Control… of Thought, of Action, of Utterance…

Controlling thought is essential to controlling all we are ever likely to become, everything we are about to be. And he who persists in saying that he cannot help what he thinks, is in effect saying that he cannot help what he does. And if he cannot help what he thinks of what he does, he obviously could not be trusted under any conceivable circumstances.

But fortunately we can control our thoughts, because we can choose to think other thoughts, and the obligation for choosing clearly is ours, but it does require will; it does require wanting to; it requires concentration. And this brings us to another side of the subject⎯the use of the mind for positive purposes.

Perhaps we have all been aware of being physically present and mentally absent. No doubt, we have all sat in classrooms or assemblies or been at social functions⎯apparently present. We were seen; we occupied space; we got credit on a roll book; we sat and looked and seemed to listen, but with the mind far afield. It is little that we learn unless we bring our awareness with us, unless we earnestly give attention, unless we discipline ourselves to think, to remember, to follow through. But we can, if we will, concentrate; we can, if we will, make our minds consider a single subject; and we can, if we want to, make our minds turn to another subject.

In school, for example, we can think of chemistry at one period and of calculus at another. We can turn our attention to a particular train of thought at a particular time. And the answer to acquiring knowledge, to developing talent, to improving skills, is to choose to think what we should think, to choose to pursue constructive purposes, and not to be physically present and mentally absent.

“What we shall be, we are becoming,” says an old proverb. We ought to be what we ought to be, and where we ought to be, and to be doing what we ought to be doing, and becoming what we ought to become⎯and the right to choose and to be responsible for our choice, is a responsibility that the Lord God has given. We need always to understand that we have to control ourselves, our thoughts, our actions, our utterance, and our every intent. What much more is a man, except what he is inside himself.