Evening Round Up
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William Crosbie Hunter >> Evening Round Up
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10 Transcriber's note:
A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected,
but words consistently misspelt by the author have been left
intact.
EVENING ROUND-UP
More Good Stuff Like PEP
by
COL. WM. C. HUNTER
Author of
Pep--Dollars and Sense--Brass Tacks
Ginger Snaps--and Other Books
[Illustration: the author]
$1.00 Net
Published by
Hunter Service
Kansas City, Mo., U. S. A.
Copyright, 1915
by Wm. C. Hunter
CONTENTS
Page
Anger 150
Brass Tacks 250
Character 252
Church 180
Closing Note 242
Continuous Happiness 86
Crying Babies 218
Dad 215
Daughters 138
Diet Rules 71
Doing Things Twice 34
Dollars and Sense 249
Dreams 97
Egotism 188
Elimination 82
Fake Medicines 177
Food 134
Friends 104
Geology 193
Ginger Snaps 251
Girl 221
Gloom 46
Happiness 49
Home 68
Inventory 185
Insomnia 156
In the Big Woods 124
Laziness 119
Leaders 231
Making Plans 14
Man's Danger 108
Medicine 57
Mental Pleasures 206
Mistakes 159
Mother 128
Natural Law 18
Negative Attitude 73
Nerves 38
Observation 28
Old Age 234
Our Bodies 131
Our Sons 111
Panama 209
Patriotism 197
Pep 246
Perseverance 190
Personal 22
Pessimists 43
Pills 173
Pioneer Mothers 145
Poise 142
Practical Helps 26
Reading 61
Real Charity 100
Religious Extremes 114
Ridicule 200
Salt 154
Self Accusation 89
Sincerity 167
Speculation 225
Stars 228
Thought Control 53
Time 238
To-day 212
To-morrow 161
Verbomania 65
Walking 78
Wives 203
Woman's Beauty 94
Worry 9
Dedicated
to Nancy, my wife
FOREWORD
Each evening, just before retiring, we will have a little Round-Up of
the day's doings, of the problems in our business and home life, of our
hopes and ambitions.
We'll try to solve perplexities, dissolve worries, absolve ourselves
from pull-backs, and resolve to better our lives.
We'll plan and prepare that we may have more poise--efficiency--peace;
that's Pep.
We'll learn how to establish helpful thought habit that our lives may be
full of gladsome notes instead of gruesome gloom.
We'll aim at
LIFE--LOVE--LAUGHTER
These, then, are the purposes of this book.
WM. C. HUNTER,
Kansas City, Mo.
July 18, 1915.
WORRY
The Nerve Racking Pace That Causes "Americanitis"
Nervous breakdowns are increasing as a result of the American worry
phobia.
This high tension Americanitis presumes too much upon nature, by
persistently forcing the nerves to carry loads far beyond their
capacity.
So many people are pleasure mad, they become so deadened by excess of
enjoyment and indulgence that ordinary pleasure is uninteresting. They
seek unnatural excitement, original methods and unusual activities to
appease the appetite. Then they become blase and constitutional
pessimists.
It's a maddening, nerve racking pace they go. To keep up the gait there
is an incessant battle for wealth, and the struggle wears and weakens
the nervous systems.
Both men and women go the terrific gait. Men and women having this
health-destroying worry, mate and marry and they lay foundations for
deficient progeny that suffers from the sins of the parents.
The phobia is almost universal; it has permeated all classes of society
from highest to lowest.
Excitement, that's the keynote; for the rich there is society and polo
and useless functions and conventions.
Society is a game of cards, not only playing cards for money, but the
card convention of paying calls by leaving pasteboards in lieu of the
old-fashioned visit.
Society is the builder of fourflushers, the generator of
insincerity--falsehood and rottenness.
For the poor, the aping of the rich, in dress the wearers can ill
afford, the picture shows, the cheap theatres, the automobile, bought
with a mortgage on the home.
It's rush, push, excitement at any cost. The great cost which they don't
seem to consider is the cost of the nerves.
We all enter the world with an abundance of nerve energy, and by
conserving that energy we can adapt and adjust our nerve equipment to
keep pace with the progress and evolution of our times.
The way to preserve and conserve nerve equilibrium and power is to rest
and relax the nerves each day.
You may rest them by a change of the thought habit each day, by
relaxation, by sleep, and by suggestions made in this book.
There are few advance danger signals shown by the nervous systems, and
in this there is a marked difference between the nerves and the organic
system.
If you abuse your stomach, head, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys or eyes,
you have distress and pain.
The nervous energy is like a barrel of water; you can draw water from
the faucet at the bottom until you have almost exhausted the contents.
Nature mends ordinary nerve waste each day, like the rains replenish the
cistern.
A reasonable use of your nerve force, like a reasonable use of the
rainwater, means you can maintain a permanent supply.
But you must be reasonable; you must give the cistern a chance to refill
and replace that which you have drawn out.
You, who have shattered and tattered your nerves, are not hopeless. You
can come back, but it must be done by complete change of the acts that
brought on the condition.
Get more sleep. Eliminate the useless, harmful fads, fancies and
functions, which disturbed and prevented you from living a sane,
rational life.
Avoid extremes, cultivate rhythm and regularity in your business and
your home life. Keep away from excitement. Read really good books. Walk
more, talk less.
Eat less heat-making foods and more apples. Follow the diet, exercise
and thought rules suggested in "Pep."
Maybe these lines are being read by a discouraged one who is "all
nerves," which means lost nerve force. To you I say there is hope and
cheer and strength and courage if right here, now, you resolve to cut
the action, habits and stunts that knocked you out and follow our
suggestions.
I know, my friend, for I've trotted the heat, danced the measure, and
been through the mill.
Now I am fearless, calm and prepared. I can stand any calamity, meet any
issue, endure any sorrow.
I can do prodigious work in an emergency, go without rest or eating
when required, because I have Pep, which means poise, efficiency--peace.
I realize nothing bad is as bad as it is painted. Nothing is as good as
its boosters claim.
I go in the middle of the road, avoiding extremes. I have confidence in
my heart, courage, hope, happiness, and content.
I've buried envy in a deep pit and covered it with quick lime.
I am keeping worry out by keeping faith, hope and cheer thoughts in my
brain room, and these are antiseptics against the worry microbe.
I have my petty troubles and little make-believe worries, just enough of
them to make me realize I have them licked, and to remind me I must not
let up on my mastery of them.
Worry growls once in a while just to make me grab tighter the handle of
my whip.
And you may enjoy this serene state, too. There is no secret about it. I
will gladly give you the rules of the game in this book. Just prepare to
receive some practical, helpful suggestions.
MAKING PLANS
How to Use Our Assets to Best Advantage
You are a busy person, so am I. Busy persons are the ones who do things.
The architect is a busy man, but he has learned that the time spent in
preparing his plans is the most valuable employment of his time. The
plans enable him to do his work systematically and lay down rules and
methods to get the highest efficiency and accomplishment from those who
do the work of erecting the building.
If the architect would order lumber, stone and hardware, without system,
and start to erect the building without carefully prepared plans, the
building would lack symmetry and strength, and it would be most
expensive.
The planning time therefor was time well spent.
Few persons have the ability to plan and conserve their talents so as to
produce the highest efficiency. Men rush along thinking their busyness
means business. Really it means double energy and extra moves to
produce a given effect.
The elimination of unnecessary moves means operating along lines of
least resistance, and any plan or method that will help to do away with
unnecessary moves and make the necessary moves more potential will be
received with welcome, I am sure.
With the object of conserving energy and strengthening your force, this
book is written.
It shall not be a book of ultimate definiteness or a book of exact
science. There is no definite or exact rule that will apply, without
exceptions, to any science except mathematics.
But we shall learn many helpful truths, nevertheless, and if I err or
disagree with your conclusions, just eliminate those lines and take the
helps you find.
In my previous book, "Pep," I particularly emphasized the importance of
taking a few minutes each evening and using the time for sizing up
things, by inventory, analysis, speculation, comparison and hypothesis.
I have received many comments about that particular suggestion.
I find that many of the great captains of industry who are
accomplishing things worth while, have learned the value of this daily
habit.
Mr. E. C. Simmons, the president of the Simmons Hardware Company, has
for about fifty years followed this daily sizing up plan. He takes
fifteen to twenty minutes each evening in seclusion, with closed eyes,
and finds the weaknesses of his plans, formulates new plans, and
generates new ideas for the morrow. He says this habit is one of the
greatest contributing factors to his success and to the building up of
the largest hardware business the world has ever known.
I want to help YOU to form the habit of rounding up each day's
activities in the quiet, relaxed, uncolored, unprejudiced secluded
environment of your home. Each evening we will together size up
things--a sort of daily round-up.
I have chosen the evening as the time for our little talks. In the
evening we can be cozy, comfy and communicative. The bank is closed. We
met the note and got through the day. We are alive and well; we can open
our hearts. There is no office boy to disturb us, and the life insurance
agent is away at his club.
Yes, we can be alone and tranquilly let down the tension, lower the
speed and with normal heartbeats play the low tones, the soft strains,
the quieting music, and soothe our nerves.
All day we've heard the band with its drums and trombones and shrieky
music. The day with its busy whirl kept our analyzing mental think-tank
occupied with thoughts of gain and game and fame.
In the evening we have time to study logic and to reason, to analyze and
inventory, to thresh out problems.
So let us relax and reflect in these evening round-ups.
NATURAL LAW
Obedience Is Rewarded, Violation Is Punished
Man's nature makes it imperative for him to be interested in something.
That interest is to his help or hurt, according as he directs it.
There is much worry and misery in the world because so many are astatic,
like a compass that has lost its loadstone.
Man is definitely the result of the materials the body and the mind feed
upon.
Character is the result of a determined purpose to be and to do right,
to one's self and to his fellows.
The man of character focuses his attention on truth, and on fact.
He uses theories with fact, to aid his progress, but he recognizes that
theories, without fact as a safety ballast, is a useless expenditure.
Theories without fact leaves man in a rudderless boat; he gets nowhere,
he only drifts.
Theories often help to get at facts, but the better way is to get at
fact by proven experience, of which there is an inexhaustible abundance
in the world.
Facts are based on natural laws. The study of natural laws is
beneficial.
We shall strive in our studies to keep close to fact with just enough
speculation to enliven the interest in facts.
Living the artificial life makes for worry, illness and failure.
Living in harmony with the great natural laws is the helpful way to
live.
To abide by the law is safety, to violate the law brings punishment.
Every man is better if he follows scientific methods and habits of
thought and living.
The loafing or astatic mind will fall into morbid tendencies.
The employed, truth-seeking, idealistic, hopeful mind is never dependent
on people or things for its pleasure.
The acquiring of helpful knowledge, the seeking of worth-while truth,
are ever profitable employments, paying present and future dividends,
and meanwhile those acts positively divert the thought from morbid
tendencies.
The Evening Round-Up is intended to be a companionable, helpful text
book, a counselor and a friend.
We shall strive to bring helpful knowledge, good cheer and interesting
facts, for your present occupation and benefit.
If I succeed in accomplishing my purpose even in part my time has been
well spent.
We have an unchallenged fact to rest our feet on, a fact that shall
follow us through all the pages of this book; and that is: our thoughts
NEVER stop, our brains never sleep.
While we live we shall never get away from our thought; so then, we must
consider that thought current, and reckon with it.
The motive power is turned on and we must grasp the helm if we sail the
sea of life successfully, baffling storms and avoiding rocks.
Scientific books are usually dry, uninviting reading; they lack the
human interest. They are generally bloodless skeletons.
We shall try to weave science into new patterns and paint interesting
pictures so that science will attract and not repel.
This book is different in its suggestions, in its prescriptions, in its
language, but it is universal with all scientific books, in that its aim
is helpful truth.
We go by different routes, but our objective point is the same.
We will avoid technical names and symbols and speak the common language
that the multitude understands.
We shall deal with problems and aspirations that come to us all in this
busy workaday world.
We shall try to cut the underbrush in the swamp and blaze a plain trail
out on to the big high road.
We shall keep in step to the drum-beats of truth, we will rest and
recreate in cool shady places, and then up and on to our purpose with
smiles on our faces, courage in our hearts, and song on our lips.
Every moment of our journey shall be worth while and positively helpful
if we take the trip with conscientious applications, and continuity of
purpose.
Our path is strewn with roses and thorns; we must enjoy the roses and
escape the thorns.
We welcome you, the neophyte, who has joined us in our pilgrimage.
PERSONAL
Are YOU Pleasant to Live With?
Let's be personal; that's a good way to establish a good idea in place
of a bad one.
Are YOU pleasant to live with? Keep this personal question before you,
even if you are cocksure that you can answer, yes.
Maybe there are some little jars, rattles, gratings, you are not aware
of. Few of us are honest when looking for our own faults. There may be
some sand in your gear box. It won't hurt you to keep the personal
question alive for a few days,--"Am I pleasant to live with?"
I love the pleasant people whether they are fat, lean, tall, short, red
heads, brown heads, homely, handsome, republicans or democrats.
The complaining, unpleasant grouch is like a bear with a toothache,
miserable himself and spreading misery all around.
A freckle-faced, red-headed, cross-eyed man with a healthy funny bone
will spread more cheerfulness and sunshine than a bench full of sad and
solemn justices of the supreme court, or a religious conference.
What a different story would be written of Job, if he had only possessed
a servant who could dance a double shuffle and whistle "Dixie" while
cooking breakfast.
David was a man after my own heart; he brought gladsome songs into the
world. He, said "Live the ways of pleasantness."
You can pray, sing, play, work, think, rest, hope, you can be well or
ill, rich or poor and still be pleasant to live with.
Being pleasant helps you to be strong in body and mind, and it keeps you
young a long time. It's good medicine, I know it. My little motto, "Be
pleasant every morning until ten o'clock, the rest of the day will take
care of itself," has brought sunshine into many homes.
If you frown it will soon get to be a habit--and give you a heavy heart.
If you smile your face will be attractive, no matter how unlucky you
were in the lottery of beauty.
Be pleasant and you will never feel old.
Every girl wants to catch a husband. Remember this, girls: A pleasant
disposition is more benefit than seven barrels of beauty cream.
The pleasant disposition is a sure route to happy land and happy homes.
Old Ponce de Leon lost out in searching for the fountain of youth. If he
had been pleasant he would have kept the smiles on his wife's face and
there would have been no excuse to leave her to find the mythical
fountain.
Hoe cake, bacon and smiles beat lobster, champagne and frowns.
Our land is thrice blessed with its peaceful, happy homes--for "happy
homes are the strength of a nation."
Be pleasant in your home, make the children feel home is the pleasantest
place in the world.
Every act and example is written in the child's memory tablet. Let your
hours with the children be loving, laughing, living hours.
Pat them on the head, joke with them, whisper affection, express love to
them. Those acts will be remembered in all their years to come, for you
are planting everlasting plants that may pass onto a hundred generations
and make children happy a thousand years from now.
Be pleasant to live with and the people will turn to you as you pass and
shine your cheerfulness like the sunflowers turn to face the sun.
Be pleasant to live with and you will have more pleasant things to live
for, and there will be kindnesses, kisses, beauty, health, peace, fun,
happiness and content coming your way all along the great big road of
life you are traveling.
Be pleasant, don't be cross and crabbed because someone else in the
household is not pleasant. Do your part; you will likely thereby cure
the frown habit on the face of the unfortunate disturber of your peace.
Make yourself right before you criticize your life partner. Answer this
question, "Am I pleasant to live with?"
Don't fool yourself in the matter. Get right down to brass tacks with
yourself, watch your moves and acts and attitude for ten days carefully
before answering the question.
If your answer is no, then now is your time to change your attitude and
try the pleasant plan, and here is my blessing and good wishes in such
an event.
PRACTICAL HELPS
Dealing With Actual Conditions You Are Facing
I have been fortunate in having splendid eye-sight and hearing, and with
these, a good memory.
I've traveled much and my education has been getting experience directly
or learning experience directly from those who had experience.
All the while I've had to do with, and about business and social
problems, and with and about the things which worry and perplex the man
or woman in the business as well as the home world.
I am trying to stage this book, and our relationship, upon practical
things we are to talk about. I want you to know and feel I have hoped
and feared even as you have.
I am in the midst of these things even now as I write this book. I am
not in a reflective mood, living in the past or glorying in deeds of
other days. I am writing this today and of today, even as you are
reading it today.
By day I face reality and problems, and temptations and tricks and
frauds and deceits, and after the day is over I write these lines and
try to inoculate myself with a serum or toxin that will serve as a
safeguard on the morrow to ward off the things which try to annoy and
distract me from my purpose: to do, and to be, as nearly right and fair
as I can, in act and thought and word.
Continuity on a singleness of purpose is a valuable thing. Fabre spent
his life studying insect life. His books on the spider and others on the
life of insects are the result of a whole life spent on the one hobby or
study of insects.
My occupation has been full of abrupt changes. Each day is a
kaleidoscope, and so, as I write between times, these chapters may be
like the boy who said of the dictionary, "a mighty powerful book but the
subject changes so often."
I write these chapters as the spirit moves and opportunity allows, and
you may read the same way. But be sure you make opportunity happen
often.
OBSERVATION
Sitting on the Side Lines, Watching the Crowd
There is fun and interest and diversion all around us. All we need is
keen observation and we will see much that passes unnoticed to the
preoccupied person.
What an interesting thing is the great round world we live in. The
people are as interesting as fish in an aquarium.
See the rushing, surging crowd. Man, pushing along searching for
necessary things to be done, he builds cities, harnesses rivers, makes
ships to sail the seas to the uttermost parts of the earth. Man goes to
war, he builds death-dealing devices.
Man makes the desert blossom like a rose.
Here is the scientist in his laboratory, trying to unite certain
elements to produce new substance. Here is the beauty in her silken
nest; here the lover; there the musician; yonder the peanut man and in
the office building is the captain of industry: All busy bees deeply
absorbed in their respective interests, and intoxicated in the belief
that they are important and greatly necessary.
Yet in the broad measure of ages they are mere ripples on the sea of
time, faint bubbles on the eternal deep, and grains of sand at the
mountain foot.
Great man by his own measure, minute man by the great measure of time.
Mammoths to the near-sighted, mites to the far-sighted. Hustle and
bustle, crowd and push. They tramp down the weaker brothers in the mad
race after the golden shekels, which are only measures of ability to buy
and own material things; symbols of power to make others serve you.
These golden shekels which men fret, sweat and fight for, can only buy
physical and material things.
Away from the crowd is the little group who have learned a great truth,
which is, happiness is not to be bought with gold. This little minority
knows that mental pleasures are best, and that mental pleasures cannot
be found on the great highway of material conquest.
The puffy, corn-fed millionaire pities the man who is content to live
with small means and enjoys what he has to the full extent.
The wise man is he who gets the fullness out of life, happiness,
respect, content, freedom from worry, who is busy doing useful things,
busy helping his brother, busy training his children, busy spreading
sunshine and love and the close-together feeling in his home circle.
The corn-fed, hardened, senseless, money-mad, dollar-worshipper knows
not peace. Smiles seldom linger on his lips. Peace never rests in his
bosom, cheer never lights his face. He is simply a fighting machine,
miserable in solitude, suffering when inactive and sick when resting.
The money-chaser is up and doing, working like a Trojan, because
occupation takes his mind off the painful picture of his misspent
opportunity and his destroyed natural instinct. When fighting for gold
he forgets his appalling poverty of the really worth-while things in the
world.
Like the drunkard in his cups the intoxication makes him forget, and he
is negatively happy.
Money received as reward for doing things worth while is laudable.
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