• Author: Hubbard, Elbert
• Editor: B-7413
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 6
• Page Number:
• Date: 10 24 1917
• Tags:
• advice

POWER

Any person, in any walk of life, who puts jealousy, hate, and fear out of his life will be distinguished. All good things shall be his; they will flow to him.

Power gravitates to the man who can use it; and love is the highest form of power that exists.

If ever a man shall live who has infinite power he will be found to be one who has infinite love.

The way to free yourself from discord is not to take a grip on yourself and strive to be kind, not that. Just don’t think much about it, but lose yourself in work. If your intent is right, your actions will be also. Hell and heaven are not localities—they are states of mind.

Once we thought work a curse, then it came to us that it was a necessary evil; and yesterday the truth dawned upon us that it is a precious privilege. There is more joy in useful effort than in the painstaking avoidance of it. Creeping into the lives of men everywhere is the thought that co-operation is better than composition. We need each other, and by giving much receive much. That old maxim, ‘‘Cast thy bread upon the waters,’’ is founded on a stern psychologic law. Everything we give out comes back tous. Give outlove, and love returns. To grasp and grab andseize is to lose.

We are reaching enlightened self-interest. And so there is a strong setting of the social tide toward useful effort and the elimination of the parasite. This through the knowledge that we can thrive through service and not through exploration.

Everywhere schools and colleges are doing things, not merely talking about them. The education de luxe—the education for show— will soon be consigned to limbus. Already we say, ‘‘The man is the most educated who is the most useful.” And the true test of education will lie in its possessor’s ability to serve.

Do not go out of your way to do good, but do good whenever it comes your way. Men who make a business of doing good to others are apt to hate others engaged in the same occupation. Sacrifice and self-abnegation are not needed.

Simply be filled with the thought of good, and it will radiate. You do not have to bother about it any more than you need to trouble about your digestion.

Do not be disturbed about saving your soul. It will certainly be saved if you make it worth saving.

Do your work. Think of the good. And the evil, which is a negative condition, shall be swallowed by the good.

—Elbert Hubbard.