Have Superior Ideals!

Our destiny is determined by what we are and by what we do, and what we are to be or do is determined by what we are living for, thinking for or working for. We are not being made by some outside force. We are making ourselves with the power of those forces and elements that we employ in our thought and our work, and in all our efforts physical or mental, we invariably follow our ideals. We who live, think and work for the superior become superior; we who work for less, become less. It is therefore evident that any individual may become more, achieve more, secure more and create for themselves a greater and a greater destiny by simply beginning to live, think and work for a superior group of ideals.

To have low ideals is to give the creative forces of the system something ordinary to work for. To have high ideals is to give those forces something extraordinary to work for, and our fate is the result of what our creative forces hourly produce. Every force in the human system is producing something, and that something will become a part of the individual. It is therefore evident that anyone can constantly improve the power, the quality and the worth of their being by directing the forces of their system to produce that which has quality and worth. These forces, however, are not directed or controlled by the will. It is the nature of the creative forces in humankind to produce what the mind desires, wants, needs or aspires to attain, and the desires and the aspirations of any mind are determined by the ideals that are entertained in that mind.

The forces of the system will begin to work for the superior when the mind begins to attain superior ideals, and since it is the product of these forces that determines both the nature and the destiny of humankind, a superior nature and a greater destiny may be secured by anyone who will adopt the highest and the most perfect system of idealism that they can possibly comprehend. To entertain superior ideals is to picture in mind and to hold constantly before mind the highest conception that can be formed of everything of which we may be conscious. To mentally dwell in those higher conceptions at all times is to cause the predominating ideas to become superior ideas, and it is the predominating ideas for which we live, think and work. When the ruling ideas of any mind are superior, the creative force of that mind will produce the superior in every element, faculty, talent or power in that mind. Greatness will thus be developed in that mind, and the great mind invariably creates a great destiny.

To entertain superior ideals is not to dream of the impossible, but to enter into mental contact with those greater possibilities that we are now able to discern, and to have the power to discern an ideal indicates that we have the power to realize that ideal. We do not become conscious of greater possibilities until we have developed sufficient capacity to work out those possibilities into practical, tangible results. Therefore, when we discern the greater, we are ready to attain and achieve the greater, but before we can proceed to do what we are ready to do, we must adopt superior ideals, and superior ideals only. When our ideals are superior, we will constantly think of the superior, because as our ideals are, so is our thinking, and to constantly think of the superior is to steadily grow into the likeness of the superior.

- From The Ideal Made Real by Christian Larson

A Newt List spiritual ebook, updated and gender-neutral