Health Through Will PowerWalsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Science
Health Through Will Power
Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Mental healing; Mental health; Will
Most of these men were pushed so hard that only an army officer
perfectly confident of what he was doing and well aware that all of
his men had been thoroughly examined by a physician and had nothing
organically wrong with them would have dared to do it. A good many of
us had the chance to see how university men took the military regime.
Long hours of drilling and of hard work in the open made them so tired
that in the late afternoon they could just lie down anywhere and go to
sleep. I have seen young fellows asleep on porches or in the late
spring on the grass and once saw a number of them who found excellent
protection from the sun in what to them seemed nice soft beds--at
least they slept well in them--inside a series of large earthen-ware
pipes that were about to be put down for a sewer. Some of them were
pushed so hard, considering how little physical exercise they had
taken before, that they fainted while on drill. Quite a few of them
were in such a state of nervous tension that they fainted on {98}
being vaccinated. Almost needless to say, had they been at home, any
such effect would have been a signal for the prompt cessation of such
work as they were doing, for the home people would have been quite
sure that serious injury would be done to their boys. These young
fellows themselves did not think so. Their physicians were confident
that with no organic lesion present the faint was a neurotic
derangement and not at all a symptom of exhaustion. The young soldiers
would have felt ashamed if there had been any question of their
stopping training. They felt that they could make good as well as
their fellows. They would have resented sympathy and much more pity.
They went on with their work because they were devoted to a great
cause. After a time, it became comparatively easy for them to
accomplish things that would hitherto have been quite impossible and
for which they themselves had no idea that they possessed the energy.
It was this high purpose that inspired them to let more and more of
their internal energy loose without putting a brake on, until finally
the habit of living up to this new maximum of accomplishment became
second nature and therefore natural and easy of accomplishment.
{99}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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