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BYWAYS TO BLESSEDNESS 9

True will-power consists in overcoming the irritabilities, follies, rash impulses and moral
lapses which accompany the daily life of the individual, and which are apt to manifest themselves
on every slight provocation; and in developing calmness, self-possession, and dispassionate action
in the press and heat of worldly duties, and in the midst of the passionate and unbalanced throng.
Anything short of this is not true power, and this can only be developed along the normal pathway
of steady growth in executing ever more and more masterfully, unselfishly, and perfectly the daily
round of legitimate tasks and pressing obligations.
The master is not he whose “psychological accomplishments,” rounded by mystery and
wonder, leave him in unguarded moments the prey of irritability, of regret, of peevishness, or
other petty folly or vice, but he whose “mastery” is manifested in fortitude, non-resentment,
steadfastness, calmness, and infinite patience. The true Master is master of himself; anything other

than this is not mastery but delusion.
The man who sets his whole mind on the doing of each task as it is presented, who puts into it
energy and intelligence, shutting all else out from his mind, and striving to do that one thing, no
matter how small, completely and perfectly, detaching himself from all reward in his task — that
man will every day be acquiring greater command over his mind, and will, by ever-ascending
degrees, become at last a man of power — a Master.
Put yourself unreservedly into your present task, and so work, so act, so live that you shall
leave each task a finished piece of labour — this is the true way to the acquisition of will-power,
concentration of thought, and conservation of energy. Look not about for magical formulas, for
strained and artificial methods. Every resource is already with you and within you. You have but
to learn how wisely to apply yourself in that place which you now occupy. Until this is done those
other and higher places which are waiting for you cannot be taken possession of, cannot be
reached.
There is no way to strength and wisdom but by acting strongly and wisely in the present
moment, and each present moment reveals its own task. The great man, the wise man does small
things greatly regarding nothing as “trivial” that is necessary. The weak man, the foolish man, does
small things carelessly, and meanly, hankering the while after, some greater work for which, in his
neglect and inability in small matters, he is ceaselessly advertising his incapacity. The man who
leasts governs himself is always more ambitious to govern others and assume important
responsibilities. “Who so neglects a thing which he suspects he ought to do because it seems too
small a thing is deceiving himself; it is not too little but too great for him that he doeth it not.”
And just as the strong doing of small tasks leads to greater strength, so the doing of those tasks
weakly leads to greater weakness. What a man is in his fractional duties that he is in the aggregate
of his character. Weakness is as great a source of suffering as sin, and there can be no true
blessedness until some measure of strength of character is evolved. The weak man becomes
strong by attaching value to little things and doing them accordingly. The strong man becomes
weak by falling into looseness and neglect concerning small things, thereby forfeiting his simple
wisdom and squandering his energy. Herein we see the beneficent operation of that law of growth
which is expressed in the little understood words: “To him that hath shall be given, and from him
that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” Man instantly gains or loses by every