Here are a few words of advice, which if taken into account will spare you many difficulties and much suffering in life. Soon after you have put them into practice you will realize that they contain precise norms for the exercise and benefit of your noble purposes.
In order to create time and accelerate results, you will permanently need the help of the words I put forth with full awareness of their efficacy. Consider them as advance payments of that valuable mental capital which you will surely accumulate through your own effort:...
Make observation a habit in you; only in this way will it become effective. If you exercise it today and tomorrow but not the day after, that will get you nowhere. It is better for you to practice observation continuously so that it becomes a natural feature in you. This will always foster in your mind happy and constructive ideas. That is the purpose of observation.
Write down methodically the impressions that you gather as well as your appreciation of your daily observations, because in time they will prove useful in formulating valuable reflections. Besides, the act of writing will enable you to gain a good command of the language; this will qualify you to use those reflections later on in articles or books when your intelligence has learned to ripen the central themes that you wish to explain in depth. On doing this you should always be sure that your expressions reflect humility so that your writings may be agreeable, pleasant and attractive rather than appear shocking.
I want to see emerge within yourself the initiative of expressing your thought clearly so that you improve yourself not only in the art of writing but also in the art of speaking. You should cultivate yourself at all times; think, think a lot, and do this with joy...
I hope you will consider these counsels and follow them, because experimenting with them will produce valuable and unexpected ideas for your own good.
Ideas do not come to one's mind if they are not called by the only language that they understand. This language is the mental effort that we make to understand what we yearn or want. Mental effort attracts ideas because it offers them the opportunity to manifest themselves; but it is essential that you accustom your will to be active at all times.
Educating one's mind requires effort, an effort that is conscious and voluntary. You should remember this often. Also remember that this effort is life, because it creates energies that more than compensate for the loss of energy that every effort produces. Furthermore, do not forget that it puts to the test your ability to produce, to do, to accomplish, all for your own benefit.
The concerns emanating from your study and the training of the mental faculties of your intellect should continue without detriment to the tasks that you will necessarily have to attend to for your sustenance, tasks which you should by no means neglect in order to avoid finding yourself later involved in difficulties or financial concerns.
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*Excerpt from the book "Bases for Your Conduct"originally published in Spanish. Free Translation
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