USE OR LOSE

USE OR LOSE 

There is a law that is apparent throughout all life. Simply stated it is, “Use or lose.” If we put our right arm in a cast for three months it has shriveled to almost nothing when the cast is taken off. Only months of regular exercise will restore it to normality. As we grow older and our lives become more sedentary, we cease to put regular strain on our muscles, and they become flabby and flaccid. Abdomens tend to protrude; fat gathers on hips and thighs; and if we are forced to run across the street we are out of breath and fear a heart attack. We lose our physical condition through failure to use the muscles of the body, and as a consequence we are easy prey for disease and malfunction. Regular and systematic use of our muscles prevents this, so with the more intangible parts of our natures. We must use our courage or it deserts us; we must use our determination or it leaves us; we must exercise our power of decision or we soon find that we have none. Taking a mental stand on things is not only important to success and achievement, but is also basic to mental health. The man who never knows where he stands and allows himself to be swayed on every issue is bound to put enormous strain on his emotional makeup, for he is led from peak to valley of victory and defeat without the slightest idea of what motivates him or what causes each circumstance to be attracted to him. 

Faith in one’s self and one’s destiny is the seed from which all decision springs. Doubt is the essence of old age and death. Cynicism, pessimism, and despair are harbingers of failure, disease, and disaster. All things spring from mental images and emotional projections, and the ability to decide, to make up one’s mind, is automatic to the man who sees his unity with all creatures and his umbilical connection with the Secret Self. To be unable to make up one’s mind, no matter how trivial the problem, is an act of cowardice and contaminates the soul. To be unable to come to a decision is in fact a kind of quitting, a sort of refusal to enter conflict, and mentally dams up the flow of energy that proceeds into the individual from out of the universal, retarding, limiting, bringing about dissolution and decay. To be unable to make up one’s mind implies a moral weakness. Such lethargy is not to be coddled but to be overcome. You will not conquer fear by acceding to it; only by meeting it head on; and if you do, your victory is assured, for fear itself is a coward and never stands before a direct onslaught.