The Mind Is Its Own Place…

In Milton’s Paradise Lost Satan has this to say: “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

One thing this suggests is the subject of self-respect⎯what we really think of ourselves. “… as he thinketh in his heart, so is he….” This in a sense is what Milton was having Satan say. What we think of ourselves is exceedingly important.

It is a sobering fact that we live with ourselves, that we take ourselves with us, that we are with ourselves always and forever, that we constantly keep ourselves company. This is good, if we are good company. It is good if we have self-control. It is good if we have self-respect and a quiet conscience. It is good if we are acceptable to ourselves, and to our Father in heaven⎯and if we are not, we had better begin to be. Blessedly there is always the principle of repentance, of improvement.

What we think of ourselves affects what others think of us. People often take us at our own estimate. Often they accept and consider us about as sincerely as we accept and consider ourselves.

This does not mean that we can be pretentious, that we can be accepted at an inflated or conceited or self-deceiving estimate. But it does mean that if we will endeavor to be sincerely what we ought, and do sincerely what we can, we can have respect of self and the respect of others also.

Everyone requires encouragement, confidence, compassion; purpose, repentance and improvement. And since we always live with ourselves, everlastingly, and since we cannot get away from ourselves, we can best be assured that we are in good company by helping to improve ourselves, to be at peace with ourselves. “To be honest, to be kind;” wrote Robert Louis Stevenson, “To earn a little and to spend a little less; To make upon the whole a family happier for his presence; To renounce when that shall be necessary and not to be embittered; To keep a few friends, but those without capitulation,⎯Above all, on the same grim conditions, to keep friends with himself⎯Here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.”

May God help us to shape our thoughts, our habits, ourselves to be something that we ourselves will want to live with, for in time and in eternity, we are with ourselves wherever we are.