Escape less, read less, think more

I’ve been enjoying reading Wallace D. Wattles, a guy who in 1910 wrote the foundational tenets to what eventually became Think and Grow Rich, The Secret, and pretty much every self-improvement tome having to do with thoughts.

And yet he’s pretty much left in obscurity, despite having penned a much more concise and impacting collection of books than 95% of the “self-help” books on the market in the 100 years since.

I must say, The Wallace D. Wattles Collection of Self Improvement was the best $0.99 I have spent in a long time, what a great encouragement and inspiration!

(And yes, I like to read this kind of stuff, and no, I’m not ashamed of it. There’s always something more I can learn and improve about myself.)

Here’s a cool snippet about Greatness and thought (and the lack thereof) which sounds very Randian…but was written more than a decade before Ayn Rand even showed up in the USA.

“Greatness is only attained by the constant thinking of great thoughts. No man can become great in outward personality until he is great internally; and no man can be great internally until he THINKS.

No amount of education, reading, or study can make you great without thought; but thought can make you great with very little study. There are altogether too many people who are trying to make something of themselves, by reading books without thinking; all such will fail.

You are not mentally developed by what you read, but by what you think about what you read.

Thinking is the hardest and most exhausting of all labor; and hence many people shrink from it.

God has so formed us that we are continuously impelled to thought; we must either think or engage in some activity to escape thought. The headlong, continuous chase for pleasure in which most people spend all their leisure time is only an effort to escape thought.

If they are alone, or if they have nothing amusing to take their attention, as a novel to read or a show to see, they must think; and to escape from thinking they resort to novels, shows, and all the endless devices of the purveyors of amusement.

Most people spend the greater part of their leisure time running away from thought, hence they are where they are. We never move forward until we begin to think.”

Wattles, Wallace D. (2008-08-22). The Wallace D. Wattles Collection of Self Improvement (Kindle Locations 3173-3182). MacMay. Kindle Edition.