“Oh, yes, I am,” he said. “I am practicing the art of just sittin’ in the sun. Sit here and let the sun fall on your face. It is warmlike and it smells good. It makes you feel peaceful inside. Did you ever think about the sun?” he asked. “It never hurries, never gets excited, it just works slowly and makes no noise—doesn’t push any buzzers, doesn’t answer any telephones, doesn’t ring any bells, just goes on a-shining, and the sun does more work in the fraction of an instant than you and I could ever do in a lifetime. Think of what it does. It causes the flowers to bloom, keeps the trees growing, warms the earth, causes the fruit and vegetables to grow and the crops to ripen, lifts water to send back on the earth, and it makes you feel ‘peaceful like.’

“I find that when I sit in the sun and let the sun work on me it puts some rays into me that give me energy; that is, when I take time to sit in the sun.

“So throw that mail over in the corner,” he said, “and sit down here with me.”

I did so, and when finally I went to my room and got at my mail I finished it in no time at all. And there was a good part of the day left for vacation activities and for more “sittin’ in the sun.”

Of course I know a lot of lazy people who have been sittin’ in the sun all their lives and never amounted to anything. There is a difference between sittin’ and relaxing, and just sittin’. But if you sit and relax and think about God and get yourself in tune with Him and open yourself to the flow of His power, then sittin’ is not laziness; in fact, it is about the best way to renew power. It produces driving energy, the kind of energy you drive, not the kind that drives you.

The secret is to keep the mind quiet, avoiding all hectic reactions of haste, and to practice peaceful thinking. The essence of the art is to keep the tempo down; to perform your responsibilities on the basis of the most efficient conservation of energy. It is advisable to adopt one or two workable plans through the use of which you can become expert in the practice of relaxed and easy power.

One of the best such plans was suggested to me by Captain Eddie Rickenbacker. A very busy man, he manages to handle his responsibilities in a manner indicating reserves of power. I found one element of his secret quite by accident.

I was filming a program for television with him. We had been assured that the work could be done quickly, leaving him free to go to the many other matters on his daily agenda.

However, the filming was long delayed beyond the time anticipated. I noted, however, that the Captain showed no signs of agitation. He did not become nervous or anxious. He did not pace up and down, putting in frantic calls to his office. Instead, he accepted the situation gracefully. There were a couple of old rocking chairs at the studio, apparently intended for use in a set other than ours. He sat in one rocker in a very relaxed manner.

I have always been a great admirer of Eddie Rickenbacker and I commented on his lack of tension. “I know how busy you are,” I said, “and I marvel at the way you sit quiet, composed, and peaceful like.”

For myself, I was a bit disturbed largely because I regretted to take so much of Captain Rickenbacker’s time. “How can you be so imperturbable?” I asked.

He laughingly replied, “Oh, I just practice what you preach. Come on, easy does it. Sit down here beside me.”

I pulled up the other rocking chair and did a little relaxing on my own. Then I said, “Eddie, I know you have some technique to attain this impressive serenity. Tell me about it, please.”

He is a modest man, but because of my persistence he gave me a formula which he says he uses frequently. I now use it myself and it is very effective. It may be described as follows:

First, collapse physically. Practice this several times a day. Let go every muscle in the body. Conceive of yourself as a jellyfish, getting your body into complete looseness. Form a mental picture of a huge burlap bag of potatoes. Then mentally cut the bag, allowing the potatoes to roll out. Think of yourself as the bag.

What is more relaxed than an empty burlap bag?

The second element in the formula is to “drain the mind.” Several times each day drain the mind of all irritation, all resentment, disappointment, frustration, and annoyance. Unless you drain the mind frequently and regularly, these unhappy thoughts will accumulate until a major blasting-out process will be necessary. Keep the mind drained of all factors which would impede the flow of relaxed power.

Third, think spiritually. To think spiritually means to turn the mind at regular intervals to God. At least three times a day “lift up your eyes unto the hills.” This keeps you in tune with God’s harmony. It refills you with peace.

This three-point program greatly impressed me, and I have been practicing it for some months. It is an excellent method for relaxing and living on the basis of easy does it.

From my friend Dr. Z. Taylor Bercovitz, of New York City, I have learned much of the art of working relaxed. Often when under pressure, with an office full of patients and telephone calls coming in, he will suddenly stop, lean against his desk, and talk to the Lord in a manner both natural and respectful. I like the style of his prayer. He tells me that it runs something like this: “Look, Lord, I am pushing myself too hard. I am getting jittery. Here I am counseling people to practice quietness, now I must practice it. Touch me with your healing peace. Give me composure, quietness, strength, and conserve my nervous energy so that I can help these people who come to me.”

He stands quietly for a minute or two. Then he thanks the Lord and proceeds with full but easy power to do his work.

Often in making sick calls about the city he finds himself in a traffic jam. He has a most interesting method of using these potentially irritating delays as opportunities to relax. Shutting off his engine, he slumps in his seat, putting his head back, closing his eyes, and has even been known to go to sleep. He says there is no reason to be concerned about going to sleep because the strident honking of horns will awaken him when traffic begins to move.

These interludes of complete relaxation in the midst of traffic last for only a minute or two, but they have energy-renewal value. It is surprising how many minutes or fractions of minutes during the day you can use to rest where you are. If even in such fractional periods you deliberately draw on God’s power, you can maintain adequate relaxation. It isn’t length of relaxation time that produces power; it is the quality of the experience.

I am told that Roger Babson, the famous statistician, frequently goes into an empty church and sits quietly. Perhaps he reads one or two hymns and in so doing finds rest and renewal. Dale Carnegie, under tension, goes to a church near his New York City office to spend a quarter-hour in prayerful meditation. He says he leaves his office for this purpose when busiest. This demonstrates control of time rather than being controlled by it. It also indicates watchfulness lest tension develop beyond a controllable degree.

I encountered a friend on a train from Washington to New York one night. This man is a member of Congress and he explained that he was on his way to his district to speak at a meeting of his constituents. The particular group he was about to address was hostile to him, he said, and would probably try to make things very difficult for him. Although they represented a minority in his district, he was going to face them just the same.

“They are American citizens and I am their representative. They have a right to meet with me if they want to.”

“You do not seem to be much worried about it,” I commented.

“No,” he answered, “if I get worried about it, then I will be upset and will not handle the situation well.”

“Do you have any particular method for handling such a tense situation?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” he replied, “they will be a noisy crowd. But I have my own way of meeting such situations without tension. I will breathe deeply, talk quietly, speak sincerely, be friendly and respectful, hold my temper, and trust in God to see me through.

“I have learned one important fact,” the Congressman continued, “and that is in any situation be relaxed, keep calm, take a friendly attitude, have faith, do your best. Do this, and usually you can make things come out all right.”

I have no doubt about the ability of this Congressman to live and work without tension, and, what is more, successfully to attain his objectives.

When we were doing some construction work at my farm in Pawling, New York, I watched a workman swinging a shovel. He was shoveling a pile of sand. It was a beautiful sight. Stripped to the waist, his lean and muscular body worked with precision and correlation. The shovel rose and fell in perfect rhythm. He would push the shovel into the pile, lean his body against it, and drive it deep into the sand. Then, in a clear, free swing it came up and the sand was deposited without a break in the motion. Again the shovel went back into the sand, again his body leaned against it, again the shovel lifted easily in a perfect arc. One almost had a feeling that he could sing in rhythm to the motion of this workman. Indeed the man did sing as he worked.

I was not surprised when the foreman told me that he is considered one of his best workmen. The foreman also spoke of him as good-humored, happy, and a pleasant person with whom to work. Here was a relaxed man who lived with joyous power, master of the art of easy does it.

Relaxation results from re-creation, and the process of re-creation should be continuous. The human being is meant to be attached to a continual flow of force that proceeds from God through the individual and back to God for renewal. When one lives in tune with this constantly re-creative process he learns the indispensable quality to relax and work on the basis of easy does it.

Now, how to master this skill. Here are ten rules for taking the hard way out of your job. Try these proven methods for working hard easily. They will help you to relax and have easy power.

1. Don’t get the idea that you are Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. Don’t strain so hard. Don’t take yourself so seriously.

2. Determine to like your work. Then it will become a pleasure, not drudgery. Perhaps you do not need to change your job. Change yourself and your work will seem different.

3. Plan your work—work your plan. Lack of system produces that “I’m swamped” feeling.

4. Don’t try to do everything at once. That is why time is spread out. Heed that wise advice from the Bible, “This one thing I do.”

5. Get a correct mental attitude, remembering that ease or difficulty in your work depends upon how you think about it. Think it’s hard and you make it hard. Think it’s easy and it tends to become easy.

6. Become efficient in your work. “Knowledge is power” (over your job). It is always easier to do a thing right.

7. Practice being relaxed. Easy always does it. Don’t press or tug. Take it in your stride.

8. Discipline yourself not to put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Accumulation of undone jobs makes your work harder. Keep your work up to schedule.

9. Pray about your work. You will get relaxed efficiency by so doing.

10. Take on the “unseen partner.” It is surprising the load He will take off you. God is as much at home in offices, factories, stores, kitchens, as in churches. He knows more about your job than you do. His help will make your work easy.