Читать книгу The psychology of sleep онлайн

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The first step towards knowing how to get anything is to have a clear idea of what it is that we want; for development is not thrust upon us, nor dropped upon us by our parents. It is desire that creates function; the creature that wants to swim is the creature that learns to swim; the bird that does not want to fly will lose the power; before we can rise higher, we must look higher.

“When the ideal once alights in our streets,” says Edward Carpenter, “we may go home to supper in peace, the rest will be seen to.” But, if we enjoy worry as the countryman’s wife “enjoys poor health,” we shall continue to have it, for we always get what we most want, if we set about it in the right way. And if we do not want worry, we need not worry. If the trouble is unavoidable or unchangeable, it were wise to use our powers to adjust ourselves to the inevitable. If it be a curable trouble, the only thing is to discover or devise a cure. As soon as we start to work we cease to worry, because worry and effective activity cannot exist at the same time. Man, at least, is such a creature that any real action looking towards a definite end brings him pleasure; and, though the action may have been stimulated by pain, yet the pleasure he finds in the action mitigates, if it does not destroy, the pain.