CHOOSING A VOCATION
Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything
else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing.--SYDNEY
SMITH.
"Many a man pays for his success with a slice of his constitution."
No man struggles perpetually and victoriously against his own
character; and one of the first principles of success in life is so to
regulate our career as rather to turn our physical constitution and
natural inclinations to good account than to endeavor to counteract the
one or oppose the other.--BULWER.
He that hath a trade hath an estate.--FRANKLIN.
Nature fits all her children with something to do.--LOWELL.
As occupations and professions have a powerful influence upon the
length of human life, the youth should first ascertain whether the
vocation he thinks of choosing is a healthy one. Statesmen, judges,
and clergymen are noted for their longevity. They are not swept into
the great business vortex, where the friction and raspings of sharp
competition whittle life away at a fearful rate. Astronomers, who
contemplate vast systems, moving through enormous distances, are
exceptionally long lived,--as Herschel and Humboldt. Philosophers,
scientists, and mathematicians, as Galileo, Bacon, Newton, Euler,
Dalton, in fact, those who have dwelt upon the exact sciences, seem to
have escaped many of the ills from which humanity suffers. Great
students of natural history have also, as a rule, lived long and happy
lives. Of fourteen members of a noted historical society in England,
who died in 1870, two were over ninety, five over eighty, and two over
seventy.
The occupation of the mind has a great influence upon the health of the
body.
There is no employment so dangerous and destructive to life but plenty
of human beings can be found to engage in it. Of all the instances
that can be given of recklessness of life, there is none which exceeds
that of the workmen employed in what is called dry-pointing--the
grinding of needles and of table forks. The fine steel dust which they
breathe brings on a painful disease, of which they are almost sure to
die before they are forty. Yet not only are men tempted by high wages
to engage in this employment, but they resist to the utmost all
contrivances devised for diminishing the danger, through fear that such
things would cause more workmen to offer themselves and thus lower
wages. Many physicians have investigated the effects of work in the
numerous match factories in France upon the health of the employees,
and all agree that rapid destruction of the teeth, decay or necrosis of
the jawbone, bronchitis, and other diseases result.
We will probably find more old men on farms than elsewhere. There are
many reasons why farmers should live longer than persons residing in
cities or than those engaged in other occupations. Aside from the
purer air, the outdoor exercise, both conducive to a good appetite and
sound sleep, which comparatively few in cities enjoy, they are free
from the friction, harassing cares, anxieties, and the keen competition
incident to city life. On the other hand, there are some great
drawbacks and some enemies to longevity, even on the farm. Man does
not live by bread alone. The mind is by far the greatest factor in
maintaining the body in a healthy condition. The social life of the
city, the great opportunities afforded the mind for feeding upon
libraries and lectures, great sermons, and constant association with
other minds, the great variety of amusements compensate largely for the
loss of many of the advantages of farm life. In spite of the great
temperance and immunity from things which corrode, whittle, and rasp
away life in the cities, farmers in many places do not live so long as
scientists and some other professional men.
There is no doubt that aspiration and success tend to prolong life.
Prosperity tends to longevity, if we do not wear life away or burn it
out in the feverish pursuit of wealth. Thomas W. Higginson made a list
of thirty of the most noted preachers of the last century, and found
that their average length of life was sixty-nine years.
Among miners in some sections over six hundred out of a thousand die
from consumption. In the prisons of Europe, where the fatal effects of
bad air and filth are shown, over sixty-one per cent. of the deaths are
from tuberculosis. In Bavarian monasteries, fifty per cent. of those
who enter in good health die of consumption, and in the Prussian
prisons it is almost the same. The effect of bad air, filth, and bad
food is shown by the fact that the death-rate among these classes,
between the ages of twenty and forty, is five times that of the general
population of the same age. In New York City, over one-fifth of all
the deaths of persons over twenty are from this cause. In large cities
in Europe the percentage is often still greater. Of one thousand
deaths from all causes, on the average, one hundred and three farmers
die of pulmonary tuberculosis, one hundred and eight fishermen, one
hundred and twenty-one gardeners, one hundred and twenty-two farm
laborers, one hundred and sixty-seven grocers, two hundred and nine
tailors, three hundred and one dry-goods dealers, and four hundred and
sixty-one compositors,--nearly one-half.
According to a long series of investigations by Drs. Benoysten and
Lombard into occupations or trades where workers must inhale dust, it
appears that mineral dust is the most detrimental to health, animal
dust ranking next, and vegetable dust third.
In choosing an occupation, cleanliness, pure air, sunlight, and freedom
from corroding dust and poisonous gases are of the greatest importance.
A man who would sell a year of his life for any amount of money would
be considered insane, and yet we deliberately choose occupations and
vocations which statistics and physicians tell us will be practically
sure to cut off from five to twenty-five, thirty, or even forty years
of our lives, and are seemingly perfectly indifferent to our fate.
There is danger in a calling which requires great expenditure of
vitality at long, irregular intervals. He who is not regularly, or
systematically employed incurs perpetual risk. "Of the thirty-two
all-round athletes in a New York club not long ago," said a physician,
"three are dead of consumption, five have to wear trusses, four or five
are lop-shouldered, and three have catarrh and partial deafness." Dr.
Patten, chief surgeon at the National Soldiers' Home at Dayton, Ohio,
says that "of the five thousand soldiers in that institution fully
eighty per cent. are suffering from heart disease in one form or
another, due to the forced physical exertions of the campaigns."
Man's faculties and functions are so interrelated that whatever affects
one affects all. Athletes who over-develop the muscular system do so
at the expense of the physical, mental, and moral well-being. It is a
law of nature that the overdevelopment of any function or faculty,
forcing or straining it, tends not only to ruin it, but also to cause
injurious reactions on every other faculty and function.
Vigorous thought must come from a fresh brain. We cannot expect nerve,
snap, robustness and vigor, sprightliness and elasticity, in the
speech, in the book, or in the essay, from an exhausted, jaded brain.
The brain is one of the last organs of the body to reach maturity (at
about the age of twenty-eight), and should never be overworked,
especially in youth. The whole future of a man is often ruined by
over-straining the brain in school.
Brain-workers cannot do good, effective work in one line many hours a
day. When the brain is weary, when it begins to lose its elasticity
and freshness, there will be the same lack of tonicity and strength in
the brain product. Some men often do a vast amount of literary work in
entirely different lines during their spare hours.
Cessation of brain activity does not necessarily constitute brain rest,
as most great thinkers know. The men who accomplish the most
brain-work, sooner or later--usually later, unfortunately--learn to
give rest to one set of faculties and use another, as interest begins
to flag and a sense of weariness comes. In this way they have been
enabled to astonish the world by their mental achievements, which is
very largely a matter of skill in exercising alternate sets of
faculties, allowing rest to some while giving healthy exercise to
others. The continual use of one set of faculties by an ambitious
worker will soon bring him to grief. No set of brain cells can
possibly set free more brain force in the combustion of thought than is
stored up in them. The tired brain must have rest, or nervous
exhaustion, brain fever, or even softening of the brain is liable to
follow.
As a rule, physical vigor is the condition of a great career. What
would Gladstone have accomplished with a weak, puny physique? He
addresses an audience at Corfu in Greek, and another at Florence in
Italian. A little later he converses at ease with Bismarck in German,
or talks fluent French in Paris, or piles up argument on argument in
English for hours in Parliament. There are families that have
"clutched success and kept it through generations from the simple fact
of a splendid physical organization handed down from one generation to
another."
[Illustration: William Ewart Gladstone]
All occupations that enervate, paralyze, or destroy body or soul should
be avoided. Our manufacturing interests too often give little thought
to the employed; the article to be made is generally the only object
considered. They do not care if a man spends the whole of his life
upon the head of a pin, or in making a screw in a watch factory. They
take no notice of the occupations that ruin, or the phosphorus, the
dust, the arsenic that destroys the health, that shortens the lives of
many workers; of the cramped condition of the body which creates
deformity.
The moment we compel those we employ to do work that demoralizes them
or does not tend to elevate or lift them, we are forcing them into
service worse than useless. "If we induce painters to work in fading
colors, or architects with rotten stone, or contractors to construct
buildings with imperfect materials, we are forcing our Michael Angelos
to carve in snow."
Ruskin says that the tendency of the age is to expend its genius in
perishable art, _as if it were a triumph to burn its thoughts away in
bonfires_. Is the work you compel others to do useful to yourself and
to society? If you employ a seamstress to make four or five or six
beautiful flounces for your ball dress, flounces which will only clothe
yourself, and which you will wear at only one ball, you are employing
your money selfishly. Do not confuse covetousness with benevolence,
nor cheat yourself into thinking that all the finery you can wear is so
much put into the hungry mouths of those beneath you. It is what those
who stand shivering on the street, forming a line to see you step out
of your carriage, know it to be. These fine dresses do not mean that
so much has been put into their mouths, but _that so much has been
taken out of their mouths_.
Select a clean, useful, honorable occupation. If there is any doubt on
this point, abandon it at once, for _familiarity with a bad business
will make it seem good_. Choose a business that has expansiveness in
it. Some kinds of business not even a J. Pierpont Morgan could make
respectable. Choose an occupation which will develop you; which will
elevate you; which will give you a chance for self-improvement and
promotion. You may not make quite so much money, but you will be more
of a man, and _manhood is above all riches, overtops all titles_, and
_character is greater than any career_. If possible avoid occupations
which compel you to work in a cramped position, or where you must work
at night and on Sundays. Don't try to justify yourself on the ground
that somebody must do this kind of work. Let "somebody," not yourself,
take the responsibility. Aside from the right and wrong of the thing,
it is injurious to the health to work seven days in the week, to work
at night when Nature intended you to sleep, or to sleep in the daytime
when she intended you to work.
Many a man has dwarfed his manhood, cramped his intellect, crushed his
aspiration, blunted his finer sensibilities, in some mean, narrow
occupation just because there was money in it.
"Study yourself," says Longfellow, "and most of all, note well wherein
kind nature meant you to excel."
Dr. Matthews says that "to no other cause, perhaps, is failure in life
so frequently to be traced as to a mistaken calling." We can often
find out by hard knocks and repeated failures what we can not do before
what we can do. This negative process of eliminating the doubtful
chances is often the only way of attaining to the positive conclusion.
How many men have been made ridiculous for life by choosing law or
medicine or theology, simply because they are "honorable professions"!
These men might have been respectable farmers or merchants, but are
"nobodies" in such vocations. The very glory of the profession which
they thought would make them shining lights simply renders more
conspicuous their incapacity.
Thousands of youths receive an education that fits them for a
profession which they have not the means or inclination to follow, and
that unfits them for the conditions of life to which they were born.
Unsuccessful students with a smattering of everything are raised as
much above their original condition as if they were successful. A
large portion of Paris cabmen are unsuccessful students in theology and
other professions and also unfrocked priests. They are very bad cabmen.
"Tompkins forsakes his last and awl
For literary squabbles;
Styles himself poet; but his trade
Remains the same,--he cobbles."
Don't choose a profession or occupation because your father, or uncle,
or brother is in it. Don't choose a business because you inherit it,
or because parents or friends want you to follow it. Don't choose it
because others have made fortunes in it. Don't choose it because it is
considered the "proper thing" and a "genteel" business. The mania for
a "genteel" occupation, for a "soft job" which eliminates drudgery,
thorns, hardships, and all disagreeable things, and one which can be
learned with very little effort, ruins many a youth.
When we try to do that for which we are unfitted we are not working
along the line of our strength, but of our weakness; our will power and
enthusiasm become demoralized; we do half work, botched work, lose
confidence in ourselves, and conclude that we are dunces because we
cannot accomplish what others do; the whole tone of life is demoralized
and lowered because we are out of place.
How it shortens the road to success to make a wise choice of one's
occupation early, to be started on the road of a proper career while
young, full of hope, while the animal spirits are high, and enthusiasm
is vigorous; to feel that every step we take, that every day's work we
do, that every blow we strike helps to broaden, deepen, and enrich life!
Those who fail are, as a rule, those who are out of their places. _A
man out of his place is but half a man; his very nature is perverted_.
He is working against his nature, rowing against the current. When his
strength is exhausted he will float down the stream. A man can not
succeed when his whole nature is entering its perpetual protest against
his occupation. To succeed, his vocation must have the consent of all
his faculties; they must be in harmony with his purpose.
Has a young man a right to choose an occupation which will only call
into play his lower and inferior qualities, as cunning, deceit, letting
all his nobler qualities shrivel and die? Has he a right to select a
vocation that will develop only the beast within him instead of the
man? which will call out the bulldog qualities only, the qualities
which overreach and grasp, the qualities which get and never give,
which develop long-headedness only, while his higher self atrophies?
The best way to choose an occupation is to ask yourself the question,
"What would my government do with me if it were to consider
scientifically my qualifications and adaptations, and place me to the
best possible advantage for all the people?" The Norwegian precept is
a good one: "Give thyself wholly to thy fellow-men; they will give thee
back soon enough." We can do the most possible for ourselves when we
are in a position where we can do the most possible for others. _We
are doing the most for ourselves and for others when we are in a
position which calls into play in the highest possible way the greatest
number of our best faculties; in other words, we are succeeding best
for ourselves when we are succeeding best for others_.
The time will come when there will be institutions for determining the
natural bent of the boy and girl; where men of large experience and
close observation will study the natural inclination of the youth, help
him to find where his greatest strength lies and how to use it to the
best advantage. Even if we take for granted what is not true, that
every youth will sooner or later discover the line of his greatest
strength so that he may get his living by his strong points rather than
by his weak ones, the discovery is often made so late in life that
great success is practically impossible. Such institutions would help
boys and girls to start in their proper careers early in life; and _an
early choice shortens the way_. Can anything be more important to
human beings than a start in life in the right direction, where even
small effort will count for more in the race than the greatest
effort--and a life of drudgery--in the wrong direction? A man is
seldom unsuccessful, unhappy, or vicious when he is in his place.
After once choosing your occupation, however, never look backward;
stick to it with all the tenacity you can muster. Let nothing tempt
you or swerve you a hair's breadth from your aim, and you will win. Do
not let the thorns which appear in every vocation, or temporary
despondency or disappointment, shake your purpose. You will never
succeed while smarting under the drudgery of your occupation, if you
are constantly haunted with the idea that you could succeed better in
something else. Great tenacity of purpose is the only thing that will
carry you over the hard places which appear in every career to ultimate
triumph. This determination, or fixity of purpose, has a great moral
bearing upon our success, for it leads others to feel confidence in us,
and this is everything. It gives credit and moral support in a
thousand ways. People always believe in a man with a fixed purpose,
and will help him twice as quickly as one who is loosely or
indifferently attached to his vocation, and liable at any time to make
a change, or to fail. Everybody knows that determined men are not
likely to fail. They carry in their very pluck, grit, and
determination the conviction and assurance of success.
The world does not dictate _what_ you shall do, but it does demand that
you do _something_, and that you shall be a king in your line. There
is no grander sight than that of a young man or woman in the right
place struggling with might and main to make the most of the stuff at
command, determined that not a faculty or power shall run to waste.
Not money, not position, but power is what we want; and character is
greater than any occupation or profession.
"Do not, I beseech you," said Garfield, "be content to enter on any
business that does not require and compel constant intellectual
growth." Choose an occupation that is refining and elevating; an
occupation that you will be proud of; an occupation that will give you
time for self-culture and self-elevation; an occupation that will
enlarge and expand your manhood and make you a better citizen, a better
man.
Power and constant growth toward a higher life are the great end of
human existence. Your calling should be the great school of life, the
great man-developer, character-builder, that which should broaden,
deepen, and round out into symmetry, harmony, and beauty, all the
God-given faculties within you.
But whatever you do be greater than your calling; let your manhood
overtop your position, your wealth, your occupation, your title. A man
must work hard and study hard to counteract the narrowing, hardening
tendency of his occupation. Said Goldsmith,--
Burke, born for the universe, narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
"Constant engagement in traffic and barter has no elevating influence,"
says Lyndall. "The endeavor to obtain the upper hand of those with
whom we have to deal, to make good bargains, the higgling and scheming,
and the thousand petty artifices, which in these days of stern
competition are unscrupulously resorted to, tend to narrow the sphere
and to lessen the strength of the intellect, and, at the same time, the
delicacy of the moral sense."
Choose upward, study the men in the vocation you think of adopting.
Does it elevate those who follow it? Are they broad, liberal,
intelligent men? Or have they become mere appendages of their
profession, living in a rut with no standing in the community, and of
no use to it? Don't think you will be the great exception, and can
enter a questionable vocation without becoming a creature of it. In
spite of all your determination and will power to the contrary, your
occupation, from the very law of association and habit, will seize you
as in a vise, will mold you, shape you, fashion you, and stamp its
inevitable impress upon you. How frequently do we see bright,
open-hearted, generous young men come out of college with high hopes
and lofty aims, enter a doubtful vocation, and in a few years return to
college commencement so changed that they are scarcely recognized. The
once broad, noble features have become contracted and narrowed. The
man has become grasping, avaricious, stingy, mean, hard. Is it
possible, we ask, that a few years could so change a magnanimous and
generous youth?
Go to the bottom if you would get to the top. Be master of your
calling in all its details. Nothing is small which concerns your
business.
Thousands of men who have been failures in life have done drudgery
enough in half a dozen different occupations to have enabled them to
reach great success, if their efforts had all been expended in one
direction. That mechanic is a failure who starts out to build an
engine, but does not _quite_ accomplish it, and shifts into some other
occupation where perhaps he will almost succeed, but stops just short
of the point of proficiency in his acquisition and so fails again. The
world is full of people who are "almost a success." They stop just
this side of success. Their courage oozes out just before they become
expert. How many of us have acquisitions which remain permanently
unavailable because not carried quite to the point of skill? How many
people "almost know a language or two," which they can neither write
nor speak; a science or two whose elements they have not quite
acquired; an art or two partially mastered, but which they can not
practice with satisfaction or profit! The habit of desultoriness,
which has been acquired by allowing yourself to abandon a half-finished
work, more than balances any little skill gained in one vocation which
might possibly be of use later.
Beware of that frequently fatal gift, versatility. Many a person
misses being a great man by splitting into two middling ones.
Universality is the _ignis fatuus_ which has deluded to ruin many a
promising mind. In attempting to gain a knowledge of half a hundred
subjects it has mastered none. "The jack-of-all-trades," says one of
the foremost manufacturers of this country, "had a chance in my
generation. In this he has none."
"The measure of a man's learning will be the amount of his voluntary
ignorance," said Thoreau. If we go into a factory where the mariner's
compass is made we can see the needles before they are magnetized, they
will point in any direction. But when they have been applied to the
magnet and received its peculiar power, from that moment they point to
the north, and are true to the pole ever after. So man never points
steadily in any direction until he has been polarized by a great master
purpose.
Give your life, your energy, your enthusiasm, all to the highest work
of which you are capable. Canon Farrar said, "There is only one real
failure in life possible, and that is, not to be true to the best one
knows."
"'What must I do to be forever known?' Thy duty ever."
Who does the best his circumstance allows,
Does well, acts nobly, angels could do no more.
YOUNG.
"Whoever can make two ears of corn, two blades of grass to grow upon a
spot of ground where only one grew before," says Swift, "would deserve
better of mankind and do more essential service to his country than the
whole race of politicians put together."