Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1916-07-07
What DO You
Think About?
By BEATRICE FAIRFAX.
"As a man thinketh In his heart SO he is."

Physical conditions write them
selves on the face and body, and a
doctor who is clever diagnostician
can almost read their meaning at
sight. So, too, for mental states.
The physician who has studied men,
tai and nervous disorders recognizes
certain facial characteristics that are
symptoms of disease.
Who would wilfully print on his
face unpleasant signs of unpleasant
mental conditions? That is exactly
what you do when you permit your
mind to dwell on morbid things.
All thoughts of cruelty, or unkind-
ness, of fear, of anger or Of inde-
cency leave their traces on the human
face. This is not theory, it is fact.
Tiny little marks and lines come unto
the face as result of mental habit.
Who of us has not seen a droop-
ing, twisted mouth that told of BIT
ter cynicism? Which of us has not
observed shifty, Unlicensed eyes that
betrayed a habit of mental evasionl
These are marked conditions, but
the lesser ones are there, too.
The face betrays mental states. But
it is the mental states themselves
that are of graver Importance. Think
along certain lines long enough and
| you come almost to exist along those
lines. Mental habits are dangerous
to form.
Take the case of suspicion. Sup
pose you let yourself get into the
way OF wondering what hidden mean
ing there is behind what people say
what sly intention there is behind
what they do; suppose you begin to
question the sincerity of motive of
your friends and acquaintances-the
habit grows on you, more and more
your tendency to question grows into
one of distrust and finally suspicion
becomes part of your nature.
And once suspicion takes posses
sion Of you, you become unable to
accept anybody simply and honestly,
and faith and trust become almost
impossible for you to know.
If you think in terms of sunshine
and good cheer, you come gradually
to feel in those terms. Contemplat-
| ing kindness and beauty brings them
home to you. Mental habits are fair
ly easy to form and frightfully diff
cult to break. All of us who are
normal have a choice of controlling
our own minds or letting them run
away from us.
There is all old German saying that
suggests this idea. Just as you shout
| into the forest so the echo shall come
back to YOU" And so you get from
life fairly much what you have de-
posted in its bank
Think of the world as place which
appreciates honest endeavor and
which rewards merit with success and
you will have CHEEKY willingness of
endeavor and hopeful feeling that
success is yours for the taking. This
attitude may never bring you ten
thousand year, but it will give you
optimism that cannot fail.
What you think about conditions
indicates not what you are, but what
you inevitably must be. Look on life
as place where things depend on
chance and where fate has been cruel
to you and where everything is rath-
er hopeless anyway and where to try
were vain, and naturally, since your
back is to the sun and you have en-
cased yourself in a black canopy of
woe, you will never see sunlight.
It is dangerous to get into the
habit of thinking morbid, unhappy
thoughts. And it is perfectly pos
sible to get into the habit of think
ing cheerful, optimistic, hopeful and
constructive ones.
What you think about is a matter
of choice-and a choice that ought
to be carefully and sanely made.
A fevered Imagination can fancy
itself i'll. A frightened diagnosis can
consider all hope lost. But a sane
and cheerful optimism gives courage
to fight and conquer, Since it never
could imagine obstacles too high to
surmount or woe too desperate to be
overcome.
The man who thinks in terms Of
success cannot imagine failure. The
man who does not know when he is
beaten never is finally conquered
since he holds in his heart an in
domitable cheer like to-, that of
Browning's hero:
"One who never turned his back. but
marched breast forward.
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, thought right were worsted.
Wrong would triumph.
Held we fall to rise, are bafhed to tight
better,