Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude

Consideration for others is a quality each of us has to learn to develop. The new-born babe cares little for the comfort and convenience of anyone else. He wants what he wants when he wants it. So right at that point in his development he begins to learn, little by little, that there are others alive, too, and that, to some extent at least, he will have to allow them some consideration. But selfishness is a common human trait, and it lessens in each of us only through development. When we get old

enough to understand that such feelings are not good, we feel a twinge of guilt when we indulge in selfishness. This is good, for it causes us to think twice when the occasion arises and we can choose between pleasing ourselves or pleasing others concerned.

Thomas Gunn's six-year-old grandson was visiting him at his home in Cleveland, Ohio. The youngster would run to the corner every evening to meet his grandfather when he returned from work. This made the grandfather very happy. When the youngster met him, he would give his grandson a small bag of candy.

One day the boy ran to the corner and greeted his grandfather in excitement and anticipation with: "Where's my candy?" The elderly gentleman tried to conceal his emotion. "Did you meet me every evening," he hesitated before continuing, "just for a bag of candy?" The boy was handed the small bag that his grandfather had taken out of his pocket. Nothing more was said as they walked to the house. The child was hurt. He was unhappy. He didn't eat the candy. It didn't seem desirable any more. He had injured someone whom he loved.

That night as the six-year-old and his grandfather knelt down and said their prayers aloud together, the youngster added one all his own: "Please, God, let grandfather know I love him."

The boy's unhappiness and remorse because of what he had done were good. Why? Because they forced him to take action to get rid of that guilt feeling and make amends for what he had done.

To get rid of that guilt feeling, make amends. Feelings of guilt can arise from many varied causes. But a sense of guilt brings with it a feeling of indebtedness... indebtedness that must be reduced and eliminated.

And this is very well illustrated by the story of the young doctor in Lloyd C. Douglas' novel The Magnificent Obsession. For you will recall that in that story the young man who is the hero felt that he owed the world a debt because his life had been saved at the cost of the life of a great brain surgeon who had been a real blessing to the world.

But it was this feeling of debt which caused the young man to become a brain specialist equal in ability to the man whose life he felt he had taken. And from the diary of the man who had gone on, the young man learned a philosophy of life which caused him to develop a Magnificent Obsession. Thus, because of his guilt feeling, he too became a worthwhile person.

Now every story is somebody's story. And every day in your daily newspaper you read somebody's story: someone like Jim Vaus whose life was saved in more ways than one because he responded to an irrevocable decision to get rid of his feeling of guilt. For he got into action.

To get rid of that guilt feeling, get into action! Sometimes people get caught in a web of wrongdoing, and they seem to be unable to free themselves from it. For they give up trying. And then they become more and more entangled, until finally it takes an almost earthshaking experience to set them free. Such was the case with Jim Vaus.

Jim Vaus is a man who literally owes his life to his decision to say "I will" and yet this decision came quite late in life. For a good many years, Jim had been running head on into the Commandments. He seemed to be trying to violate them all, one by one. The first time he broke the injunction, "Thou shalt not steal," he was still in college. One day he stole $92.74; he went to the airport, bought a ticket, and headed for Florida. A little later he stole again, this time in an armed robbery. He was caught and

put in jail. Shortly thereafter he was granted amnesty so that he could join the Army; yet even in the Army he got into trouble. The court martial read, "... for diverting government property to private use... "

And so it went. Jim Vaus' career kept sliding downhill. The more often he did wrong, the more guilt he felt. Guilt leads to guilt, as well as lies and deception to hide it.

Now Jim didn't consciously feel more guilty ? because his conscious sense of guilt had become deadened. But not so with his subconscious mind. For that's where the guilt feeling accumulated without Jim's realizing it.

And, as in the instances you often read of in your newspaper, it took an earthshaking experience to awaken him.