ejoice at Things as They Are]

We must rejoice at things as they are; they might be worse! If we should
count up we should be surprised to find how seldom the things we fear or
worry about really happen. It is a true proverb that "half the trouble
never comes."

[Sidenote: Serenity an Art]

Each must learn for himself how best to avoid anger, fear, worry,
excitement, hate, envy, jealousy, grief, and all depressing or abnormal
mental states. To do so is an art which must be practised, like skating
or bicycle-riding. It can not be imparted merely by reading about it.

[Sidenote: "One Day at a Time"]

When, as unfortunately is often the case, the difficulty of maintaining
one's serenity seems insuperable, the battle can often be won by "living
one day at a time." Almost any one in ordinary conditions of adversity
has it within his or her power, for merely one day or at any rate one
hour, or one minute, to eliminate the fear, worry, anger, or other
unwholesome emotions clamoring to take possession. At the expiration of
say the hour, or minute, the same power can be exercised for the next
ensuing period, and so on until one is caught napping, after which he
must pick himself up and patiently try again.

[Sidenote: The Hurry Habit]

In modern life, which has been gradually speeded to the breaking-point,
many people are suffering from a constant oppressive sense of hurry.
Most people have "so much to do," that they can not do it. This fact is
of much annoyance and at the same time spurs them on in the vain
endeavor to catch up. When once it is realized that the sense of hurry
actually reduces the effective speed of work--in other words, that "the
more haste, the less speed"--the situation has been reached in which the
individual can teach himself some practical philosophy.

[Sidenote: Religion and Philosophy]

An immense help in the field of mental hygiene is to be obtained from
religion and philosophy, although this is not the place to advocate any
particular form of either, and from the standpoint of hygiene, it does
not greatly matter! One may get his chief help from the Bible, from
faith-healing cults, from writers like Emerson, from Tagore and other
Orientals, or from Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus.

[Sidenote: "Religion of Healthymindedness"]

Professor William James commends the adoption of a "religion of
healthymindedness" in which we renounce all wrong or diseased mental
states, cultivating only the health