the most difficult work a strong will can do, and it
is doing the most difficult work that brings the greatest strength.

To take a simple example: a small boy with a strong will is troubled
with stammering. Every time he stammers it makes him angry, and he
pushes and strains and exerts himself with so much effort to speak,
that the stammering, in consequence, increases. If he were told to do
something active and very painful, and to persist in it until his
stammering were cured, he would set his teeth and go through the work
like a soldier, so as to be free from the stammering in the shortest
possible time. But when he is told that he must relax his body and stop
pushing, in order to drop the resistance that causes his trouble, he
fights against the idea with all his little might. It is all explained
to him, and he understands that it is his only road to smooth speaking;
but the inherited tendency to use his will only in resistance is so
strong, that at first it seems impossible for him to use it in any
other way.

The fact that the will sometimes gains its greatest power by yielding
seems such a paradox that it is not strange that it takes us long to
realize it. Indeed, the only possible realization of it is through
practice.

The example of the little stammering boy is an illustration that
applies to many other cases of the same need for giving up resistance.

No matter how actively we need to use our wills, it is often, necessary
to drop all self-willed resistance first, before we begin an action, if
we want to succeed with the least possible effort and the best result.

When we use the will forcibly to resist or to repress, we are simply
straining our nerves and muscles, and are exerting ourselves in a way
which must eventually be weakening, not only to them, but to the will
itself. We are using the will normally when, without repression or
unnecessary effort, we are directing the muscles and nerves in useful
work. We want "training and not straining" as much for the will as for
the body, and only in that way does the will get its strength.

The world admires a man for the strength of his will if he can control
the appearance of anger, whereas the only strength of will that is not
spurious is that which controls the anger itself. We have had the habit
for so long of living in appearances, that it is only by a slow process
that we acquire a strong sense of their frailty and lack of genuine
value. In order to b