SELF-CONTROL 521"So, I took my entire fee for the lectures and bought airtime on the local radio
station. And I delivered my talks free to a much larger audience than could have fit
into the hall where I was supposed to speak.
"I must admit that I caused quite a sensation, creating favorable publicity
for myself and for the chamber of commerce. I made no money on that actual
transaction, but I did keep myself from becoming engaged in a fruitless battle. I
answered the doubting Thomas's charges in a way that completely obliterated
them without once sacrificing my dignity, or credibility. I like to think, in fact, that
my words carried an extra weight in that town and did far more good than they
might otherwise have. "Repressed emotions, especially the emotion of hatred, resemble a
bomb that has been constructed of high explosives, and unless they
are handled as an expert would handle a bomb, they are as dangerous.
A bomb may be rendered harmless by explosion in an open field, or by
disintegration in a bath of the proper sort. A feeling of anger or hatred
may also be rendered harmless by giving expression to it in a manner
that harmonizes with the principle of psychoanalysis.
THOUGHT
Before you can achieve success in the higher and broader sense, you
must gain such thorough control over yourself that you will be a person
of poise.
You are the product of at least a million years of evolutionary
change. For countless generations preceding you, Nature has been
tempering and refining the materials that have gone into your makeup.
Step by step, she has removed from the generations that have preceded
you the animal instincts and baser passions until she has produced,
in you, the finest specimen of animal that lives. She has endowed
you, through this slow evolutionary process, with reason and poise and
"balance" sufficient to enable you to control and do with yourself
whatever you will.