• Author: Unknown
• Editor: B-7413
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 5
• Page Number:
• Date: 11 22 1916
• Tags:
• advice

SELF-DISCIPLINE

According to the opinion of Dr. Frank Crane, the one thing most needed by ‘‘us humans’’ is discipline, bitter though it may be.

Continuing the subject he says that ‘it is well to have force, genius, vigor, enthusiasm, power; but you may have them and be a criminal, a maniac, or a cad; you become great only when you add self-control.

“You may attain to the true aristocracy of the world. These are overcomers. These are they who have passed through the cleansing fire. These are they who rule their own stormy passion, their own mighty ambitions and boundless longing, with a will of tempered steel.

“And these are the beloved. You know them in every walk of life you have met them, soldiers of the light, the old guard of the best things of humanity.

“How, then, can I learn the art of self-mastery? you ask. Ilere are a few suggestions:

“First, it comes only by practise. You must learn it as you would learn to play a violin. It is a matter of patience and persistence. And surely if you are willing to exercise to develop your muscles, you ought to be willing to exercise to develop your character, your power to enjoy yourself and your ability to be a source of happiness to others. Don’t make a resolution. Just begin doing it. Whenever you have a conviction, whenever your reason points out a certain thing to do, do it at once.

“Then, when you see clearly what you ought to do, do. it cheerfully. Don’t pity yourself. Don’t advertise your virtue.

“Don’t wrestle; fight, and pray. The essential element of a strong personality is quiet power. Those who fight are weak. Do what you have to do, dismiss the matter, and go ahead.

“The first of all insurance policies, to insure one’s self maximum of happiness and efficiency is to learn how to make one’s self what he knows he ought to do, yet what he hates to do, and to learn this smoothly, without struggle or self-torture. Without that, life is sure to turn bitter.

“The contented people are those who have themselves in hand. The gratification of desire is an endless task. It is like attempting to fill the bottomless pit with water from a tin cup.

‘‘But the control of desire is a sure road to a full and joyous life. The man who has disciplined himself can be happy whether poor or rich. He is the master of the world, not slave.

“Your vision must be clear. You must see plainly that to let your desires master you means self-contempt and degradation. And you must learn whenever you have commanded the fierce waves of passion to be still, when you have resisted the storm of fierce and evil longing, and the waves and winds have subsided, baffled by your strength, you must learn then to laugh in pride, to realize how good it is to be a man.

“You know them, the real men of the world, a real gentleman not by heredity of endowment, not by display or cheap vanity, but by the open, free, happy, strong life that comes from self-discipline constantly exerted.”