THE THINGS YOU WANT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3830, 9 August 1927, Page 73

THE THINGS YOU WANT.

By

Alison Settle.

There is nothing in the world that you cannot get if you want it badly enough. Of that I am quite sure. A husband, fame, an income, a career, all these things will come to you if you desire them with all your heart.

When I was earning 10s a week I earnestly desired that I should earn—more. I determined that T would earn a £lOOO a year. 1 did. When I was 18 I saw a handsome young barrister and politician speaking. I said : “ There is the man I will marry!” Although every obstacle in the world interposed after we got to know and love one another, the war, ill-health, the objections of our parents, lack of settled income, yet we were married. We had the happiest married lives any human beings can have. Want enough and you will get. And on that assurance, that what you want you get, the whole of the Christian faith is founded. What we pray for, whatsoever we pray for, we receive. If we wish to enough, we can move mountains. It isn’t religious law for religious people; it is the law for all the world. s Don’t you suppose that Mussolini meant to be a dictator all his life, that all his

life his will was bent that way when he was just an ordinary worker? Don’t you suppose that Field-marshal Sir William Robertson meant to be that when he was still a private? It is not that they just wished that they could reach fame and rank, but they willed that they should become famous. “ But we all of us have wanted things ” Yes, but not hard, enough. If you determinedly want, will, demand that you have these things, quite ruthlessly, you will get them. Oh, of course, one must be ruthless. The will being concentrated on exactly the one thing we want, all must be swept away to clear a path for that thing. You can’t want conflicting things. The Christian law says that whenever you desire you can have, that there is not the slightest doubt about this. But it tells you that the only thing to desire, through which happiness will come, is the spiritual life, so that you can, while still on earth, yet see into heaven.

What is it you want? A particular kind of husband ? Determine to have him, and I assure you that you will be married to him. I know. And exquisite happiness may come of it, if happiness, too, is what you want, as I wanted it and got it. Or material prosperity may come with him. Or the ideal children. Or indeed, all these things, if you are clearminded and clear-eyed about it. Is it power you want, so that the young thing who is lonely, whom nobody knows or cares about, my become the influence amongst millions? That, too, I know you can do if with all your heart, brain, body, you aim at it, working for it day in, day out, year in and year out. When I was 17 or so I used to pray often that I might experience most sensations in life before I was ’O. (I thought, you see, that when I was oO I might as well be dead as I should then be so old as not to matter any more!). I got the answer to my prayer. Career, success, love, despair, horror, war, anguish, marriage, supreme happiness, motherhood, widowhood—all these things came, the answer to that old. eft-repeated prayer. I desired and willed experience. Experience came, more than I had bargained for.

What you want you get. Yes, but—will you still want it when you get it? To aim at one thing, to work for it, will it, brings it. Will it content you when it comes? Will your desires have changed ? It may be the crowning of your life; it may be an offering of Dead Sea fruit. That no one can tell until it happens. What you wanted with all your heart so often fails to be what it promised.

For me, except that my prayer was all too fully answered, the fulfilment of what I had wanted and willed brought amazing happiness. If sorrow came with the happiness, that was because it was so fullv answered. There are some I see who have willed great careers, incomes, homes, who now change their minds and seek after new things. Well, if they are ruthless enough to discard what they willed and got, there is no doubt that their new wishes will be fulfilled, they working for those wishes with all their hearts. Ruthless concentration on it brings vou power and wealth. A steadfast determination towards it brings you happiness just as much as what the saints called “ the way” brings them to heaven, on earth or after. You make your heaven out of your desires and determination.—Women's Weekly.