Text of the meditation
There is no blessedness anywhere until impatience is sacrificed. Despondency, anxiety, worry and irritability cannot cure the ills against which they are directed. They only add more misery to the troubles that prompt them. The cultivation of a steadfast and serene spirit cannot be overlooked if life is to yield any measure of usefulness and happiness.
The trifles, and even greater troubles, that annoy would soon dissolve and disappear if confronted with a temper that refuses to be ruffled and disturbed. Personal aims, wishes, schemes and pleasures will meet with checks, rebuffs and obstacles; and it is in learning to meet these reverses in a wise and calm spirit that we discover the true and abiding happiness within our heart.
When impatience and irritability are put away, then the blessedness of a strong, quiet and peaceful mind is realised and enjoyed.
James Allen (1864–1912), Book of Meditations for Every Day in the Year (1913) – public-domain text, gently modernised.
The original 1913 text is in the public domain.
