Personal Development
Here is another man who was born of poor parents. Since
the first day that he can remember he has seen evidence of poverty. He has
heard talk of poverty. He has felt the icy hand of poverty on his shoulders
and it has so impressed him that he fixes it in his mind as a curse to which
he must submit.
Quite unconsciously he permits himself to fall victim of the belief "once poor always poor" until that belief becomes the dominating thought of his mind. He resembles a horse that has been harnessed and broken until it forgets that it has the potential power with which to throw off that harness. Auto-suggestion is rapidly relegating him to the back of the stage of life.
YOUR work and mine are peculiarly akin; I am helping the laws of Nature create more perfect specimens of vegetation, while you are using those same laws, through the Law of Success philosophy, to create more perfect specimens of thinkers. Luther Burbank. Finally he becomes a quitter. Ambition is gone. Opportunity comes his way no longer, or if it does he has not the vision to see it. He has accepted his FATE!
It is a well-established fact that the faculties of the
mind, like the limbs of the body, atrophy and wither away if not used.
Self-confidence is no exception. It develops when used but disappears if not
used.
One of the chief disadvantages of inherited wealth is the fact that it too often leads to inaction and loss of Self-confidence. Some years ago a baby boy was born to Mrs. E. B. McLean, in the city of Washington. His inheritance was said to be around a hundred million dollars. When this baby was taken for an airing in its carriage it was surrounded by nurses and assistant nurses and detectives and other servants whose duty was to see that no harm befell it.
As the years passed by this same vigilance was kept up. This child did not have to dress himself; he had servants who did that. Servants watched over him while he slept and while he was at play. He was not permitted to do anything that a servant could do for him. He had grown to the age of ten years.