Self-Control, Its Kingship and Majesty — John Shaqi
Self-Control, Its Kingship and MajestyJordan, William George
Philosophy
Self-Control, Its Kingship and Majesty
Jordan, William George
Conduct of life; Self-control
Conquest is the overcoming of an evil habit, the rising superior to
opposition and attack, the spiritual exaltation that comes from
resisting the invasion of the grovelling material side of life.
Sometimes when you are worn and weak with the struggle; when it seems
that justice is a dream, that honesty and loyalty and truth count for
nothing, that the devil is the only good paymaster; when hope grows dim
and flickers, then is the time when you must tower in the great sublime
faith that Right must prevail, then must you throttle these imps of
doubt and despair, you must master yourself to master the world around
you. This is Conquest; this is what counts. Even a log can float with
the current; it takes a man to fight sturdily against an opposing tide
that would sweep his craft out of its course. When the jealousies, the
petty intrigues and the meannesses and the misunderstandings in life
assail you, rise above them. Be like a lighthouse that illumines and
beautifies the snarling, swashing waves of the storm that threaten it,
that seek to undermine it and seek to wash over it. This is Conquest.
When the chance to win fame, wealth, success or the attainment of your
heart’s desire, by sacrifice of honor or principle, comes to you and it
does not affect you long enough even to seem a temptation, you have been
the victor. That too is Conquest. And Conquest is part of the royal road
to Happiness.
Conscience, as the mentor, the guide and compass of every act, leads
ever to Happiness. When the individual can stay alone with his
conscience and get its approval, without using force or specious logic,
then he begins to know what real Happiness is. But the individual must
be careful that he is not appealing to a conscience perverted or
deadened by the wrongdoing and consequent deafness of its owner. The man
who is honestly seeking to live his life in Consecration, Concentration
and Conquest, living from day to day as best he can, by the light he
has, may rely implicitly on his Conscience. He can shut his ears to
“what the world says” and find in the approval of his own conscience the
highest earthly tribune—the voice of the Infinite communing with the
Individual.
Unhappiness is the hunger to get; Happiness is the hunger to give. True
happiness must ever have the tinge of sorrow outlived, the sense of pain
softened by the mellowing years, the chastening of loss that in the
wondrous mystery of time transmutes our suffering into love and sympathy
with others.
If the individual should set out for a single day to give Happiness, to
make life happier, brighter and sweeter, not for himself, but for
others, he would find a wondrous revelation of what Happiness really is.
The greatest of the world’s heroes could not by any series of acts of
heroism do as much real good as any individual living his whole life in
seeking, from day to day, to make others happy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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