SELF DISCIPLINE

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20917, 23 September 1939, Page 13 (Supplement)

SELF DISCIPLINE

There is no more useful precept in one’s personal self-discipline than that which bids us pay primary attention to what we do and express, and not to care too much what we feel. Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under , the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not. Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheer-

fulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, look around cheerfully, and act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. To feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end, and courage will very likely replace fear. To wrestle with a bad feeling only pins our attention on it, whereas if we act as if from some better feeling, the bad feeling soon folds its tent like an Arab, and silently steals away.—William James.