The most significant step a mind takes is that wherein it realizes that it can control its own operation; when it learns that it can command those things in itself commonly considered automatic.
 
And in nothing does this appear with such striking results to happiness as in the discovery of one’s power to manage his memory.
 
Most people think they remember what they remember, and that is all there is to it. But it is possible to make memory a servant, and restrain its mastery.
 
In Italy a rare motto was found by Hazlitt upon a sun-dial: Horas non numero nisi serenas—“I mark only the shining hours.”
 
89
The man whose increase of contentment is most assured, as he grows older, is the one who has discovered how to enjoy his past.
 
To many of us the past is always sad. We turn from it with impatience. “Man never is, but always to be, blest.” Naturally this habit of mind sees in the ever-shortening future nothing but tragedy. Accept, then, these hints on how to handle your past.
 
First, whatever it is, has been; it has brought you here. Your condition may not be all your impudent claims on the universe demand, but it might be worse. Better men than you are in jail, are stricken with unceasing pain. Better men than you have been hanged.
 
Out of the worst experiences you have had you may reap satisfaction. The dangers, sicknesses, accidents, and losses, one 90 who understands the art of living finds in the r............