You must safeguard your self-
respect. Self-respect is at the root of all purposefulness, and a
failure in an enterprise deliberately planned deals a desperate
wound at one's self-respect. Hence I iterate and reiterate: Start
quietly, unostentatiously.
When you have conscientiously given seven hours and a half a week to
the cultivation of your vitality for three months--then you may
begin to sing louder and tell yourself what wondrous things you are
capable of doing.
Before coming to the method of using the indicated hours, I have one
final suggestion to make. That is, as regards the evenings, to
allow much more than an hour and a half in which to do the work of
an hour and a half. Remember the chance of accidents. Remember
human nature. And give yourself, say, from 9 to 11.30 for your task
of ninety minutes.
VII
CONTROLLING THE MIND
People say: "One can't help one's thoughts." But one can. The
control of the thinking machine is perfectly possible. And since
nothing whatever happens to us outside our own brain; since nothing
hurts us or gives us pleasure except within the brain, the supreme
importance of being able to control what goes on in that mysterious
brain is patent.
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