The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-05-31
says UNCLE CIV

Don't be too sure that you are al
together a creature of free will. AS
matter of hard, brutal fact, most of
US are governed in big things by fixed
ideas that amount to obsessions. When
the fixed idea comes in free will flies
out of the window, and only a severe
course of introspection will reveal its
absence Sometimes a severe fit of re-
morse or a mental shock will bring it
back. but usually it is gone for good.
Your course in life depends upon your
obSeSSion.
The commonest fixed idea is that
loosely described as conceit. The boy
who early in life gets the notion that
he knows it all is done for if he
doesn't mercifully bump into some
thing that will jar him loose from the
incubus that has cast blight upon
his existence. Next in frequency is
the obsession of failure. Some men
have it beaten into them as children,
others have it scolded into them at
school and still others attain it
through a series of hard knocks too
severe for their developing stamina.
He who suffers from this fixed idea
never has any real expectation of sue
cess. SHES at trifIes, flees from diff
ard-unless the saving shock comes
that awakens him to desperation or
inspiration.
Perhaps more men otherwise hope
lessIy lost have achieved success
through desperation than any other
emotion. The NJ ost hopeless physical
coward was given to fits of mental
eXaltation in which he imagined him
self a hero. Under the influence of
one of his spells, as we called them.
he was moved to enlist in the regular
army. One day he found himself face
to face with six Spaniards armed with
machetes and became desperately
aware of the fact that there was an
unclimbable network of barbed wire
at his back. 1t was butt and bayo-
net in a merry tattoo upon Castilian
skulls for about two minutes, after
which he found himself a hero with
two badly battered prisoners on his
hands. 1 asked him about it after
ward.
Up to that time 1 knew I couldn't
fight he said. After 1 thought of
that burned wire fence 1 knew L
couldn't do anything else"
He had traded a bad obsession for
a good, workable one.
You'll readily admit that a man
who could pile up half million dol
lars in Puckyhuddle without cheat
ing his neighbors out of their eye
teeth was something of an industrial
and financial genius. Deacon Bangs
told me how he did is at we walked
home from church one day.
Il never cheated a man knowingly
in my life he said, and that was the
truth. But along about the time I
was 81 I began to get the idea that
any man can get what he goes after
if he works hard enough and thinks
fast enough. That idea stuck in my
craw. L couldn't get away from it
1 thought of it the first thing in the
morning and the last thing at night.
L kept saying to myself, Work hard
and think fast 1 knew 1 couldn't win
any other way. Pretty soon that was
all there was to business for me. I
lost sight of the dollars in working
out my scheme. 1 couldn't think of
anything else but just how to win
out. L guess I'm crazy on that sub
ject."
This also was the truth. 1t was
hgion to deal fairly with all men, 1t
others and to think faster in order
that he might beat them to the OPP
portunities that were lying unused all
about US. 1t was the fixed idea that
gained his half million. He was no
longer a creature of free will He
simply had to win.
Don't flatter yourself about the
freedom of your will Look to your
obsessions-they make or break you.
1913, by the Mcclure
Newspaper Syndicate)
Governess--And whom did the Goddess
Aurora marry?" Pupil-'Borealis!'-