HABITS OF THOUGHT

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 31, 30 October 1937, Page 12

HABITS OF THOUGHT

As he thinketh in his heart, so is he. — Proverbs - xxiii., 7. The soul, says Marcus Aurelius, is dyed tlie colour of its thouglits. That is the simple truth. Our characters are dete^mined by what we habitually thinh about. * * # If we have fornied the habit of selfexamiuation and ask ourselves according to the old rule every niglit, "What have 1 done wrong? What liave 1 dune iight? What- have I leifc undone that i ought to have doue we do not usually trouble ourselves much about thought-s which . have never found an out let in word or deed and. therefore, •so many of us come unconsciously to iead a duble hfe. On the one side there is the lite which we live in the sight of Ihe world and in the sight of others, to the ordering of which we give a great deal of attention. for we know how important it is to stand vvell with , our neighbours. We know that in that realm we have not much liberty. Ou the otlier side there is our liidden lile which is ours to do what we like witb not crit-icised by others. To rlns we very ofteii pay small attfintion eu -- seives, and yet nothing is xuore certam tlian that the two iives canjiot be lived apart and that it is the inner Jite which really makes the outer. Jt is our leisure thouglits which, in the long run, shape our eharacter. « * # To what subjects do our thouglits most readily and naturally tuni when .we are alone? Any trend df th ought habitually indulged in cuts aJmost literaily a cliannel in our minds 111 which our thouglits How spontaneously. These thought-habits are uo doubt sometimes of great advantage. Hw do you suppose that great discoveries are made or great ideas brought to birthp ls is while the worker is busy with his work, his ihstrunients, or his booksP i doubt it. It is when he is at leisure and his thouglits are ruuning unbidden on his lavourite subjeet. it is then that the sudden tlash of intuitiou coines. I know when it was my business to teach I often found young men who wished to take high honours spoiling their chances because they thought they were working when they were sitting with a book before them, and they spent far too many hours in the wav. I used to tell them tliat if they cut down their day's work from nino hours to six and thought about it at other tiines they would do much better. It is really just an illustration of the fact that "where your treasure is, there will your heart be aiso." — Dr. VV. R. lnge.