Speaker 1: Light on disposition. I cannot help it. It is my disposition.
How often one hears this expression as an excuse for
wrong doing, What does it imply? This that the person
who utters it believes that he has no choke in
the matter, that he cannot alter his character. He believes
that he must go on doing the wrong thing to
the end of his days because he was born so,
or because his father or grandfather was like that, or
if not these, then some one along the family line
a hundred or two or three hundred years ago must
have been afflicted, and therefore he is and must remain so.
Such a belief should be uprooted, destroyed, and cast away,
for it is not only without reason, it is a
complete barrier to all progress, to all growth and goodness,
to all development of character and noble expansion of life.
Character is not permanent. It is indeed one of the
most changeable things in nature. If not changed by a
conscious act of the will, it is being continually modified
and reformed by the pressure of circumstances. Disposition is not fixed,
except in so far as one fixes it by continuing
to do the same thing, and by persistence in the
stubborn belief that he cannot help it. As soon as
one gets rid of that belief, he will find that
he can help it. Further. He will find that intelligence
and will are instruments which can mold disposition to any extent,
and that too with considerable rapidity. If one is in earnest,
what is disposition but a habit formed by repeating the
same thing over and over again. Cease repeating doing the
same thing, and lo, the disposition is changed. The character
is altered to cease from an old head. Habit of
thought or action is I know, difficult at first, but
with each added effort, the difficulty decreases and finally disappears.
And then the new and good habit is formed, and
the disposition is changed from bad to good. The character
is ennobled, the mind is delivered from the torment and
is lifted into joy. There is no need for any
one to remain the slave of a disposition which causes
him unhappiness and which he himself regards as undesirable. He
can abandon it, He can break away from the slavery.
He can deliver himself and be free.