Self Development: A Handbook for the Ambitious

Chapter 1: Organize Your Life

ALL over the land young men at this moment are beginning business or professional careers. They have done with school and college and now they are about to start making their own way in the world. To store and office, factory and mill, mine and lumber- camp, to one or another scene of productive endeavor they turn their steps. An eager throng are they, alert with the urgings of youth, youth's ardent longing for success.
But youth too often forgets that success depends on many things. And too often youth forgets that it depends largely on the definite- ness of a young man's aim and the vigor with which he organizes his life with that aim in view. No young man can drift to success. No young man can possibly succeed if he lets the power that is in him lie latent, or if he scatters it in foolish activities. Every young man who would win must energize himself by concentration.
Reynolds Brown once drew a little word- picture specially significant to young men starting out for themselves. Here it is:
"A pile of steel filings and shavings lying on the floor of a foundry may be fine in quality, they may weigh a ton when put upon the scales, but unorganized they have little value. Organize and weld them into a shaft, attach one end of the shaft to an engine and the other to a screw propeller and it will send a mighty ocean liner from New York to Liverpool in five days."

He goes on:
"In like manner a mind, a heart, a soul, is nothing more than a confused heap of thoughts and wishes, impulses and desires, longings and aspirations, until by the power of a purpose all these are brought into unity and made effective in their thrust toward some worthy fulfillment." That is what every young man needs to do—he needs to organize his life. And he can not too soon begin the task of organizing it. For if he delay, habits which may make life-organizing difficult, if not impossible, are pretty sure to fasten on him. The habit of energy waste, the habit of contentment with the mediocre, the habit of indolence, the habit of amusement craving, once gripped by these he is well-nigh doomed. As, since the first peopling of the world, millions of men have demonstrated by the futility of their lives.

Always the winners are those who clearly recognize that life is for accomplishment of a worthwhile sort, and, inspired by the recognition, subordinate everything else to accomplishment. They may not win fame, they may not win wealth. But they are certain to win and hold self-respect, the esteem of others, self-satisfaction, happiness.
And incidentally, they may into the bargain win both fame and wealth. Though, to be sure, he is foolish indeed who sets the winning of either fame or wealth as his great object in life. There are other life purposes infinitely more important. Besides, to fix the aspiration solely on fame or wealth is to invite disaster. It may even mean mental wreckage, as in the case of one unfortunate young man of my acquaintance.
Working in a low-paying, unskilled occupation, this young man was so industrious as to compel the hearty admiration of his employer. "Young Brown is certainly setting a splendid example for the others," was the latter's comment. "I wish I could promote him, but he is too uneducated." Then one day the employer received a shock. A worker came to him, and, speaking of this industrious young man, said:
"You'll have to get some one in Brown's place or pay him by the day instead of by piecework. And some of us think you really ought to have a doctor see him.
"You know how hard and how long he works. He doesn't do it because he loves work, but because he loves the money his work brings him. He's money mad. That's the only word for it. "He doesn't carry in a lunch, and he won't go out or send out for one. If we didn't give him some of ours he'd go hungry all day. And I'll bet he doesn't eat much of a break- fast or supper. See how thin he is. He's fond of smoking, but he won't spend a cent for a smoke. He picks up cigarette and cigar butts any place he can find them. Just keep your eye on him, and you'll see I'm right."
The employer did keep his eye on Brown. And before the week was out he saw reason to persuade his ultra-zealous employee to apply for admission to a psychopathic hospital. There a diagnosis of mental disease was promptly made. Yet, as a fellow worker said, in detailing to me the strange case:
"Brown was one of the best-hearted men you ever would meet. He would do anything for a mate, help out in any way he could. We all liked him. He was good to everybody except himself. And truly he was killing himself because of money madness."
Society rightly intervenes to save such unfortunates from themselves. If only it would likewise intervene to save itself from the more numerous money maniacs who sacrifice to their passion for wealth not themselves but others. In their case money madness does not abnormally weaken the instinct of self-preservation. But it virtually destroys in them the altruistic instinct. It petrifies their hearts. And it unmistakably reveals its presence in the expression of their faces. It hardens and compresses their lips, it puts a terrible gleam in their eyes, or, perchance, robs their eyes of all lustre of feeling. Yet society, unless they commit some distinctly outrageous act, leaves them free to work their villainies—to exact profits which may be tainted with the suffering of multitudes, to trick the unwary, to deceive, to cajole.
These others, I insist, are as truly mad as any miser, old or young. And, like the miser who would starve himself for gold, their proper place is in some hospital for the insane.
You, of course, have no desire to work injury either to yourself or to others. Beware, then, of letting a money lust grow upon you. Be thrifty, but never avaricious. And as with money, so with fame, concerning which, in these budding years of youth, you are doubtless dreaming golden dreams and wistfully hoping that the future will bring you renown, that you will live in men's memories after your day on earth is done. Which you are justified in hoping. Not all can become famous, but the longing for fame is assuredly a mainspring for solid accomplishment—so long as it does not degenerate into an obsessive craving. Kept within its proper bounds it should be heartily approved, and I would indeed help you to achieve it by calling your attention to a few errors you must be careful to avoid if your dreams of fame are to be realized.
First of all, let me warn you against trying to win fame through developing uncommon ability for money making.
It is not impossible for a rich man to be a famous man. But if he does obtain fame it certainly is never by reason of his riches merely. And the whole experience of history teaches that rich men as a rule are quickly forgotten by the world. There have been rich men, plenty of rich men, in every land and every epoch, in every phase of the civilizations which mankind has thus far traversed, yet how few rich men have survived their generation. The wealthy of ancient Greece and Rome have perished with the wealth they treasured. Among the immortals of the middle ages the rich have no conspicuous place. The names of the money masters of even a scant century ago are faded beyond recall.
Taking exception, you may perhaps remind me of Maecenas and Beaumarchais and Robert Morris. Let me remind you that it was not their wealth that made these famous. It was the way they used their wealth to advance good causes and serve their fellow men.
Distinguished service, self-forgetting service—you can not appreciate this too keenly— is the one means whereby fame may be attained.
One handicap of wealth is that, as already suggested, it too often breeds selfishness, and selfishness is fatal to fame. Service is the essential thing, the doing of deeds that redound greatly to the advantage of the mass of human beings. It was service that made Homer famous. It was service that has enabled Dante and Shakespeare and Milton to live through the ages. Newton and Darwin, Watt and Fulton endure only because of the services they rendered. And so with Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. Of course, there are men remembered not for the magnitude of their services but for the colossal harm they did. The kaiser will be thus remembered. Such men, however, are infamous, not famous. And, one and all, they stand as examples of supreme absorption in self.
This is the error which, above all, you must avoid, youthful dreamer of fame. Living for yourself alone, working for yourself alone, you will be foredoomed either to oblivion or to infamy. Living and working to be useful to your fellows, happiness is sure to be your portion, and fame, too, may be yours. To serve! That, I repeat, should be your supreme purpose in life. It must be your purpose if you would win any high success even in the business of earning a living as well as the greater business of living. Not long ago a manufacturing company of international reputation held a convention of its selling forces. To this convention it invited, as principal speaker, the head of what is perhaps the biggest business school in the United States. The topic assigned to him was salesmanship, and no doubt it was expected he would detail for his expert audience novel methods in disposing of goods. Instead, he virtually confined himself to discussion of a single business principle, which he thus set forth:
"There is only one kind of stuff out of which the foundation of lasting business success can be built, and that is confidence. There is only one sustaining power of confidence, and that is satisfaction of the other fellow. And just as there is only one sustaining power of the bedrock and foundation of a building (the earth), so there is only one sustaining power of confidence and satisfaction, and that is excellence of service to the other man. When we trace successful business to the heart of it we always find this one concept—service. It is the fundamental law of life."
I do not know what the expert audience who listened to this address thought of it. But I do know that, particularly in these days of social turmoil, addresses like it can not too often be given wherever workers of any kind are met together. For the law of service is not merely vital to real success, it is vital to human welfare in the mass as in the individual. And if discontent and unrest are wide- spread to-day—as they undeniably are—it is largely because millions of men and women foolishly ignore this vital, basic law of service.
Not to serve but to get is their motto. Big profits, big wages, short hours, little effort, are the ideals by which they chart their lives. "Everybody's doing it, so why shouldn't I?" they unanimously demand in self-excuse. The best answer to which is the manifest stress and misery the "getting easy" policy has imposed on the world.
And, indeed, even the most ardent practitioners of "getting easy" know full well that life is strangely lacking in satisfaction to them. As it is bound to be, since the law of service applies to much more than the winning of business success.
Man is so constituted that he can not have peace of mind unless he possesses the consciousness of contributing to the common good. This because man is a gregarious animal, with the herd instinct strongly developed in him. And precisely as the thwarting of any other instinct causes feelings of dissatisfaction, so the thwarting of the herd instinct, the service instinct, brings with it the penalty of a great discontent.
Think this over, as applying to yourself and your work.
Is excellence of service - loyal, honest service - your guiding principle ? Or "easy getting"? If the latter, you may write yourself down a sure loser, no matter how luxurious your home, how fat your bank account. Re- member, too, that the more admirably you serve the more you are likely to get. If you become one of the multitude forever changing jobs or forever vainly awaiting promotion, failure to serve as you should serve may be the very thing that chiefly keeps you back.
Finally, to repeat what was said in the beginning, organize your life through definiteness of purpose. Know clearly what you wish to do, and strive zealously to do it. Avoiding the errors of money-lust and fame-obsession, avoid also the error of drifting. That I would impress upon you with all the emphasis at my command.
Standing one day on a little bridge in the beautiful hill country of central New Hampshire, I tossed a broken twig into the brook flowing beneath the bridge. Where it fell the current was swift and the twig bounded merrily forward. . But presently the brook widened into a small pool, the current slowed down, and so did the twig. So sluggishly did it now move that it seemed to be standing still. But there was yet a slight movement to it. Only it was not a straight ahead movement.
Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the twig floated toward the edge of the pool. A tiny eddy sent it twirling, and for a moment I fancied it would reach the point where the brook narrowed again and quickened its flow. But no. Thrust sideward when released by the eddy, it once more floated toward the pool's edge. A few minutes and it was caught and held fast by an overhanging bush.
Whether this luckless twig made its escape in the end and managed again to float lake-ward I know not. I did not wait to see. But as I walked away I reflected on the strange similarity that exists between the behavior of the twig and the lives of many people. The twig was merely drifting. So are they. Their lives completely lacking the power of a dynamic motive, they have no more control over the course they take than had the idly floating twig. They move hither and yon, at the mercy of circumstance. Existence to them is nothing more than a matter of getting through one day after another. They have no conception of the real purpose of life. They do not seem even to suspect that life has a purpose.
Never do we find them asking themselves, "What's it all about ? Why was I put into this world?" Their one motive—if it can be called a motive—is to pass their time as agreeably as possible. They are pleasure-seekers of the first order.
This means that they are colossally self-centered people. Wherefore they are difficult people for others to get along with. Conflict is inevitable to them. Restlessness and nervousness become characteristic of them. Their pleasures pall. If adversity befall them, they are as helpless as the twig entangled in the bush. Don't make the mistake these drifters make. If you have not already done so, recognize that you have not been created just to amuse yourself. Recognize that much is expected of you. Recognize that you have duties to perform, and in especial the duty of making the world a better, brighter, happier place for your having passed through it.

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