Response to "Kingship of Self-Control"

The Kingship of Self-Control
We envy the success of others, when we should emulate the process by which that success came. We see the splendid physical development of Sandow, yet we forget that as a babe and child he was so weak there was little hope that his life might be spared.
Process, instead of stasis. I tend to look around me and see successful men, but I don't actually emulate their process. I unconsciously believe that they got to their state because of birth and genetics, when many of the people I know are as normal as me, but have made decisions to make them successful. 
The individual can attain self-control in great things only through self-control in little things. He must study himself to discover what is the weak point in his armor, what is the element within him that ever keeps him from his fullest success. This is the characteristic upon which he should begin his exercise in self-control. Is it selfishness, vanity, cowardice, morbidness, temper, laziness, worry, mind-wandering, lack of purpose?—whatever form human weakness assumes in the masquerade of life he must discover. He must then live each day as if his whole existence were telescoped down to the single day before him. With no useless regret for the past, no useless worry for the future, he should live that day as if it were his only day,— the only day left for him to assert all that is best in him, the only day left for him to conquer all that is worst in him. He should master the weak element within him at each slight manifestation from moment to moment. Each moment then must be a victory for it or for him. Will he be King, or will he be slave?—the answer rests with him.
I am a slave too often. I remember in college when I was progressing on so many levels -- socially, academically, intellectually, even civicly. When I was first living in Memphis, I was advancing and leading. Now I cower and hide. I have enslaved myself because of my fears.

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