Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude

In 31 B.C. a Greek philosopher who lived in a city on the Aegean Sea wanted to go to Carthage. He was a teacher of logic; therefore be contemplated reasons in favor of making the voyage and reasons against it. For every reason as to why he should go he found that there were many more reasons why he shouldn't. Of course he would be seasick. The boat was so small that a storm might jeopardize his life. Pirates with swift sailing vessels were lying in wait off Tripoli to prey upon merchant vessels. If his ship were captured by them, they would take his worldly goods and sell him into slavery. Discretion indicated that he should not make the trip.

But he did. Why? Because he wanted to.

It so happens that emotion and reason should be in balance in everyone's life. Neither should always hold the controlling hand. So sometimes it is good to do what you want to do instead of what reason fears. As to this philosopher ? he had a most pleasant journey and arrived back home safely.

Then there was Socrates, the great Athenian philosopher who lived from 470 B.C. to 399 B.C. He has gone down in history as one of the outstanding thinkers of all time. Wise as Socrates was, there were cobwebs in his thinking too.

As a young man Socrates fell in love with Xanthippe. She was very beautiful. He wasn't good looking, but he was persuasive. Persuasive individuals seem to have the ability to get what they want. Socrates was successful in persuading Xanthippe to marry him.

Are you seeing only the mote in the other fellow's eye? After the honeymoon was over, things didn't go along so well at his house. His wife began to see his faults. And he saw hers. He was motivated by egoism. He was selfish. She was always nagging him. Socrates reportedly said, "My aim in life is to get on well with people. I chose Xanthippe because I knew if I could get on well with her, I could get along with anyone."

That is what he said. But his actions disproved his words. It is questionable that he tried to get on well with more than a few. When you always try to prove to persons whom you meet that they are wrong, you repel rather than attract as Socrates did.

Yet he said that he endured Xanthippe's nagging for his own personal self-discipline. But he would have developed real self-discipline had he tried to understand his wife and to influence her

through the same considerate attentions and expressions of love that he used in persuading her to marry him. He didn't see the beam in his own eye, but he saw the mote in Xanthippe's eye.

Of course, Xanthippe wasn't blameless either. Socrates and she were just like many husbands and wives living today. After their marriage they neglect to continue to communicate their true feelings of affection, understanding, and love to each other. They neglect to continue to employ the same pleasing personalities and mental attitudes that made their courtship such a happy experience. Negligence is a cobweb too.

Now Socrates didn't read Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude. Neither did Xanthippe. Had she done so, she would have known how to motivate her husband so that their home life would have been a happier one. She would have seen the beam in her eye, rather than the mote in Socrates'. She would have controlled her own reactions and been sensitive to the reactions of her husband. In fact, she might have even proved the fallacy of his logic after she read Chapter Five entitled "... And Something More."

And because the story of Socrates proves he saw only mote in Xanthippe's eye we shall tell you about another young man ? he learned to see the beam in his own eye. But before we do, let's see how the habit of nagging develops.

You see, when you know the cause of a problem, you can often avoid it or you can find your own solution to that problem if you already have it.

S. I. Hayakawa in Language in Thought and Action wrote:

In order to cure (what she believes to be) her husband's faults, a wife may nag him. His faults get worse, so she

nags him some more. Naturally his faults get worse still, and she nags him even more. Governed by a fixated reaction to the problem of her husband's faults, she can meet it only one way. The longer she continues, the worse it gets, until they are both nervous wrecks; their marriage is destroyed, and their lives are shattered.

Now what about the young man? It was the first evening of a PMA Science of Success class when he was asked, "Why are you taking this course?"

"Because of my wife!" he responded. Many of the students laughed ? but not the instructor. He knew from experience that there are many unhappy homes when husband or wife sees the other's faults but not his or her own.