To Thine Ownself be True

A man does not live until he begins to discipline himself; he merely exists. Like an animal he gratifies his desires and pursues his inclinations just where they may led him. He is happy as a beast is happy, because he is not concious of what he is depriving himself; he suffers as the beast suffers, because he does not know the way out of suffering. He does not know to intelligently reflect upon life, and lives in a series of sensations, longings, and confused memories which are unrelated to any central idea or principle.

A man whose inner life is so ungoverened and chaotic must necessarily manifest this confusion in the visible conditions of his outer life in the world; and though for a time, running with the stream of his desires, he may draw himself a more or less large share of the outer necessities and comforts of life, he never achieves any real success nor accomplishes any real good, and sooner or later worldly failure and disaster are inevitable,as the direct result of the inward failure to properly adjust and regulate those mental forces which make the outer life.

~James Allen : As a Man Thinketh (c)1971