The final chapter in Napoleon Hill’s classic book, Think and Grow Rich, is about fear. The book was written just after the Great Depression when there was a lot of fear in the hearts and the minds of the American people.
We have recently been through a difficult economic period and we are still feeling the repercussions of it. There is a climate of fear growing particularly among Baby Boomers. This is understandable. To a large extent, we are the offspring of the Depression Era. The fiscal conservatism and fear of poverty that our parents experienced at first or second hand was passed on to us.
This fear may have been lying dormant in our Subconscious Mind but it only takes a financial crisis like that of a couple of years ago to arouse it in its more virulent forms.
If you are a Baby Boomer who saw your retirement funds eaten away or stolen outright, if you worked hard all your life only to find yourself without a job, if you are a business owner whose business has suffered, tottered, or crumbled altogether, you may be tempted to look at your current circumstances and shake your head with dismay, telling yourself that your parents or grandparents were right after all. You may face the future with fear and trembling.
Hill felt his final chapter on fear was necessary because, as he said:
Before you can put any portion of this philosophy into successful use, your mind must be prepared to receive it. The preparation is not difficult. It begins with study, analysis, and understanding of three enemies which you shall have to clear out. These are indecision, Doubt and Fear.
This “unholy trio”, as Hill calls them, are closely related. Indecison, he says, is the seedling of Fear. It grows into Doubt and bears forth the fruit of Fear. The process by which these weeds grow is often so slow that they germinate and grow without their presence being observed. They sometimes remain hidden in the Subconscious Mind, where they are difficult to locate and still more difficult to weed out.
As noxious as these weeds are, it is important to remember that fears are nothing more than states of mind. Your state of mind is subject to your control and direction. You can create nothing which you do not first conceive in the form of an impulse of thought.
Furthermore, your thought impulses begin immediately to translate themselves into their physical equivalent, whether those thoughts are voluntary or involuntary.
Negative thoughts, thoughts of poverty, and the fear of shortage crop up unbidden, carried in on the ether. It is your job to take control your thought impulses. You don’t have to accept any negative thought that blows into the garden of your mind. Rather, you can root out those weeds and plant strong, healthy thoughts of hope, success, and abundance.
We will deal with the first of the Six Basic Fears today because it is at the bottom of most of our financial worries.
The Fear of Poverty
It might be said that the road to riches is a one-way street. By riches, we are referring now not only to financial wealth, but to spiritual, mental and material abundance as well. You cannot progress toward abundance by looking backwards. You have to decide whether you want to go that route or not. If you neglect to make the start or stop before you arrive, you will have no one to blame but yourself. This is YOUR responsibility.
Remember that the Fear of Poverty is a State of Mind, nothing else! It destroys the faculty of imagination ( with the exception of negative things; we can imagine all sorts of bad things happening when we are afraid of poverty), kills off self-reliance, undermines enthusiasm, discourages initiative, leads to lack of purpose, encourages procrastination, and makes self-control seem, if not impossible, at least unlikely. It can take the charm from your personality, destroy your ability to think accurately and act decisively and with persistence. Giving up becomes so very easy!
Money problems end more marriages than any other cause. The fear of poverty can undermine your love for your partner (even your love for yourself) and kill the finer emotions of the heart. It discourages friendship (because you fear that your friends are always judging you as a failure). It can lead to sleeplessness (long nights of tossing and turning), misery and unhappiness. Nothing brings so much suffering and humility as Poverty.
What are the symptoms of the Fear of Poverty?
Indifference or lack of ambition
Indecision or the habit of letting others do the thinking for you while you sit on the fence
Doubt expressed through alibis and excuses to cover up, explain away, for apologize for your failures. This doubt is sometimes expressed as envy of those who are successful or by criticizing them
Worry expressed in finding fault with others, a tendency to spend beyond your means (so you can worry some more), neglect of your personal appearance, scowling or frowning, intemperance, nervousness, lack of poise and self-confidence
Over-Caution exhibited in the habit of looking for the virulent black lining of every cloud, thinking and talking of the possibility of failure instead of concentrating on the means of succeeding, pessimism
Procrastination, the putting off until tomorrow what should have been done yesterday, waiting for the “right time” to begin putting ideas and plans into action
If you have any of these symptoms, take steps now to eliminate them. Remind yourself of the truth that we live in a world of OVER-abundance of everything the heart could want, with nothing standing between us and our Desires except for our fear of poverty.
Sara Dillinger is a Baby Boomer herself and a newbie internet entrepreneur focusing on the Baby Boomer generation because she spent sixteen years serving as pastor in United Methodist congregations all over Kansas. Those congregations were made up primarily of Baby Boomer or older members, so Sara has developed some expertise with the Baby Boomer generation. Sara is now on leave of absence and living in Atchison, Ks. with her almost-thirty year old son and two cats. She also helps her daughter, also living in Atchison, with three sons, ages 8, 6, and 1, while their father is in Afghanistan. Her blogs are found at http://www.for-boomers.com.