Self-Investment

IT is astonishing how many people there are who have no definite aim or ambition, but just exist from one day to another with no well-defined life plan. All about us on the ocean of life we see young men and women aimlessly drifting without rudder or port, throwing away time, without serious purpose or method in anything they do. They simply drift with the tide. If you ask one of them what he is going to do,· what his ambition is, he will tell you he does not exactly know yet what he will do. He is simply waiting for a chance to take up something.


How can a man who lives without a pro­ gram ever expect to arrive anywhere but in chaos, confusion? A clear-cut purpose has a powerful influence upon the life. It unifies our efforts and gives direction to our work, so that every blow counts.


I have never known anyone who followed an indolent inclination ever to amount to much. It is the man who struggles against the things that are fighting with his ambition who gets to the front.


No one ever amounts to much who does not take himself in hand and force himself to do the thing that is best for him in the end, not the pleasantest or the easiest.


Every man should be a stern schoolmaster to himself. He cannot sit and take it easy every time he has the opportunity; he cannot lie abed until he feels like getting up in the morning, and work only when he is in the mood, and ever amount to anything. He must learn to master his moods and to force himself to work no matter how he feels.