The Seven Day
Mental Diet
(Pg. 3 continued)
by Emmet Fox
You cannot be healthy; you cannot
be happy; you cannot be prosperous; if you have a bad disposition. If
you are sulky, or surly, or cynical, or depressed, or superior, or
frightened half out of your wits, your life cannot possibly be worth
living. Unless you are determined to cultivate a good disposition, you
may as well give up all hope of getting anything worth while out of
life, and it is kinder to tell you very plainly that this is the case.
If you are not determined to start
in now and carefully select all day the kind of thoughts that you are
going to think, you may as well give up all hope of shaping your life
into the kind of thing that you want it to be, because this is the only
way.
In short, if you want to make your
life happy and worth while, which is what God wishes you to make it, you
must begin immediately to train yourself in the habit of thought
selection and thought control. This will be exceedingly difficult for
the first few days, but if you persevere you will find that it will
become rapidly easier, and it is actually the most interesting
experiment that you could possibly make. In fact, this thought control
is the most thrillingly interesting hobby that anyone could take up. You
will be amazed at the interesting things that you will learn about
yourself, and you will get results almost from the beginning.
Now many people knowing this
truth, make sporadic efforts from time to time to control their
thoughts, but the thought stream being so close) as I have pointed outs
and the impacts from outside so constant and varied, they do not make
very much progress. That is not the way to work. Your only chance is
definitely to form a new habit of thought which will carry you through
when you are preoccupied or off your guard as well as when you are
consciously attending to the business. This new thought habit must be
definitely acquired, and the foundation of it can be laid within a few
days, and the way to do it is this: Make up your mind to devote one week
solely to the task of building a new habit of thought, and during that
week let everything in life be unimportant as compared with that. If you
will do so, then that week will be the most significant week in your
whole life. It will literally be the turning point for you. If you will
do so, it is safe to say that your whole life will change for the
better. In fact, nothing can possibly remain the same. This does not
simply mean that you will be able to face your present difficulties in a
better spirit; it means that the difficulties will go. This is the
scientific way to Alter Your Life, and being in accordance with the
Great Law it cannot fail. Now do you realize that by working in this way
you do not have to change conditions? What happens is that you apply the
Law, and then the conditions change spontaneously. You cannot change
conditions directly you have often tried to do so and failed but go on
the seven day mental diet and conditions must change for you.
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