n. Never retire with a frown on your brow; with a
perplexed, troubled, vexed expression. Smooth out the wrinkles; drive
away all the enemies of your peace of mind, and never allow yourself to
go to sleep with critical, cruel, jealous thoughts toward any one.
It is bad enough to feel inimical toward others when under severe
provocation or in a hot temper, but you certainly can not afford
deliberately to continue this state of mind after the provocation has
ceased. The wear and tear upon your nervous system and your health
takes too much out of you.
Be at peace with all the world at least once every twenty-four hours.
You can not afford to allow the enemies of your happiness and your
manhood or womanhood to etch their miserable images deeper and deeper
into your life and character as you sleep.
Many of us with crotchety, sour dispositions and quick tempers
sometimes have very hard work to be decent in our treatment of others.
But we can, at least when we are alone, and away from the people who
nettle and antagonize us, forget injuries, quit harboring unpleasant
thoughts and hard feelings toward others.
It is a great thing to form a habit of forgetting and forgiving before
going to sleep, of clearing the mind of all happiness and success
enemies. If we have been impulsive, foolish, or wicked during the day
in our treatment of others; if we have been holding a vicious, ugly,
revengeful, jealous attitude toward others, it is a good time to wipe
off the slate and start anew. It is a blessed thing to put into
practise St. Paul's exhortation to the Ephesians: "Let not the sun go
down upon your wrath."
If you wish to wake up feeling refreshed and renewed, you simply must
retire in a happy, forgiving, cheerful mood. If you go to sleep in an
ugly mood or while worrying or depressed, you will wake up tired,
exhausted and with no elasticity or spring in your brain or buoyancy in
your spirits, for the blood poisoned by worry, by discordant mood, is
incapable of refreshing the brain.
If you have a grudge against another, forget it, wipe it out, erase it
completely, and substitute a charitable love thought, a kindly,
generous thought, before you fall asleep. If you make a habit of
clearing the mind every night of its enemies, of driving them all out
before you go to sleep, your slumber will be undisturbed by hideous
dreams and you will rise refreshed, renewed.
Clean your mental house before retiring. Throw out ev
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