
He Who Will not Reason .......

Homo sapiens, the only creature endowed with reason is also the only creature to pin its existence on things unreasonable. Henry Bergon The Queen of All Things Reason is supposed to be queen and mistress of all things, yet most of us dont listen to it. We are guided by emotions and not by reason. Instead of making a wise use of it we flee in panic from it, as from a dragon. Reasoning is our best guide in charting our course of life. Without this guiding lamp we fall into many errors. As Will Durant has it, A life without reasoning is unworthy of man; it is better to be Socrates in prison than Caliban on the throne. Reasoning saves us from bigotry, folly and intellectual slavery. As William Drummond puts it, He who will not reason, is a bigot; he who cannot, is a fool; and he who dares not, is a slave. But What is Reasoning? Reasoning is realistic thinking which helps us to adjust to the real world. It is contrasted with autistic thinking which is as an end in itself and not as a means to an end. Fantasy, dreams, and wishful thinking, are all examples of autistic thinking. Fantasies and dreams do not stand up very well in the light of everyday reality. Often an individual who is dissatisfied with his everyday life has day-dreams of success and gratification. Positive harm is done when these daydreams become so satisfying that the individual no longer seeks real achievement.
There are three kinds of reasoning: Deductive Reasoning: Deductive reasoning is the kind of reasoning exemplified by the syllogism: If A is true and B is true, then C follows necessarily. It is inferring from premises or propositions representing already known facts. Inductive Reasoing: In inductive reasoning the thinker builds from the known to the unknown; it is inference from the particular to the general. Evaluative Reasoning: A third kind of reasoning is evaluating judging the soundness or appropriateness of an idea or product. Critical thinking is evaluative reasoning. Basic Mistakes In every kind of reasoning some basic mistakes arise inevitably. They are a natural part of the process of thinking. For sound and valid reasoning it is necessary to identify these mistakes and to correct them. Edward De Bono has listed five such fundamental mistakes. These are: The Monorail Mistake: The monorail mistake involves going directly from one idea to an other in an inevitable manner, and ignoring all qualifying factors. Examples are: The cat has been out in the rain and is soaking wet. Ill pop her in the spin-dryer for a few minutes because that is how Mummy dries wet things. These pills are red and must be sweets, says a child helping himself to a handful of iron tablets from the cabinet. The monorail mistake thus occurs when you follow a single track from one idea to another: Wetspin-dryer. Redsweets. Such mistakes are simple minded mistakes: Taxes are unfairlets abolish them. We want more moneylets strike for more money. Teachers are there to teachso teachers know more about
teaching than any one else. Professors are cleverso what he says must be right. The best way to correct this type of mistake is to accept the idea but follow it further. Instead of saying, You cannot put the wet cat in the spin-dryer because that is for clothes, you say, If you put the cat in the spin-dryer, the cat will die. The Magnitude Mistake: Here the idea is right but the magnitude is wrong. For example: Mummy, you need not buying anything for dinner because Daddy has just caught a fish. Well clear up crime in the streets by putting more policemen on the beat. The movement from the idea of the fish to the idea of eating it for dinner is perfectly valid but the magnitude may be all wrong if the fish caught by Daddy happens to be a two inch tiddler. Similarly it is obvious that more policemen will stop crime but three extra policemen would not make enough difference and it might be necessary to more than double the police force. Measurement is the tool to cope with the magnitude mistake. Put a teaspoonful of shampoo into a cupful of water is quite different from Put the shampoo in water. Daddy has faught a fishwe can all eat it for dinner, may be right if Daddy has indeed caught a big enough fish or it could be horribly wrong if Daddy is not so skilful. The Misfit Mistake: In a misfit mistake, the idea does not actually fit with the situation. For example, you are walking down the street and you recognize the back-view of some one you know very well. The back of his head is unmistakeable and the suit is one he often wears. You quicken your pace and draw level only to find it is a total stranger. In this instance something is recognized as being familiar but actually turns out to be something quite different. It is a misfit mistake because the idea of what something is does not fit with reality. You do not wait until you have listed every possible feature before you jump to a conclusion. The way to correct this type of mistake is to notice all possible features of a situation before coming to a conclusion. For Example, if you had noticed that the man in the street ahead of you had rings
on his fingers than at once you would have known it could not have been your friend. If you base a conclusion on all the available information then that conclusion is as valid as it can be in the circumstances. The Must-be Mistake: This is the arrogance mistakethe fixation of an idea by arrogant certainty. The fault is not in the idea itself but in the way it is held or imposed on other people. It is a mistake in the future rather than in the past. It stops the evolution of an idea; shuts out the possibility of other ideas. It is also related to personality and training. Examples: As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines. (Macaulay) There is no genius without a mixture of madness. (Seneca) The minority is always in the right. (Ibsen) (Why, there may be a minority of stagnationists, as Ibsen himself confessed later.) The way to overcome this mistake is to eliminate or minimize arrogance. As Voltaire warned, Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one. Nietzsche once wrote: This is my way ... What is your way? The way does not exist. It is a fitting motto for those who want to eliminate some of the arrogance which leads to paralysing rigidity in thinking. The Miss-out Mistake: This mistake arises when one considers only part of a situation and applies the conclusion drawn from it to the whole situation. Examples: Friends might sympathize with a wife whose husband has run away and roundly condemn the irresponsibility of the man. They would over-look the fact that she had driven him away by her nagging. A photograph of a policeman hitting a man with a lathi may be used as an evidence of police brutality which is what it looks like. What may be missed out is the fact that the man has knife with
which he has just attacked the policeman. It is impossible to tell this from the photograph. The mistake can be overcome when you look at only a part of the situation and do not assume that you are looking at the whole. If you look at a part of situation and accept that it is only part, then there is no mistake. To come to a valid conclusion about a situation look at it steadily and see it whole. Rationalizing Desire An other basic mistake in the process of reasoning consists in putting the premium not on evidence but on subtlety. Then it becomes like written history, a mere advocate of any poweful desire. Reason may be only the technique of rationalizing desire; for the most part we do not do things because we have reasons for them, but because we find reasons for them; because we want to do them. We must be on our guard against being communists because we are poor, or conservatives because our ship is in. As Bertrand Russell has it so well, What we need is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite. Typically rationalizing involves thinking up logical and socially approved reasons for our past, present or proposed behaviour. With a little effort we can soon justify to ourselves the absolute necessity of buying a new car, of watching T.V. instead of studying or even of marrying some one with whom we are not in love. Often we manage not only to justify our behaviour, but actually to feel righteous about it. Thus Hitler saw the liquidation of Jews not as reprehensible but a noble crusade. There are two additional types of rationalizationthe sour grapes and sweet lemon mechanisms. The sour-grapes mechanism is based on the fable of the fox who, unable to reach clusters of luscious grapes, decided that they were sour and not worth having anyway. Similarly we may point out that the girl we couldnt get talks too much and will probably lose her figure at an early age. As Aronson and Carlsmith point out, one way of reducing the discrepancy between our assumptions of what is desirable and our failure
to take action is to convince ourselves that the particular goal object is really desirable at all. The sweet lemon mechanism is an extension of the sour grape mechanism. Not only is the unattainable not worthwhile, but what we have is remarkably satisfactory. Thus we find comfort in poverty, for money is the root of all evil. More generalized attitudes are: Every cloud has a silver lining and Everything happens for the best. There is also the sweet lemon philosophy of J.M. Barrie: Not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do is the secret of happiness. Although rationalizations are logical they are generally based on false premises. If an individual relies too much on them, he may develop unrealistic ways of dealing with life.
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He Who makes no Mistakes makes Nothing

Probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. Samuel Smiles. Fear of Making Mistakes Do not be afraid of making mistakes. The person who is so careful that he never makes a mistake is unlikely to achieve anything of real value. The man who never makes mistakes loses a great many chances to learn something. You cant get through this world without making mistakes. The fellow who makes no mistakes does nothing and that is an egregious mistake or folly. No Man is Infallible It is only human to make mistakes. All of us are liable to make mistakes now and then. Even Homer sometimes nods. Homer was the greatest of Greek poets. Horace, the Roman Poet, wrote of him, I, too, am indignant when the worthy Homer nods, but in a long work it is allowable to snatch a little sleep. Take Mistakes for Granted No creative purposeful man can avoid mistakes. No man always does the right thing at once. Take mistakes for granted, like measles and bad weather. It is better to look forward and to make new mistakes than to look back and do nothing. You must keep on. When Edison, the great inventor failed in an experiment, he would say cheerfully, Well, now we know another thing that cant be done. One of the worst mistake that a man can make is to lose his initiaPersonality and YOU 84
tive. An all-alive man, making mistakes will achieve more than a robot. It is the unbeatable man who climbs to the topmost rung of fortunes ladder in every profession and calling. Dont Repeat Your Mistakes Certainly no one should make the same mistake twice. Lord Northcliffe, the great British journalist, said: Any man may make a mistake once; to make it a second time proves him a fool. Mistakes are caused by a lack of knowledge or lack of skill or because of some temperamental defect. Knowledge can be acquired. So can skill. And most temperamental defects can be overcome. According to Honery H. Buckley, The causes of mistakes are: first I didnt know; second, I didnt think; third, I did not care. By removing these causes, the repetition of a mistake can be prevented. Admit Your Mistakes Dont be ashamed of admitting your mistakes. Every one, no matter how brilliant, intelligent or gifted, makes mistakes either of fact or of judgement. What matters is that these should be admitted or rectified before much harm is done. There are lots of pigheaded people who will never admit to being fallible even after their mistakes have been clearly pointed out to them. In this way they cause themselves and others much suffering. History is replete with mistakes because statesmen and kings are not infallible, and much of the world misery is caused because they will do anything but lose face by admitting they are wrong. Actually as Claude G. Bowers observes, History is the torch that is meant to illuminate the past to guard us against the repetition of our mistakes of other days. In fact, a frank admission of mistake is a sign of moral courage and enhances one in the estimation of ones fellow beings. To a speaker who compared him to Robespierre, Charles de Gaulle replied, I always thought I was Jeanne dArc and Bonaparte. How little one knows about oneself. President Theodore Roosevelt once said that one out of every four decisions he made was probably wrong. Einstein even went further: I am wrong, he said, about 99%
of the time. During the American Civil War, Lincoln, to please a politician, signed an order transferring certain regiments, but Stanton, Secretary of State, refused to implement it saying, Lincoln is a damn fool for ever signing it. The remark was leaked to Lincoln, who agreed. If Stanton said I am a damn fool then I must be for he is nearly always right. Ill step over and see him. Forget Your Mistakes Many people play safe. They avoid the risks that lead to success because they cannot forget their mistakes. As Dr W.W. Dyer has it, the most obvious thing about which you can do nothing is your past behaviour. Everything that you ever did is simply over, and while you can always learn from it, and some times change the effects that are continuing into the present, you cannot undo what you have done. Therefore, any time you find yourself quarrelling about how you should or should not have done something, instead of discussing how can you grow from your past errors or what can be done now you are a victim in a no-escape pitfall. He adds, To chew the old cud endlessly, to be reminded of how you did this or that, and how you should have done it, or to agonize over how you might have it done, are all victim responses you can challenge. As you can only live in the present it is absurd and self-negating to let yourself be hurt about your past mistakes. Your past mistakes are a handful of dust. For, even God cannot change the past. Learning from Mistakes The admission of mistakes as well as forgetting about past mistakes is salutary, provided we learn from them, and they are not repeated again and again, for one of the surest ways to learn is by trial and error. Experience is the mother of wisdom, is a true saying, meaning we learn by our mistakes. The only complete mistake is the mistake from which we learn nothing. Such people were the Bourbons of whom Talleyrand said, They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Dont let mistakes put you off trying the same thing again. Do it
better the next time and avoid the mistakes you made before. Dont be like the cat that sat on a hot stove. She will never sit on a hot stove again or for that matter on a cold stove. One of the lessons that mistakes teach us is humility. The cocksure who know it all are brought down to earth. The wise old Ben said, After crosses and losses, men grow humbler and wiser. Viscount Melbourne said of Macaulay, I wish I was as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything. Every mistake teaches us to learn as much as possible before we take action. It exhibits the value of preparation. Stressing the educative value of mistakes a psychologist observes, Mistakes should be regarded not as failures but as steps in our education through life. Regard them as such and then each will be a step behind you as you ascend the ladder of wisdom. He relates a homely experience from which he learned a lesson: When I was a small boy in India, I climbed a mango tree and as I reached for a succulent ripe mango my triumph evaporateda thousand needles seemed to pierce every inch of my body, and I came flying down with a thump, tearing off my clothes as I reached the ground for I was covered with tiny red ants that nipped viciously. I learnt then that mango trees harbour these insects and ever after used a ladder or forked stick to get the fruit. We can also learn by other mens mistakes. Surely it is better to keep out of trouble by not repeating the foolish behaviour of others than it is to do as they did and suffer in the same way. How men can learn wisdom by seeing the misfortunes of others is illustrated by Aesops fable, Taught by Experience : A lion, a donkey, and a fox formed a partnership and went out hunting. When they had taken a quantity of game, the lion told the donkey to share it out. The donkey divided it into three equal parts and bade the lion choose one on which the lion leapt at him in a fury and devoured him. Then he told the fox to divide it. The fox collected nearly all of it into one pile, leaving only a few trifles for himself and told the lion to make the choice. The lion asked who taught him to share things in that way. What happened to the donkey, he replied.
Wise men, says, Herbert Casson, use the experience that others have paid for. Sum-total of Wisdom The lessons we learn from our mistakes and others mistakes, is the sum-total of wisdom we acquire in our journey through life. If we learn the lesson we ripen. If we do not learn we rot. Last Word It is not always easy to profit by mistakes. But it always pays. Dont be afraid of making mistakes and dont be ashamed of admitting them but make sure to profit by them. This is the substance of the art of success.
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How to Cultivate Tact

Tact consists in knowing how far we may go too far. Jean Cocteau Tact is a very important trait of plus personality. It is, therefore, a worthwhile effort to cultivate it. What is tact? Tact may be defined as intuitive perception of what is fitting especially of the right thing to do or say, adroitness in dealing with persons or circumstances. As a psychologist puts it, It is a subtle perception of the suitable things to do or say. It is also a sensitive perception of the thing not to do or say. Tact is more than etiquette, although it includes good manners and courtesy. It is a sort of extraa touch. It derives from the Latin tactus, meaning (sense of) touch. Tact is a sort of sixth sense. It knows and feels instinctively in any given situation what would be unwise and improper. Just as will it knows, the thing to do and say what is right and good and wise. Being tactful involves not making it easy for other people to hurt themselves and consideration for their feelings point of view and responsibilities, to rub them the right way and not to create antagonism. Stories about tact The following stories illustrate the practice of tact: Two men were meeting in a bar when the subject of Green Bay, Wisconsin came up. The first man said, Its a real nice place. The second responded, Whats nice about it? Only things ever came out of Green Bay are the Packers and ugly whores. Now wait just one minute, you son of a bitch, said the first man, My wife is from Green Bay. Oh, the other replied. She is? What position does she
play? A glamorous Hollywood star had her picture taken and fumed at the result. I cant understand it, she said. The last time I posed for you, the photographs were heavenly. Ah, yes, the cameraman sighed but you must remember that I was eight years younger then. A foolish man tells a woman to stop talking, but a wise man tells her that her mouth is extremely beautiful when her lips are closed. Never help an old lady across the street, escort her. Value of tact Tact is of vital importance in human relations. It lubricates the entire machinery of living and prevents friction. It is gift to the prized and coveted in every walk of life. No one can afford to be without it. It carries one through a difficulty better than either talent or knowledge. Says Wilson Mizner, In the battle of existence, Talent is the punch and Tact is the clever foot-work. As an anonymous writer has it: Talent is power, tact is skill. Talent is weight, tact is momentum. Talent knows what to do, tact knows how to do it. Talent makes a man respectable, tact will make him respected. Talent is pleased that it ought to have succeeded, tact is delighted that it has succeeded. Talent is wealth, tact is ready money. Such is the magic of tact that Wilkes, one of the ugliest of men, used to say, that in winning the graces of a lady, there was not more than three days difference between him and the handsomest man in England. Cost of tactlessness Tactlessness means disregard for the feelings, point of view and prestige of other people. It is a want of consideration.
Tactlessness may cost a man his job. It may cost him money. Worse still it may cost him friends. It involves rubbing the other the wrong way and creating hostility. The difference between a man of tact and of no tact whatever is exemplified in an interview which once took place between Lord Palmerston and Behnes, sculptor. At the last meeting which Lord Palmerston gave him. Behnes opened the conversation withAny news, my Lord, from France? How do we stand with Louis Napoleon? The British Foreign Secretary raised his eyebrows for an instant, and quietly replied, Really, Mr Behnes, I dont know: I have not seen the newspapers! Poor Behnes, with many excellent qualities and lots of real talent, was one of the many men who entirely missed their way in life through want of tact. A tactless act or word may sometime prove disastrous. A Chinese proverb has it, Disaster comes out of the mouth, not into it. Words can heel a wound; they can also cut like a knife. No one can afford to be tactless. How to cultivate tact Though tact is partly the gift of nature, it is yet capable of being cultivated and developed by observation and experience. Here are some techniques for doing so: Little things Sherlock in A case of identity says, It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are definitely the most important. Do not underestimate the importance of little things. In human relations little things matter much. In your approach to other people what appears a trifle to you may be anything but a trifle to them. So realize the importance of little things. Human understanding Cultivate also the human understanding. In the course of a single day you meet men and women who are made of the same human stuff as you are. What you feel, they feel and what hurts you hurts them. Human nature is the same all over the world.
Reckon also with the differences in people, and try to understand themthe hearty and the reserved, the quiet and the impulsive, A jocular or factious remark to one person, which would raise a smile or provoke a haw-haw, may be resented by a very different type of person. You must study your man. Be a gentleman A true gentleman scrupulously abstains from inflicting pain on an other person, either by word or by deed. As a gentleman respects himself, so does he respect others. His altruism enables him to put himself in the other persons place. He has the gift of tolerance. Imagination In cultivating the art of tact imagination too plays a part. Stretch your mind about other people. Ask yourself: If I were this man with his feelings, his attitudes, his experiences, his difficulties, how would I think about things? How would I feel? Often a little imagination of this sort would save you from asking tactless questions and gauche remarks. It is not enough to say, If I were in his shoes. We must be that person as he is, say Robert A. Jackson. Only by doing this (self-identification) can we know him, get a right view of him, treat him right. By exercising self-identification you will avoid many egregious blunders in dealing with people and learn what it means to be tactful. Timing Timing is of the essence of tact. A remark made by you may be ill-timed and so provoke hostility. Choose your moment. It should be the psychological momentthe psychologically appropriate moment. A word spoken in due season, rings the bell. One spoken out of season may be a thumping blunder. Saying or doing the right thing at the right moment is the core of tact. How you say it? Not only what you say, and when you say it, are important, but also how you say it. Not only what you do, but how you set about
doing it. To say, Do this as a peremptory order may antagonize or create resentment. Say, Will you be so good as to do it. As regards people in general, says Goethe, Show them every politeness without looking for thanks. That causes one many vexations in individual cases, but on the whole it makes for pleasant relations. An older person told, You look well, would feel flattered, but to tell him You look well for your age, would raise his hackles, for the implication is after all that he does look old. The comment, How you have aged can be made only behind his back; if said directly to him, it would be an unforgivable affront. Be careful of your approach. Think it out, and know not only what you want to say but how best to broach the matter that is tact. A time to every thing There is a time to every thing under the heavena time which is appropriate, and a time which is inappropriate. The right thing at the wrong time can be disastrous. If an individual is not in the mood, or is too busy with other things or is obviously upset about something or other, you are not likely to get the best response, however right you are. In his memories, Sir Julian Huxley, relates the following story which illustrates the point: We were away in London, when his (H.G. Wells) illness entered its terminal stage in 1946. One of his last visitors, a serious young man seeking guidance from the old prophet received this snub, Oh, be quite. Cant you see Im busy dying. A thing of the heart True tact, says a psychologist is a thing of the heart. It is not something that can be manufactured. It is born of courtesy, consideration, sympathy, empathy, care, graciousness and goodwill. To be tactful is to be truly human. To be human means to be kind and sympathetic to our fellow beings. I am a man, said Terence, and nothing pertaining to man is alien to me. Why is it that people are so guilty of treading on others corns rubbing them the wrong way? Often we find that they are unconscious of the hurt they inflict. Afterwards they may apologize by
saying, I didnt intend anything of the sort. They never gave a thought to how other people might feel. If they had given a moments thought, they could never have said or done what they did. No personal interest, not caringthat is the root of the trouble. The opposite is equally true. When we love people and genuinely care about them we become acutely sensitive to anything which might hurt or deflate them. To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart. Heart power is the greatest of all prime movers. As the old song has it, It is love that makes the world go round. Make no mistake. It is not power. It is not rank. It is not money. It is love. It is the foundation of human relations, the ultimate human answer to the ultimate human question. As a guide for action, Dr Eric Beines advice makes excellent sense: When in doubt, for the sake of ones own happiness, it is wiser to act, feel and think from love than from hate.
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