ESSENTIAL LAW OF PRACTICAL SELF-MASTERY

[Sidenote: _Option and Opportunity_]

_External objects excite sensory impressions, but the perception of
them is purely at the option of the mind._

This is of the greatest practical importance. Consider its
consequences. It means that sense-impressions and your perception of
them are two very different things. It means that sense-impressions
may throng in upon you as they will. They are the work of external
stimuli impressing themselves upon the sensorium as upon a
mechanical register. You are helpless to discriminate among them.
You cannot accept some and exclude others. You are a perambulating
dry plate upon which outside objects produce their images.

[Sidenote: _Prearranging Your Consciousness_]

But, and this is a vital distinction, perception is an act of the
mind. It is initiated from within. It permits you to discriminate
among sensations in the sense that you may dwell upon some and
ignore others. It enables you to definitely select, if you will,
the elements that shall make up the content of your consciousness.

_Perception as an independent mental process thus enables you to
predetermine what elements of passing sensory experience may be made
the basis of your conscious judgments and of your feelings and
emotions._

[Sidenote: _How to Definitely Selects its Elements_]

Bear this in mind when you think of your environment and its
supposed influence upon your life. Remember that your environment
is no hard-and-fast thing, an aggregate of physical realities. Your
environment, so far as it affects your judgment and your conduct,
is made up, not of physical realities, but of mental pictures.

_Your environment is within you._ Get this conclusion clearly in
your mind.

Hold fast to the point of view that, _Environment, the environment
that influences your conduct and your life, is not a chance massing
of outward circumstances, but is the product of your own mind_.

[Sidenote: _An Infallible Recipe for Self-Possession_]

Think what this means to you. It means that by deliberately
selecting for attention only those sense-impressions, those elements
of consciousness, that can serve your purpose, you can free yourself
from all distractions and make peaceful progress in the midst of
turmoil.

[Sidenote: _Using "Unseen Ear Protectors"_]

"In the busiest part of New York, a broker occupied a desk in a
room with six other men who had many visitors constantly m