Mental pictures. I hang bright pictures in my mind. Bright pictures encourage one.
Gloomy ones depress, Get rid of your old, gloomy mental pictures,
make a bonfire of them, get rid of the particularly miserable one first of
all, then put bright ones in their places. I now hang bright pictures
in my mind, said a friend to me recently. Her remark explained to
me, without the necessity of further words, the cause of her bright,
cheerful and happy disposition so greatly in contrast with that of the despondent, fretful
woman I had known a few months ago. The change seemed so remarkable that
one would have almost expected her to have claimed some startling currents as the cause
of the wondrous transformation, and instead of giving so commonplace an explanation. But
just think how much there is in this thought. I hang bright pictures in
my mind. Stop a moment, and let the thought sink deep into your
inner consciousness. Bright pictures in the mind. Why not? Indeed, if
we wish to make a chamber or office bright and cheery, we see that
nothing but pictures representing bright, cheerful subjects are hung there. They may be
the choicest engravings or paintings, or they may be some little inexpensive things.
But just so they are bright and cheery, the purpose is accomplished, and
the room somehow see a happier, more joyous place than before. If we
were preparing a new room for the occupancy of some dear one, would we
place there any but the brightest picture? Would we hang there? Pictures of
pain and misery, hate and murder, jealousy and revenge, sickness, suffering
and death, failure and discouragement. Would we do this thing? I ask
you? Would you do it? And if not, why not? Pray?
Simply because you in extinctively feel that the gloomy, hateful subjects would react
upon the loved one, And you know is the same way that the bright,
cheerful, and inspiring subjects are likely to uplift, stimulate, encourage,
and make better the occupant of the chamber. Have you ever noticed that some
rooms always seem to exert a beneficial effect upon you, while others seem to
depress you? Certainly you have well the next time you go into these rooms,
look around a little and see if the explanation of your moods is not
to be found in the character of the pictures on the walls. You may
not have specially noticed them before, but your subconscious mental faculties have taken up
the impression and the reflex action has affected you. Who can resist the fetching
qualities of a bright baby face smiling from a little picture on the mantle or
on the wall? Not I for one? And who can help feeling the
sense of comradeship for the kindly Saint Bernard, whose great affectionate eyes look down
upon you from the engraving on the other side of the room. And on
the other hand, who could? But now I'm not going to describe the
other kind of pictures in this article, But now to get back to the
pictures in the mind. If the gloomy pictures on the wall affect people,
what do you suppose will be the effect of carrying around gloomy, fearful,
hateful, jealous, envious, despondent mental pictures? Can any good come of
lugging this trash around with you? Come? Now, be honest, why
don't you bundle up these horrible cormas of the mind and then make a bonfire
of the lot. Now is the time for a mental house cleaning. Get
to work and clean out these miserable DoBeS and replace them with a nice,
bright, cheerful, happy, sunny mental works of art. Do it to
day. You can't afford to put it off until tomorrow. Indeed you can't.
Oh. Yes, I know that you have grown attached to some of
these old mental pictures. You've had them round so long that you hate to
part with them. There's that particular miserable one at which you're so fond of
looking. You know which one. I mean, you see, I know
all about it. You've been in the habit of standing before it with folded
hands and gazing and gazing and gazing at it. And the more you gazed,
the more miserable you grew, until at last you felt that you would
like to lie down and die, only that there was some work to do
around the house and you could spare the time. Yes, that's the picture.
I mean. Take it down and put it on top of the bonfire
pile, and touch off the whole lot. Then go back into the house
and hang up all the new ones to be found, And the brightest one
of the lot must hang in the place of that dear old miserable one that
you threw out last that one which was so hard to part with, the
meanest one in the lot. Always, and after you have done these things,
how good you will feel. See how bright and cheerful the sun is
shining, How pure and fresh the air seems. Take a good long draft
of it. Look out the window and see the fleecing white clouds floating across
the sky. The sky itself, how blue it is. And just listen
to the bluebirds down by the old gate. Spring must be coming. Ah,
how good it is to be alive.