Everyday experiences

by F. W. Sears

THE WORLD’S INJUSTICE

She was of medium height and so thin she could scarcely make a respectable shadow. Her well worn but not shabby dress, and her flimsy jacket told a story of lack in environment which her peaked, bloodless face and emaciated body showed in the latter.

She had been a room clerk in one of New York City’s big skyscraper hotels. Worked twelve hours, then had six hours off; worked six hours and then had twelve hours off. This was her ceaseless grind of work day after day and night after night, with never a Sunday nor holiday off.

In the course of her work she was brought into contact with both guests of the hotel and the hotel employees. She was the meeting point, as it were, for the complaints, irritations and annoyances of the former and the excuses and counter-charges of the latter. Her position was not a sinecure by any means as you may well imagine.

She never had been very strong and after playing the “buffer” between guests and employees for a couple of years, her nervous system was so worn out that she decided to quit her position and obtain something not so hard or trying on her.

She succeeded in securing a position as demonstrator in a department store for some new invention where she worked only half of each day and received six dollars a week for her services.

She found that department store customers were not made of any different material than were hotel guests and the constant irritations which came up in her dealings with the public continued to wear on her over-wrought nervous system to such an extent that night after night she would go to her room without any dinner, throw herself on her couch without removing any of her clothing, not even her hat, and lie there all night long, too exhausted to undress and go to bed.

This condition had been going on for several months when she first came to see me.

I saw at once that her trouble was not with her work but in the way she had been doing it—the attitude she had taken towards the people, things, and conditions with which she contacted. She had been resenting and resisting the “injustice of the world,” of people and things. The great injustice which compelled her to labor when she was not able to work, and which only enabled her to eke out the barest kind of an existence; the injustice which prevented her from having friends, going to entertainments, dances, etc., and from enjoying life as did other girls. Her whole thought world was filled with a bitter and resentful condemnation and criticism of the “world’s injustice” to people in general and to herself in particular.

She never once realized, much less thought, that she herself had set all of the causes in motion which brought this condition into her life and that she was still setting the causes in motion which would continue it until she learned her lesson and her own power of creation.

When I told her this she would not believe it at first, it was such a new idea to her, but it set her to thinking and she came back a few days later and said she had decided to place herself entirely in my hands and would follow my instructions to the very last letter. There was no hope for her in any other way that she could see and so she had decided that my instructions could not produce any worse conditions for her than already existed while there was a promise of the possibility of something better.

I told her the first thing she was to do was to relax and “let go.” That she was so tense and resistant she repelled everything which was at all constructive and harmonious. With each breath she inhaled she was to make the following affirmation: “I am breathing in the Peace and Harmony of God’s Universe NOW.” Peace and Harmony are manifestations of the Universal energy the same as are heat, light, air, etc., and the more she could realize this Truth and so create the consciousness that she really was breathing in the Peace and Harmony, the more would she relate with and attract them to her.

It was necessary for her breathing and affirming to be done without strain, effort, or tenseness, as anything which required strain, effort or tenseness lost its value the moment this was begun. Her entire trouble was not so much in the work she had been doing but rather in the way she had been doing it, and when she developed the habit—the consciousness—of doing her work without resentment or resistance—that is without strain, effort or tenseness—did it because she loved it and it was a “blessed privilege” for her to do it—all her tired, nervous condition would disappear entirely and she would become strong, healthy and well.

This result would not be obtained in a day or two, or with only breathing and affirming a few times each day but that it would be necessary for her to “make a business” of it and breathe and affirm many times each day, do this just as often as she could possibly take the time to do it. She should devote as much time each morning and evening to the breathing and affirming as she could without getting the consciousness or feeling that it was work and that she had to do it, for that meant strain, effort and tenseness, but she should develop the want to love to do it because it was the highest, greatest and best thing she knew how to do; that she should keep on doing this without paying any attention to the results she obtained.

When we are all the time “looking for results” it shows a consciousness of doubt and fear, and it is this state of consciousness which always delays the materialization of constructive results because it makes for destructive ones.

During the day she was to take one or two deep breaths and make the affirmation as frequently as she could think of it, even when she was attending to a customer, and that in accordance with the persistency and harmony with which she followed these instructions would her old conditions disappear and more harmonious ones gradually take their place.

How well she followed these instructions is evidenced by the fact that in less than a month’s time she had a good appetite, enjoyed spending her evenings in social intercourse, slept well every night, and arose each morning full of life and ambition.

She began to see that what she had thought was the “world’s injustice” was only the effects of the causes which she herself had ignorantly and unconsciously set in motion through the destructive thoughts she had allowed to persist, and she learned through applying the lessons to her own life which I had taught her that there was no injustice in the Universal Law.

To-day she is a well woman and has a home of her own where she cares for those who, like herself of former years, need the instruction and care I gave to her.