There are many young men on earth who fail because they lack
ambition and determination to advance. There are many more whose
trouble is hasty ambition. They fail to realize their present
chances in their hurried reaching out for something better. You
may see in any club, pool-room or other resort for wasting time
crowds of young men smoking and deploring their lack of success.
"I've been working three years at the same job and the same
salary," one will say, "and I don't see what chance I have for
getting ahead."
The young man who talks in this way does not realize that success
depends on developing the qualities which are in him. He can
develop them if he will, no matter what his place in the world.
Once he is ready to do good work, once he is developed, the work
will find him out. ----
When Napoleon Bonaparte was resting from his labors at St. Helena
he used to tell this story:
"One day on parade a young lieutenant stepped out of the ranks
much excited to appeal to me personally. He said to me that he
had been a lieutenant for five years and had not been able to
advance in rank. I said to him, 'Calm yourself. I was seven
years a lieutenant, and yet you see that a man may push himself
forward, for all that.' " ----
Napoleon, when he preached this lesson to the young, dissatisfied
officer, was the self-made Emperor of the French and of a great
many other nations. He had come to Paris a thin, hollow-cheeked,
under-sized boy from the conquered and despised island of
Corsica. He stuck in the humble grade of lieutenant for seven
years. When the time came he blossomed out.
When he was lieutenant he was developing himself. He studied and
mastered the art of war. He wrote the history of Corsica, and no
one would publish it. He wrote a drama which was never acted.
He wrote a prize essay for the Academy of Lyons, and did not win
the prize. On the contrary, his effort was condemned as
incoherent and poor in style. These were a few failures; enough
to make your ordinary young man throw up his hands and say:
"I've done all I can do; now let the world look out for me."
Just as he became hopeful about the future when he knew that he
had real military genius, he was dismissed from the army, and his
career seemed to be ended. He made the thin soup upon which he
and his brother lived. He could afford to change his shirt only
once a week. He said:
"I breakfasted off dry bread, but I bolted the door on my
poverty."
He kept at it, and all the time, successful or otherwise, he was
developing himself. He developed into an emperor. Young men
will please notice that fact, and the fact that Napoleon worked
and tried under adversity and monotony instead of grumbling.
----
The newspaper reporter who does not get ahead very fast, the
author whose manuscripts are treated as were Napoleon's first
efforts, may study with considerable profit a young American
writer named Richard Harding Davis. That young man had been a
reporter in Philadelphia for seven years when he went to work on
a New York evening newspaper at a small salary. He had written
and was writing some of his best stories, but could not get
ahead, apparently. Nevertheless, he kept on trying, and
developed himself. When other young men were busy talking about
themselves or deploring their lot Davis was writing and grinding
away out of working hours at the effort to get out and realize
what was in him. He succeeded. ----
A few cases have been mentioned for young men to think over.
They are selected at random. No young man need worry about
himself so long as he can honestly say that he is doing his best.
Being in the same place at the same salary for seven years can do
you no harm, if you are developing during that time what is in
you. But you may well worry if you are drifting aimlessly,
pitying yourself, making no effort. If your mind stays in the
same spot for years, that is dangerous. But don't worry about
anything else.