All the Pelmanism in the world cannot work on its own. To make any of this work, you will have to examine yourself closely, to turn your attention inward and use the searchlight of introspection. Some people are afraid of introspection. So are we – when it is a habit.
To encourage habitual introspection is the last thing we desire. The whole trend of the lesson is toward an outside interest, an interest where one is not conscious of self. Let’s take a side step here and say a word about the evil of self-consciousness. Take a simple illustration. You are suddenly called upon to second a vote of thanks, or to say a few rambling words at a dinner. You are not accustomed to speech-making, and become unpleasantly self-conscious instead of thinking only about the subject and the occasion. Perhaps one hundred and twenty pairs of eyes look at you and you feel hypnotized. You want to speak well, and in order to estimate your success you feel obliged to listen to yourself as you talk. There comes a moment when these two activities of speaking and listening do not run side by side; you allow the listening too much scope and the speaking fails to get its due: that is the moment when a speaker loses the thread of his remarks and comes to a full stop.
Now, if you can forget yourself in the subject and the occasion, in other words speak without listening critically, you will find yourself much more fluent. We have known self-conscious people who have delivered thrilling speeches, the reason being that they were supremely anxious to advocate the claims of a particular mission that was very close to their hearts; and this desire completely overcame the habit of thinking of self. They forgot everything in the passion of the moment, and self was lost in the glow and fervor of speaking for a great cause.
Self Consciousness
Self-consciousness is often temperamental, for even a very self-confident man may be painfully embarrassed if suddenly called upon to speak before an audience. People who are naturally shy and reserved have a tendency to live a good deal within themselves, and being sensitive, the rough and tumble of everyday life, the chaff and the joking, the give and take of social existence, does not attract them. Indeed such people avoid everything that would jar their inward peace. Whether they know it or not, they must be told that there is a little vanity in their attitude. However much they shrink from publicity it is not all due to fear. They should realize that a healthy balance of life requires us to come out of our reserve, otherwise we become so self-conscious that we stand in our own light, hinder our progress, and increase other people’s pity toward us. The one way to do this is to develop an interest, form a plan for carrying it out and concentrate upon it.
Self-Examination
To return to introspection – occasional practice of it for a definite purpose is the chief method of self-knowledge. For instance, here is a practical question: “Do you possess energy-impelling force?” To test yourself once, and thoroughly, on that basis, is to obtain encouragement if you can say “Yes”: illumination and guidance if you have to say “No.”
Let us take a few negative answers.
(1) “No. No. No energy. I’m like an icicle. I am cold, lacking in broad sympathies, frigid, and incapable of enthusiasm.”
(2) “I have some energy, but only as a routinist. I allow others to do my thinking. I render obedience because I never had the force to lead. I am essentially an employed person.”
(3) “Yes, I’ve got energy for short periods. But I fizz and foam with enthusiasm for awhile, then fall as flat as water.”
There is more hope for those who thus know themselves than for those who have never faced an honest self-analysis. But self-examination only works if we take steps to use what we learn about ourselves. If we don’t, that can be fatal. The courage demanded in self-examination is to “see all and not to be afraid”; and it should be followed by equal courage in setting your mental house in order.
Questions for Self Drill
(a) Are you thoroughly sound physically? If not, are you taking suitable steps for the improvement of health? Do you find that the knowledge of a weakness stimulates you to fresh energy in order to compensate for the defect? Is this true of mental as well as physical defects?
(b) Have you ever examined your mental qualities in comparison with those of other people, for whose success – intellectual, social, or otherwise – you may have had an occasional pang of envy? If so, with what result?
(c) What were the most successful and happy periods of your life? Do your best and most progressive periods synchronize with your best health periods?
(d) Can you now reproduce the mental and other conditions of those periods in order to obtain similar results?
(e) If there have been no such periods, do you blame yourself? If not, can you blame anyone else, fairly?
(f) Have you discovered what, for yourself, is the best hour for calm reflection, the sort of reflection that leads to advantageous action?
(g) Draw up a list of your good qualities, and those which you would classify as not so good.
(h) What is your remote or distant aim, also your more immediate aim?
(i) Are you too sensitive, too retiring? If so, do you not lose much in consequence?
(j) Have you proved the truth of the statement that for success in anything, the usual program is continuously hard work? -
(k) Do you welcome responsibility or shirk it?
(l) Do you realize how the acceptance of responsibility contributes to the development, of mind and the making of character?
(m) Do you perform any kind of work for others where financial reward is out of the question? How long is it since you did something really kind and generous?
(n) Have you made the production of new ideas a definite aim? or have you been content to accept other people’s ideas with a “Thank you” for saving you the trouble?
(o) Do you waste energy by imagining misfortunes and how you would meet them; or by going through imaginary battles with your enemies; or by thinking pessimistic thoughts on general lines?
(p) If the use of these Self-Drill questions has depressed you, is it not because they have shown you where your weakness lies? Is not that a hopeful thing, inasmuch as you can begin at once to provide a remedy?
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