Of ten men who fail in life, nine men fail for want of zeal,
earnestness, courage, where one man fails for want of ability. This
half-heartedness, this lack of zeal, this timidity, this shrinking from
duty and hard tasks is seen on all sides and among all classes. But I
tell you, boys and girls, that the least enviable people in all the
world are those who think that nothing is particularly worth while, that
it does not matter much how a thing is done if it is only done with; who
dwaddle along in a shabby sort of a way, considering only their own
ease, with little sense of responsibility, and with no shame in being
shirks. Every boy should make up his mind to live a round, full,
earnest, intense life. Every girl should do the same. Don’t be
satisfied, boys and girls, to be jellyfishes, with only a capacity for
drawing in nourishment and lingering on until your time comes to die. Be
vertebrates, people of backbone, purpose, aim, enthusiasm, earnestness.
At a public dinner President Roosevelt asked Governor Odell of New York
if he knew anything worth doing that was not hard in the doing, and the
governor could think of nothing. As a rule perhaps there is nothing, and
yet things once hard in the doing become easy as skill is gained by
repetition. Be in earnest, be faithful and resolute, and it will act
like a tonic, giving light to the eyes, springiness to the step, and
buoyancy to the heart.
[Illustration: BEING IN EARNEST.]
Don’t be overcome by your circumstances. No matter how distracting a
man’s surroundings may be, he may yet be able to focus his powers
completely and to marshal them with certainty if he makes up his mind to
do it. If things go hard with the self-mastered man or boy, he will be
able to trample upon difficulties and to use his stumbling-blocks as
stepping-stones. If a great misfortune overtake him he will simply use
it as a starting point for a new departure, a turning point for more
determined effort. He may be weighed down with sorrow and suffering, but
he always starts anew with redoubled determination to do the thing he
has set his heart upon doing. He will not be discouraged; he will not
give up; he will fight it out to the end. Put him in prison, and he will
write the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Deprive him of his eyesight and he will
write the “Paradise Lost.”
It was the spirit of earnestness which fired the soul of Martin Luther
at the Diet of Worms, who, after being urged to recant, said: “Here I
stand; I can do no other; God help me!” It was this spirit which
characterized William Lloyd Garrison, the champion of the abolition of
slavery, who, when he was urged to stop fighting slavery, exclaimed: “I
will not equivocate, I will not retract, I will not be moved one inch,
and I will be heard.” So be in earnest, boys and girls, at home, at
school, at work and at play. It will help you a thousand-fold.