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Self-Development and the Way To Power
L. W. Rogers
Written in 1922. The
electronic version is courtesy of
Project Gutenberg
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To transmute desire,
to continually replace the lower with the higher, really
is killing desire out but it is doing it by the slow and
safe evolutionary process. As to crushing it suddenly,
that is simply impossible; but substitution may work
wonders. Suppose, for example, that a young man is a
gambler and his parents are much distressed about it.
The common and foolish course is to lecture him on the
sin of gambling and to tearfully urge him to associate
only with very proper young men. But the young gambler
is not in the least interested in that sort of a life,
which appears to him to be a kind of living death, and
such entreaty does not move him.
His parents would do
better by looking more closely into the case. Why is he
a gambler? He desires money. He seeks excitement. He
wants to live in an atmosphere of intense life and
activity. Very well. These desires are quite right in
themselves. It is useless to try to crush them. It is
nonsense to argue that he does not want these things.
Clearly enough he does want them and that is precisely
why he gambles. Then do not attempt the impossibility of
killing the desire but change the objects of his
desires. Say to him: "You desire money and a life full
of turbulence
and excitement. Well, you can get all that in a better
and a legitimate way and have the respect of your
friends besides.
You can go into
politics. That is a field within the pale of the law and
in it you can have scope for all the energy and activity
and intensity of life you long for, with all the element
of chance which you find so attractive." And when the
young man has had his fling there and tires of it then
something else can be attempted. But to try to crush
desire and curb the outrushing life is both foolish and
impossible. We can only direct it.
There are, of course,
certain gross desires that must be gotten rid of by the
most direct and least objectionable method, and when one
really desires to be free from a given vice or moral
weakness and sets earnestly and intelligently about it
his release is not so difficult as the complete tyranny
of most vices would lead one to suppose. There is a
process by which any of us may be free if we will take
the trouble to patiently put it into practice. This
method will apply to any desire from which we wish to be
released. For example, let us take the person who has a
settled desire for alcoholic stimulants but really
wishes to be rid of it forever. Many people who are thus
afflicted to the point where they occasionally become
intoxicated feel, when they recover their normal
condition, that no price would be too great to pay for
freedom from this humiliating habit.
As a rule such a man
tries to close his eyes to his shame and forget it,
promising himself that he will be stronger when the
temptation again assails him. But it is just this
putting it aside, this casting it out of his mind, that
perpetuates his weakness. He instinctively shrinks from
dwelling upon the thought of whither he is drifting. So
he puts the unpleasant subject aside altogether and when
the inner desire asserts itself again he finds himself
precisely as helpless as before.
Now, his certain method of escape from this tyranny of
desire is to turn his mind resolutely to an examination
of the whole question. Let him look the facts in the
face, however humiliating they may be. He should call
his imagination to his assistance. It should be used to
picture to himself his future if he does not succeed in
breaking up the unfortunate slavery of the desire
nature. He should think of the fact that as he grows
older the situation grows worse. He should picture
himself as the helpless, repulsive sot, with feeble body
and weakening mind, and reflect upon the humiliation he
must endure, the poverty he must face, and the physical
and mental pain he must bear in the future if he now
fails to break the desire ties that bind him.
This creates in him a feeling of repulsion toward the
cause of it all; and if he continues to think daily upon
this hideous picture of what he is slowly drifting
toward--if he daily regards it all with a feeling of
slight repulsion--then even within a month or two he
will find that his desire for drink is slowly fading
out.
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