The Kingship of Self-Control is an inspiring and motivating manual which instructs on the behavior best suited for attaining happiness and a steady, fulfilling existence.
Much as with William Jordan's other books, this work advocates that the reader should train his thought processes and senses to the point where they are masters of their own destiny. The reader can spot the difference between this book's practical advice and what is gained from formal education, which instills only dry facts and mostly unusable knowledge in students.
The author, working in the high octane urban landscapes of both his native New York City and Chicago, noticed certain maladies of the human condition. Many people he met were worrysome (which Jordan terms 'the American disease') and would needlessly over-complicate or over-rationalize things in their heads. The phenomena of regret, whereby people wish over and over to have another chance of life, is another thing Jordan condemns as self-defeating.
It is therefore only through self-control, and an avoidance of the thought processes that undermine the human spirit, that individuals can attain their highest potential. Jordan would spend a lifetime writing, lecturing and assisting his fellow man in rejecting the fatalism and self-defeat that arises in the mind - and instead embracing the possibilities life holds at any time.
William George Jordan was a prominent lecturer and essayist whose works, focused primarily on personal improvement, were popular in his native New York and in the wider United States. He was one of the city's best known and respected magazine editors of the late 19th and early 20th century, and was even consulted by Theodore Roosevelt's government.
