Prentice Mulford - The Collected Works of Prentice Mulford

An old system of philosophy says, “What thou doest, that do with all thy might.”

Not the spasmodic, fleeting might of fury or anger. That is not might at all. That is waste of strength. It implies that every act of our lives, from the tying of a shoe-string, the forming of a letter, or the sharpening of a pencil, should be done with the might of method, precision, exactness, care; in brief, the might of concentration. When a boy, I was doing my first day’s shovelling in the California gold-diggings. An old miner said to me, “Young man, you make too hard work of shovelling: you want to put more mind in that shovel.”

Pondering over this remark, I found that shovelling dirt needed co-operation of mind with muscle,—mind to give direction to muscle; mind to place the shovel’s point where it should scoop up most dirt with least outlay of strength; mind to give direction to the dirt as thrown from the shovel; and infinitesimal portions of mind, so to speak, in the movement of every muscle brought into play while shovelling. I found that the more thought I put in the shovel the better could I shovel: the less like work it became, the more like play it became, and the longer my strength for shovelling lasted. I found when my thought drifted on other things (no matter what), that soon the less strength and enjoyment had I for shovelling, and the sooner it became an irksome task.

Every thought is a thing and a force made of invisible substance. Thinking uses up a certain amount of the body’s force. You are working and using up this force even in what you call your “idlest moments.” If, while doing one act with the body, you are thinking of something else, you are wasting your strength and thought. Before you pick up a pin from the floor, you send from you, in thought, substance,—a plan for picking up that pin. That plan is force. You direct and use that force on your body, the instrument for picking up the pin. You should not mix that plan with one for doing any thing else while the body is picking up that pin. If you do, you are sending your force—or trying to—in two directions at once. You mingle and confuse the plan and force for one act with the plan and force for another.

Every impatient act and thought, no matter how small, costs us an unprofitable outlay of force. If, sometime, when you are tired with walking,—that is, walking with your legs, while your brain has been working, wool gathering, or worrying, planning, and scheming,—you will drive all such thought away and put all your mind, attention, and force in your limbs and feet, you may be surprised to find your strength return and your fatigue leave you. Because every physical act costs a thought , and every thought costs a certain outlay of force. Every step you take involves a plan to give that step direction. Plan involves outlay of thought. Thought means outlay of force. If you think of other things while walking, you are expending force in two directions at once.

Do you think that an acrobat could so readily ascend a rope hand over hand, did he not put his whole mind as well as strength on the act? or that an orator could thrill an audience, were he obliged to turn a grindstone while speaking? Yet in so many of our acts do we not unconsciously burthen ourselves by turning that grindstone, in thinking and planning one thing, while doing, or trying to do, another? If you are going up a hill and are continually looking with impatience toward the top, and wishing you were at the top, you will soon become tired. If you are near that hilltop in imagination, while your body is near the bottom, you are sending your force of thought to the top of the hill, leaving only enough in the poor, outraged body to drag it wearily upward. If you hold all that force to that body, and concentrate it on each step, you ascend far easier; because your power is then concentrated in those parts of your body (your legs) that most need that power. When you concentrate all your strength in each step, you make each step easier, you get a certain pleasure out of each step, and you forget also your trouble,—that being the impatient desire of being at the hilltop.

This law holds good in every act of life. Do you not wish you could forget your trouble, your disappointment, your sense of loss, through concentrating all your thought on something else, and becoming so absorbed in it, and enjoying it, as to forget all things else?

This is a possibility of mind, and is one well worth the striving for. It can be attained by the practice of concentration; or, in other words, the putting of one’s whole mind on the doing of so-called trivial things, and every second expended in such practice brings one nearer the result desired. Each effort brings us its atom of gain in increased power for putting either our whole volume of power or only the amount of power necessary to be used for doing the act in hand. This atom of increased power for concentration is never lost. You need this at every moment in your daily business. You need it to keep your mind from straying off on other things while you are driving bargains.

How long can we concentrate our whole thought on any one act at once? Can you tie three knots in a string and put your whole thought in the tying of those three knots, letting no other thought intervene? You say, perhaps, “I can tie a knot just as well, and think of many other things.” Possibly you can; but can you tie those three knots and think only of knots ? Or has your mind so fallen into the habit of straying off and over a dozen different matters a minute that you have lost the power of focusing it on any single thing for ten consecutive seconds?

Do not call this trivial. Train for concentrative power in the doing of any one act and you train to throw your whole mind, thought, and force on all acts. Train to put your whole thought on each act, and prevent that thought from straying off on any thing else, and we are training to throw the same full current of power in our speech when we talk, in our skill when we work with tools, in our voice when we sing, in our fingers when any dexterous work is required of them, and in any organ or function of our being that we desire for the time to exercise.

Perhaps you think, “Well that’s only another way of saying ‘Be careful.’” True. Yet many may not know how to be careful or precise. Do we not see people every-day rushing their legs along the street with the least possible amount of strength, while their minds are planning, wishing, working, hurrying far ahead of them? Yet these people wonder why they forget, wonder why they make so many mistakes, wonder why so many of the small details of their business are irksome: or they go on being so annoyed, and never get sufficiently awakened as to wonder.

Is not this practical philosophy and practical talk? To-morrow, maybe, you are to have a trying interview on a matter vital to your interests, with a sharp, cunning, business-man, who is strong in will as well as knowledge, power, ways, and means to overreach you, to muddle your brains, to trick you, to frighten you. Do you not need every available atom of your force to cope with him?

When we cultivate this power of focusing all our force on any single act, we are cultivating also the power of throwing our whole mind from one subject to another. That means, also, that we can throw our whole mind out of a trouble into what may prove a delight, and forget a grief in a happy work. Grief, loss, disappointment, and discouragement injure and kill many people.

We may say to one so afflicted, “You shouldn’t think of this, that, or the other.” But do we tell them by what means they may turn their minds away from their trouble?

Children of weak minds, and idiots, are deficient in power of grip with their hands. In a certain training-school, such children are made first to grasp a bar above their heads with both hands, and draw themselves upward on their backs along a steeply inclined plane. It requires often many weeks of such exercise before they can do this. The weak mind has no power to throw all its thought or force on the hand, and do one act at a time. This lack may hold good to a great or lesser extent with all grades of weak minds.