And one clearly sees the benefit of a belief, a faith in God.
"Gott in sein Mizpah ist gerecht," cries the orthodox Jew when his hope is shattered,--"God's decree is just." This is Hope Eternal; "my purposes are blocked, but were they God's purposes?
No. He would not then block them. I must seek God's purposes."
Faith is really a transcendent Hope, renewing the feeling of energy.
3. The belief that one has the good opinion of others is a powerful stimulus to energy and feeling. We have already considered the effect of praise and blame. Some are so constituted that they need the approval of others at all times; they are at the mercy of any one who gives them a cold look or a harsh word. Others cling to the need of their own self-approval; they are aristocrats, firm and secure in their self-estimate. Let their self-esteem crumble, and these proud and haughty ones are humble, weak, inefficient. We fiercely resent criticism because in it is a threat to our source of energy, our very feeling of being alive.
One has shrewdly to examine his fellow men from this angle: "Does he work up his own steam; are his boilers of energy heated by his own enthusiasm and his own self-approval? Or does he borrow; can he work only if others add their fire to his; does his light go out if his neighbors turn away or are too busy to help him?" One type of man may be as admirable as another in his gifts, but the types need different treatment.
Self-valuation is to a large extent our opinion of the valuation of others of ourselves.[1] We believe people like us, think we are fine and able, or beautiful, and we react with energy to difficulties. We may be wrong; they may call us a conceited ass and laugh at us behind our backs, but so long as we do not find it out, it doesn't matter. There is, however, no blow quite so severe as the sudden realization that we have mistaken the opinion of others, we have been "fooled." To be fooled is to be lowered in one's own self-esteem, and we like sincerity and hate insincerity largely because our self-esteem stands on some solid basis in the one case and on none whatever in the other. Most of us would rather have people say bad things of us to our face than run the risk of the ridicule and the foolish feeling that comes with insincerity. There are some who are always suspicions that people are insincere in praise or friendly words; they hate being fooled, they know of no criterion of sincerity and such people are in an adynamic state most of the time. The difference between the trusting and the suspicious is that one responds with energy and belief to the manifestations of friendliness in everybody, and the other has no such inner response to guide his energy and his actions. Trust in others is a releaser of energy; distrust paralyzes it.
[1] To paraphrase Doctor Holmes the biggest factor in John's self-valuation is HIS idea of Jane's idea of John.
4. Doubt and inability to choose may be contrasted with certitude and clear choice in their effect on energy release. Of course, one of the signs of lowered energy is doubt, as a sign of high energy is certainty. Nevertheless, a situation of critical importance, in which choice is difficult or digagreeable, inhibits energy feeling[1] and discharge perhaps as much as any other mental factor. Especially is this true when the inhibition concerns a moral situation--"Ought I to do this or that"--and where the fear of being wrong or doing wrong operates so that the individual does nothing and develops an obsession of doubt. This "to be or not to be" attitude is typical of many intelligent people, yes, even intellectual people. They we so many angles to a situation, they project so far into the future in their thoughts, that a weary discouragement comes. To such as these, the counsel of "action right or wrong but action anyway!" is good, but the difficulty is to make them overcome their doubts.
Their cerebral oscillation makes them weary but they cannot seem to stop it; their pendulum of choice never stops at action.
[1] See William James' "Varieties of Religious Experiences," for beautiful examples. The Russian writers are often narrators of this struggle.
If one wishes to destroy the energy of any one, the best way to do it is to sow the seeds of doubt. "Your ideal is a fine one, my friend, but--isn't it a little sophomoric?" "A nice piece of work, but--who wants it?" On the other hand, to one obsessed by doubt it may happen that a whole-hearted endorsement, a resolution of the doubt, brings with it first relief and then a swing of energy into the channels of action.
5. Competition is a great factor in energy release. Every one has seen a horse ambling along, apparently without sufficient energy to go more than four miles an hour. Suddenly he cocks up his ears as the sounds of the hoof beats of a rapidly traveling horse are heard. He shakes his head and to the amazement or amusement of his driver sets off in rivalry at a two-minute clip. Intensely cooperative and gregarious as man is, he is as intensely competitive, spurred on by his observations of the other fellow.
Introduce a definite system of rivalry into a school or an office, and you release energies never manifested before. There are some to whom this is the main releaser of energy; struggle, competition and victory over another is their stimulus. They can play no game unless there is competition, and the solitary pleasures and satisfactions, like reading, exploring, a row on the river or a walk in the woods, cannot arouse them. Others dislike rivalry or competition; they are too sympathetic to wish victory over another and also they dread to lose. They prefer team play and cooperation. The world will always seem different to these two types. This may be said now that for most of us, who are somewhat of a blend in this matter, rivalry is pleasant and stimulating when there is a show of success, but we prefer cooperation when we foresee failure.
