Thursday Throwback to 1923: How to Get What You Want in Life (Part 2)

Continued from How to Get What You Want in Life Part 1

HOW TO MAKE YOUR DESIRES MATERIALIZE by Elsie Lincoln Benedict, 1923

A friend in Denver once told me she “wanted a new spring suit more than anything.”  We were walking down Sixteenth Street a few days later and there in a front window she saw the VERY suit she was looking for – for $35.  In the olden days$35 actually bought a suit good enough for anybody, you remember?

“How lovely,” I exclaimed, “and to think you have the $35 right in your purse.  Let’s go right in and get it before somebody else does!”

Would she?  No.  She had said she wanted that suit more than anything else in the world.  But she didn’t even want it as much as she wanted the $35.

She WISHED she had a new suit like this one, but what she really WANTED was the money.

“But what about the person who hasn’t the $35?” I hear you ask.  And the answer is you will find is the utter truth.  It is this:  You can GET it, honestly, legitimately, quickly, and surely, provided YOU WANT IT.

…Decide to restrict yourself because you “can’t get the money for things you want” and the money you do get will come that much harder.

But make up your mind to MAKE ALL THE MONEY YOU NEED for the things you want – and from the hour of reaching that decision you will make five dollars easier than you now make one.

The richer you become the easier it is to make money.  The less you have the more difficult it is to get more.

…. All successful men and women who are frank will admit that many good things followed in the wake of that first big effort, and followed almost without further effort.

“Nothing succeeds like success” is an old and true saying.  Another not so old but equally true is that nothing fails like failure.

The world always helps you along whichever way you are going.  If you are headed uphill it will help pull you up.  If you are headed downhill it will give you a push.  We should not complain of this, but awaken to the fact that it IS a law, and instead of fighting it put it to work for us.

If you want to go uphill you must manifest this to the people around you.  They are all driving along Lif’e’s Highway too, and they see you, think of you, and get an impression of you.

If you want to go down all you have to do is to let it be known and you will have plenty of kicks and company.

The world gets one of its deepest impressions of you FROM THE DIRECTION IN WHICH YOUR CAR IS MOVING.  Everything about you tells what that is.  Even children and those who catch a glimpse of you for only a moment sense this and act toward you accordingly.

You never deceive them very much of very long in any way. Bluffing and pretending do not deceive anyone.  These only make you resemble a man who tells you he is traveling north when at every corner possible he turns south.

All of life is a journey along the great Highway.  We are always coming to crossroads.  We always make our own choice.  We turn or go straight ahead – as WE CHOOSE.

We come to scores of these corners every day and the world notes the turns we make.  It will give you plenty of time to get to your destination in the North, and many a lift besides, provided at the crossroads you keep heading in that direction.

Another strange thing about it is that the higher up you get the MORE help the world gives you, and the lower down the harder it gets.

You can see it for yourself.  If you haven’t a cent and ask the world for a quarter to keep you from starving, it will not give it to you very quickly or very graciously.  It says it “cant’ encourage that kind of thing.” It is afraid you “might not deserve it.”

But if you are a millionaire, with more money than you know what to do with, people will gladly loan you millions…

To the big dinners the hungry are not invited.  The guests are those already overfed.

“This is all true,” you say, “but how is one to get started in the right direction?  Especially when, as you say, the whole world is busy helping us downgrade already?”

The answer is: Change the CAUSE and you also change the EFFECT.

Your present condition…  is the natural and inevitable outgrowth of the attitudes and feelings HARBORED in your subconscious mind.

Most people secretly cherish the delusion that this is not a law-ruled universe, and that somehow they will be able to get something for nothing.

Look again at the word “harbored,” for it reveals the crux of your situation.

All kinds of things come into your consciousness.  You can’t help seeing and hearing and even sometimes thinking these destructive things.

But you CAN refuse to HARBOR them.

The things that get down into your subconscious mind come out in your life.

But remember, nothing can get into your subconscious mind save as you dwell upon it and encourage it.

“But how can I start forward NOW, from this very spot?,” you ask.

To begin to go uphill in life instead of down…. it is only necessary that you TURN AROUND.  Other things will come later, but for today this will be enough…

To get anything you want, gently open your mind to the idea that you CAN get it, somewhere, somehow.  Do not dwell upon the things which just now seem to stand in the way of your getting it.

It is a law that two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time.  So, turning your attention toward the good thought drives the bad one out.  Soon this becomes a habit, and then out of your subconscious will comes the ideas of HOW to get what you want.