latent powers. Many a time he thought he would change his course, and made up his mind never to let another opportunity for self-development go by him unimproved. But the habit of delaying until he should be better prepared got such a hold of him that he could not change. The result is that, although he is a man of recognized power, with a superb mind, his life has been an extremely quiet one, very tame and unimportant compared with what it would have been had he made it a rule to thrust himself into every position of responsibility which would have called out the best in him.
Many people never discover themselves or know their possibilities because they always shrink from responsibility. They lease themselves to somebody else and die with their greatest possibilities unreleased, undeveloped.
Personally, I believe it is the duty of every young person to have an ambition to be independent, to be his own master, and to resolve that he will not be at somebody else’s call all his life—come and go at the sounding of a gong or the touch of a bell—that he will at least belong to himself; that he will be an entire wheel and not a cog; that he will be a whole machine, although it may be a small one, rather than part of someone else’s machine.
The very stretching of the mind toward high ideals, the looking forward to the time when we shall be our own masters, working along the lines of a resolution, a fixed, irrevocable determination, has a strengthening, unifying influence upon all of the faculties, and you will be a stronger man or woman, whatever your future, if you keep steadily, persistently in mind your own individual declaration of independence. It means freedom, it means delivery from restraint, from a certain feeling of slavery which attaches to every subordinate position. I do not believe that it is possible for any one to reach the same magnitude of manhood or womanhood, to grow to the same statute, after giving up the struggle for absolute independence or the hope of going into a business or profession or something else all of one's own.
It is true that not every person has the executive ability or strength of mind, the qualities of leadership, the moral stamina, or the push to conduct a business successfully for himself and stand his ground. There are, also, many instances of young men who have others dependent upon them, and who are not in a position to take the risks of going into business for themselves. A great many, however, work for others merely because they do not dare to take the risk of starting on their own responsibility. They lack the courage to branch out. The fear of possible failure deters them. Moreover, a great many start as boys in certain occupations, work up to a fairly good salary, and, though they may be ambitious to be independent, are yet held back by the distrust of their own powers and the advice of others, to “let well enough alone,” until the habit of doing the same thing year in and year out becomes so fixed that it is very difficult to wrench themselves out of their environment.
Again, a great many people prefer a small certainty to a big uncertainty. There is no disposition to hazard, no desire to take risks, in their make-up. They do not want to assume large responsibilities. They prefer steady employment, and the certainty that every Saturday night they will find fixed sums in their pay envelopes, to the great risks, responsibilities, and uncertainties of a business of their own.
You may not have the ambition, the desire, or the inclination to take responsibility. You may prefer to have an easier life, and to let somebody else worry about the payment of notes and debts, the hard times, the dull seasons, and the panics. But, if you expect to bring out the greatest possibilities in you,—if growth, with the largest possible expansion of your powers, is your goal,—you cannot realize your ambition in the fullest and completest sense while merely trying to carry out somebody else’s programme and letting him furnish the ideas.
There must be a sense of complete independence, not partial but complete, in order to reach the highest growth. We do not attain our full stature of manhood or womanhood in captivity or in slavery, but in freedom, in absolute liberty. The eagle must be let out of the cage, no matter how large or how comfortable, before it can exhibit all the powers of an eagle.
It is the locked-up forces within, that lie deep in our natures, not those which are on the surface, that test our mettle. It is within everybody’s power to call out these hidden forces, to be somebody and to do something worth while in the world, and the man who does not do it is violating his sacred birthright.
Every man or woman who goes through the world with great continents of undiscovered possibilities locked up within him commits a sin against himself and that which borders on a crime against civilization.
Don’t be afraid to trust yourself. Have faith in your own ability to think along original lines. If there is anything in you, self-reliance will bring it out.
Whatever you do, cultivate a spirit of manly independence in doing it. Let your work express yourself. Don’t be a mere cog in a machine. Do your own thinking and carry out your own ideas, as far as possible, even though working for another.
Chapter VIII.
An Overmastering Purpose
BEFORE water generates steam, it must register two hundred and twelve degrees of heat. Two hundred degrees will not do it; two hundred and ten will not do it. The water must boil before it will generate enough steam to move an engine, to run a train. Lukewarm water will not run anything.
A great many people are trying to move their life trains with lukewarm water—or water that is almost boiling—and they are wondering why they are stalled, why they cannot get ahead. They are trying to run a boiler with two hundred or two hundred and ten degrees of heat, and they cannot understand why they do not get anywhere.
Lukewarmness in his work stands in the same relation to man's achievement as lukewarm water does to the locomotive boiler. No man can hope to accomplish anything great in this world until he throws his whole soul, flings the force of his whole life, into it.
In Phillips Brooks's talks to young people he used to urge them to be something with all their might. It is not enough simply to have a general desire to be something. There is but one way to accomplish it; and that is, to strive to be somebody with all the concentrated energy we can muster. Any kind of a human being can wish for a thing, can desire it; but only strong, vigorous minds with great purposes can do things.
There is an infinite distance between the wishers and the doers. A mere desire is lukewarm water, which never will take a train to its destination; the purpose must boil, must be made into live steam to do the work.
Who would ever have heard of Theodore Roosevelt outside of his immediate community if he had only half committed himself to what he had undertaken; if he had brought only a part of himself to his task? The great secret of his career has been that he has flung his whole life, not a part of it, with all the determination and energy and power he could muster, into everything he has undertaken. No dillydallying, no fainthearted efforts, no lukewarm purpose for him!
Every life of power must have a great master purpose which takes precedence of all other motives—a supreme principle which is so commanding and so imperative in its demands for recognition and exercise that there can be no mistaking its call. Without this the water of energy will never reach the boiling point; the life train will not get anywhere.
The man with a vigorous purpose is a positive, constructive, creative force. No one can be resourceful, inventive, original, or creative without powerful concentration; and the undivided focusing of the mind is only possible along the line of the ambition, the life purpose. We cannot focus the mind upon a thing we are not interested in and enthusiastic about.
A man ought to look upon his career as a great artist
