COURAGE and presence of
mind mean the same thing. Presence of
mind implies command of mind. Cowardice
and lack of mental control mean about
the same thing. Cowardice is rooted in
hurry, the habit of hurry or lack of repose.
All degrees of success are based on courage--mental
or physical. All degrees of failure are
based on timidity.
You can cultivate courage
and increase it at every minute and hour
of the day. You can have the satisfaction
of knowing that in everything you do you
have accomplished two things--namely,
the doing of the thing itself and by the
manner of its doing, adding eternally
to yourself another atom of the quality
of courage. You can do this by the cultivation
of deliberation--deliberation of speech,
of walk, of writing, of eatlng--deliberation
in everything.
There is always a bit
of fear where there is a bit of hurry.
When you hurry to the train you are in
fear that you may be left, and with that
comes fear of other possibilities consequent
on your being left. When you hurry to
the party, to the meeting of a person
by appointment, you are in fear of some
ill or damage resulting from not being
in time.This habit of thought
can, through an unconscious training,
grow to such an extent as to pervade a
person's mind, at all times and places,
and bring on a fear of loss of some kind,
when there is absolutely no loss to be
sustained. For instance a person may hurry
to catch a street car and act and feel
as if a great loss would occur did he
not get on that particular car, when there
may be another close behind, or at most
two or three minutes' waiting will bring
it. Yet the fear of waiting those three
minutes grows to a mountain in size, and
is in that person's mind a most disagreeable
possibility. Through mere habit a similar
condition of hurry may characterize that
person's walking, eating,
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