How do You Use Your Time

"Never start upon an undertaking until you are sure it is practicable and ought to be done, and then let nothing stand long in the way of accomplishing that undertaking. It is better to deserve success than to have it; few deserve it who do not attain it."

"There is no failure in this country for those whose personal habits are good, and who follow some honest calling industriously, unselfishly, and purely. 

If one desires to succeed, he must pay the price - with his time and pleny of focused effort, he must work!" 

Henry Clay.

"Full many a gem, of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

How many young men for whom nature has done so much, "blush unseen," and waste their ability. Franklin said, "Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of." We have seen how Franklin used his time. Born the son of a soap-boiler, lived to become one of our most noted philosophers, died worth thousands. Advice from such  men carries conviction, for we cannot but feel that our chances are fully equal to what theirs were.

Gladstone, England's most noted Premier, once said, "Believe me when I tell you that thrift of time will repay you in after-life with usury, but the waste of it will make you dwindle away until you fairly sink out of existence, unknown, unmourned." Thurlow Weed was so poor in boyhood that he was of necessity glad to use pieces of carpet to cover his all but freezing feet; thus shod he walked two miles to borrow a history of the French revolution, which he mastered stretched prone before the sap-fire, while watching the kettles of sap transformed to maple sugar. Thus was it that he laid the foundation of his education, which in after years enabled him to sway such mighty power at Albany; known as the "king maker."

Elihu Burritt, a child of poverty, the son of a poor farmer, the youngest of ten children. He was apprenticed at eighteen to a blacksmith. He wanted to become a scholar and bought some Greek and Latin works, carrying them in his pocket and studying as he worked at the anvil. From these he went to Spanish, Italian and French. He always had his book near him and improved every spare moment. He studied seven languages in one single year. Then he taught school one year, but his health failing, he went into the grocery business. Soon what money he had was swept away by losses.

Here we see him at twenty-seven, life seemingly a failure. Alas! how many would have given up. He left New Britain, his native town, walked to Boston, and from there to Worcester, where he once more engaged himself at his trade. His failure in business turns his  attention once more to study. He now is convinced as to the proper course to pursue, his aim is fixed, and he now sets himself strenuously about the accomplishment of his purpose. At thirty years of age he is master of every language of Europe, and is turning his attention to those of Asia, such as Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldaic. He is offered by a wealthy gentleman a course in Harvard University, but prefers to work with his hands while he studies

Think of it. One hour could be easily improved each evening, counting three hundred week days to a year; in ten years you have spent three thousand golden  hours. If directed toward some specific end, think what it would accomplish. Then there are the Sundays devoted to religious knowledge. One of the first things to be learned by him who would succeed, is Economy of time. Lost wealth can be replaced by industry; lost health by hygiene; but lost time is gone forever.

The most frequent excuse we often hear is: "I have no time."  Well meaning, industrious people from all walks of life cheat themselves with the delusion that they would like to do this or that, but cannot as they have no leisure. Dear reader, did you ever think that the more a person has to do, the more they feel they can do? Look at the men in our own community who have done the most for mankind; are they the wealthy, whose only duty seems to be to kill time? No. Almost universally they are the over-worked class who seem already burdened with cares. These are the men who find time to preside at public meetings, and to serve on committees.

It is easier for an over-worked man to do a little more than for a lazy one to get up steam. A light stroke will keep a hoop in motion, but it takes a smart blow to start it. The busy man succeeds: While others are yawning and stretching, getting their eyes open, he will see the opportunity and improve it. Complain not that you have no leisure. Rather be thankful that you are not cursed with it. Yes, curse it is nine times out of ten. Think of the young man going to some vile place of amusement to kill time, then think of that young man utilizing that hour every night in the acquisition of knowledge which will fit him for life's journey. Think also of the money he will save. Leisure is too often like a two-edged sword; it cuts both ways.

Hard Work and Luck

The Press often publishes stories of great fortunes made winning the lottery or in Vegas or Monte Carlo. The proprietors there love this publicity - it brings them new patrons.

It is necessary to dwell on this gambling side of the question, because every man who believes in luck has a touch of the gambler in him, though he may never have played a stake. And from the point of view of real success in affairs the gambler is doomed in advance. It is a frame of mind which a man should discourage severely when he finds it within the citadel of his mind. It is a view which too frequently infects young men with more ambition than industry.

The view of Fortune as some shining goddess sweeping down from heaven and touching the lucky recipient with her pinions of gold dazzles the mind of youth. Men think that with a single stroke they will either be made rich for life or impoverished for ever.

The more usual view is less ambitious. It is the complaint that Fortune has never looked a man's way. Failure due to lack of industry is excused on the ground that the goddess has proved adverse. There is a third form of this mental disease. A young man spoke to me in Las Vegas the other day, and said, "I could do anything if only I had the chance, but that chance never comes my way." On that same evening I saw the aspirant throwing away whatever chance he may have had at the tables.

A similar type of character is to be found in the young man who consistently refuses good offers or even small chances of work because they are not good enough for him. He expects that Luck will suddenly bestow on him a ready-made position or a gorgeous chance suitable to the high opinions he holds of his own capacities. After a time people tire of giving him any openings at all. In wooing the Goddess of Luck he has neglected the Goddess of Opportunity.

These men in middle age fall into a well-known class. They can be seen haunting the Temple, and explaining to their more industrious and successful associates that they would have been CEOs if a big opportunity had ever come their way. They develop that terrible disease known as "the genius of the untried." Their case is almost as pitiful or ludicrous as that of the man of very moderate abilities whom drink or some other vice has rendered quite incapable. There will still be found men to whisper to each other as he passes, "Ah, if Brown didn't drink, he might do anything."

Far different will be the mental standpoint of the man who really means to succeed. He will banish the idea of luck from his mind. He will accept every opportunity, however small it may appear, which seems to lead to the possibility of greater things. He will not wait on luck to open the portals to fortune. He will seize opportunity by the forelock and develop its chances by his industry. Here and there he may go wrong, where judgment or experience is lacking. But out of his very defeats he will learn to do better in the future, and in the maturity of his knowledge he will attain success. At least, he will not be found sitting down and whining that luck alone has been against him.

There remains a far more subtle argument in favour of the gambling temperament which believes in luck. It is that certain men possess a kind of sixth sense in the realm of speculative enterprise. These men, it is said, know by inherent instinct, divorced from reasoned knowledge, what enterprise will succeed or fail, or whether the market will rise or fall. They are the children of fortune.

The real diagnosis of these cases is a very different one from that put forward by the mystic apostles of the Golden Luck. Eminent men who are closely in touch with the great affairs of politics or business often act on what appears to be a mere instinct of this kind. But, in truth, they have absorbed, through a careful and continuous study of events both in the present and the past, so much knowledge, that their minds reach a conclusion automatically, just as the heart beats without any stimulus from the brain. Ask them for the reasons of their decision, and they become inarticulate or unintelligible in their replies. Their conscious mind cannot explain the long-hoarded experience of their subconscious self. When they prove right in their forecast, the world exclaims, "What luck!" Well, if luck of that kind is long enough continued it will be best ascribed to judgment.

The real "lucky" speculator is of a very different character. He makes a brilliant coup or so and then disappears in some overwhelming disaster. He is as quick in losing his fortune as he is in making it. Nothing except Judgment and Industry, backed by Health, will ensure real and permanent success. The rest is sheer superstition.

Two pictures may be put before the believer in luck as an element in success. The one is Las Vegas where the Goddess Fortune is chiefly worshiped — steeped in almost perpetual sunshine, piled in castellated masses against its hills, gaining the sense of the illimitable from the blue horizon of the Mediterranean—a shining land meant for clean exercise and repose. Yet there youth is only seen in its depravity, while old age flocks to the central gambling hell to excite or mortify its jaded appetites by playing a game it is bound to lose.

Here you may see in their decay the people who believe in luck, steeped in an atmosphere of smoke and excitement, while beauty of Nature or the pursuits of health call to them in vain. Three badly lighted tennis courts compete with thirty splendidly furnished casino rooms. But of means for obtaining the results of exercise without the exertion there is no end. The Salle des Bains offers to the fat and the jaded the hot bath, the electric massage, and all the mechanical instruments for restoring energy. Modern science and art combine to outdo the attractions of the baths of Imperial Rome.

In far different surroundings from these were born the careers of the living captains of modern industry and finance men like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Andrew Carnegie, or Walt Disney. These men believed in industry, not in fortune, and in judgment rather than in chance. The youth of this generation will do well to be guided by their example, and follow their road to success. Not by the worship of the Goddess of Luck were the great fortunes established or the great reputations made.

It is natural and right for youth to hope, but if hope turns to a belief in luck, it becomes a poison to the mind. Our youth have before them a splendid opportunity, but let it remember always that nothing but work and brains counts, and that a man can even work himself into brains. No goddess will open to any man the portals of the temple of success. Young men must advance boldly to the central shrine along the arduous but well-tried avenues of solid judgment and hard work.

Start early. Work Hard. Save Your Money. Invest Wisely.

A Balanced Life - Work Hard

A vital element in any well balanced life is work.

Three-fourths of our time is probably spent in work. Of course the meaning of it is that our work should be just as religious as our worship, and unless we can work for the glory of God three-fourths of life remains unsanctified.

The proof that work is religious is that most of Christ's life was spent in work. During a large part of the first thirty years of His life He worked with the hammer and the plane, making ploughs and yokes and household furniture. Christ's public ministry occupied only about two and a half years of His earthly life; the great bulk of His time was simply spent in doing common everyday tasks, and ever since then work has had a new meaning.

When Christ came into the world He was revealed to three deputations who went to meet and worship Him. First came the shepherds, or working class; second, the wise men, or student class; and third, the two old people in the temple, Simeon and Anna; that is to say, Christ is revealed to men at their work, He is revealed to men at their books, and He is revealed to men at their worship. It was the old people who found Christ at their worship, and as we grow older we will spend more time exclusively in worship than we are able to do now. In the mean time we must combine our worship with our work, and we may expect to find Christ at our books and in our common task.

Why should God have provided that so many hours of every day should be occupied with work? It is because Work Makes Men!

A university is not merely a place for making scholars, it is a place for making Christians. A farm is not a place for growing corn, it is a place for growing character, and a man has no character except that which is developed by his life and thought. God's Spirit does the building through the acts which a man performs from day to day. A student who cons out every word in his Latin and Greek instead of consulting a translation finds that honesty is translated into his character. If he works out his mathematical problems thoroughly, he not only becomes a mathematician, but becomes a thorough man. It is by constant and conscientious attention to daily duties that thoroughness and conscientiousness and honorableness are imbedded in our beings.