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Wallace D. Wattles Ultimate Collection — Chapter-87: Talk That Builds
- Source: /library/Wallace D. Wattles Ultimate Collection/source-file.pdf
- PDF pages: 352–354
- Pages without text: none
- Note: Work: Making of the Man Who Can, section 9 of 9.
Chapter 9: Talk That Builds Table of Contents DO NOT TALK ABOUT POVERTY. It adds nothing to the wealth and happiness of the world to disseminate the information that you have always been poor, and have had a mighty hard struggle to get along. Poverty is no more a thing to boast of than ignorance is a thing to boast of. The old saying that it is no disgrace to be poor is only a half truth; in the true sense it is really a disgrace to be poor. Nobody is poor, or having a hard struggle but (a) the ignorant, (b) the lazy, and (c) the incompetent. This sounds harsh, and you are ready to go “up in the air” about it; you want to tell me that the tenement dwellers and wage-slaves have no chance, and so on. But wait a little. The wage slaves really own the world; they have created it all, and they could take possession of it tomorrow if they would. They can begin, at any time, to use the factories to make things for themselves, instead of turning wealth out for their masters. But they do not do it because they are (a) too ignorant to know that this is their world; (b) too intellectually lazy to THINK, and so discover that this is their world; and (c) incompetent, because they do not THINK. Intellectual laziness is what keeps the masses down; those who work hard and willingly in other ways shrink from the effort of sustained and consecutive thinking; and because they let other people do their thinking for them, they are slaves. The masses will be wage-slaves as long as the five-cent theaters are crowded and the public libraries deserted.
I tell you this because I want to make plain to you the futility of talking about poverty. Talking about poverty and adverse conditions will only lead people to run to the cheap shows, and to try in other ways to drown their miseries in temporary pleasures. The more you talk, and think about your hard times, the more you will be inclined to seek some mental narcotic to dull the keen edge of your suffering; and the longer you will suffer. No surer way to keep the masses poor can be devised than to continually write and talk about their poverty. Talk about the good time coming. The good time IS coming, and the rapidity of its coming is in exact proportion of the number of people who think about it and talk about it. Instead of going about showing horrible pictures of the condition of those who live in the tenements, go about showing beautiful pictures of the conditions of those who will live in the coming city. If you can inspire one person to go to work for the coming city, you have done more good than you can be sending ten people out with slaves and plasterers to relieve existing distress. Instead of crusading against child labor and bad factory conditions, tell the working people what splendid conditions they will have when they wake up and begin to operate the industries for themselves. The masses are not in bondage to anything but ignorance and intellectual laziness; they can have what they will if they will begin to THINK. And the way to make them think is to talk WEALTH. That is the philosophy for the mass. And the same applies to you as an individual. If the mass is not ready or willing to rise, you do not have to stay down with it; you can rise above it.
But you can never rise above it if you keep talking about yourself as being down with it. If you keep talking of yourself as one of those who have hard times in getting along, you will continue to be one of those who have hard times in getting along. Do not tell how poor your parents were, and what terrible times you had when you were a child. To talk of those things is to go back into those conditions, mentally; and to go back into those conditions mentally is to invite them physically. Talk about the happy times you had in your youth, and forget all the unhappy times. Do not tell how hard you used to work, and how little you got for it. If you worked hard for nothing, you were a chump; and you should not advertise yourself as a chump. Tell of the good work you have done, and of the good wages you got for it; then you are advertising yourself as a competent person, who can earn good wages. Do not, like Uriah Heep, tell how ‘umble you are, and boast of living in a ‘umble abode, declare yourself to be as good as the best, and describe the elegant home you are in the process of getting and furnishing. Don’t apologize for your clothes, tell how few you have, or say you “have nothing fit to wear;” think of the fine clothes you are making arrangements to get. Don’t talk poverty in any way; don’t refer to it as existing. TALK WEALTH.