772 THE PRINCIPLES OF SELF-CREATION
Here we have a case of a young mountain man who, had he been
approached from just a slightly different angle, undoubtedly would
have resisted conscription and, likely as not, would have become so
embittered toward his country that he would have become an outlaw,
looking for an opportunity to strike back at the first chance.
Those who approached him knew something of the principles
through which the human mind works. They knew how to connect
with young York by first overcoming the resistance he had worked up
in his own mind. This is the very point at which thousands of men,
through improper understanding of these principles, are arbitrarily
classed as criminals and treated as dangerous, vicious people. Through
suggestion, these people could have been handled as effectively as
young York was handled and they could have developed into useful,
productive human beings.
In your search for ways and means of understanding and mani-
pulating your own mind so that you can persuade it to create what
you desire in life, let me remind you that, without a single exception,
anything that irritates you and arouses you to anger, hatred, dislike,
or cynicism, is destructive to you.
You can never get the maximum or even a fair average of con-
structive action out of your mind until you have learned to control
it and keep it from becoming stimulated through anger or fear.
These two negatives-anger and fear-are, without question,
destructive to your mind. As long as you allow them to remain, you
can be sure of results that are unsatisfactory and far below what you
are capable of producing.In our discussion of environment and habit, we learned that the
individual mind is amenable to the suggestions of environment and
that the minds of the individuals of a crowd blend with one another,
conforming to the suggestion of the leader or dominating figure.