utterly insignificant character. Like charity, it covers a multitude of
sins. It were easy to show by examples from the lives of great men that
their success in life was owing in a large measure to their habits of
punctuality. All great commanders have possessed this faculty in an
eminent degree. The reason punctuality is such an invariable element of
success is not hard to determine. The punctual person, one who always
lives up to his engagements, and is prompt in fulfilling his implied
duties as well, is just the person whose business is conducted after the
most approved forms and methods. They are the ones who have time at
their disposal to cast their eyes over the field of legitimate
enterprise, and at once adopt whatever may seem to them to possess real
excellence. Having met all their engagements promptly, their word is as
good as their bond, their credit unshaken; in short, every avenue of
success is open to them.
But with those persons who are habitually behind in the fulfillment of
their duties, their business is generally in a very unsettled state.
They have not that freshness and business vivacity and life which is
always observable in the man who drives his business instead of allowing
it to drive him. What wonder, then, that they sink beneath the load of
accumulated cares, give up the great battle of life in despair, and are
content to fill a subordinate place in the economy of the world? Would
that young men thought more of what is involved in punctuality! It is
not merely the "being on time," but it imports such a habit that,
carried into life, it is one of the main instruments in making real
youthful dreams of success. It is that which makes business a pleasure
instead of a drudgery. It is that which goes so far in building up a
reputation of sagacity, skill, and integrity.
No one can have a high opinion of a person who is so regardless of
punctuality, even in small matters, as to be continually breaking his
word, under the impression that "it is of no consequence," as so many
often say, to excuse their habit of being false to their word. There are
some persons who seldom, or never, do as they promised. We know persons,
who in other respects are worthy people, who can scarcely command
confidence, because they are so slack in fulfilling their engagements
and meeting their obligations in small matters. We know young men of
promise who are daily losing ground among their acquaintances for a
similar reason. A man will soon ruin himself this way. In all business
transactions, in all engagements, let all do exactly as they say,—be
punctual to the minute; even a little beforehand is far preferable to
being a little behind time. Such a habit secures a composure which is
essential to happiness.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: CONCENTRATION.]
[Illustration]
In this day, when so many things are clamoring for attention, the first
law of success may be said to be concentration. It is impossible to be
successful in every branch of business, or renowned in every department
of a professional life. We must learn to bend our energies to one point,
and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right nor to
the left. It has been said that a great deal of the wisdom of a man in
this century is shown in leaving things unknown, and a great deal of his
practical ability in leaving things undone. The day of universal
scholarships is past. Life is short, and art is long. The range of human
wisdom has increased so enormously that no human brain can grapple with
it, and the man who would know one thing well must have the courage to
be ignorant of a thousand other things, however attractive or
interesting. As with knowledge, so with work. The man who would get
along must single out his specialty, and into that must pour the whole
stream of his activity—all the energies of his hand, eye, tongue,
heart, and brain. Broad culture, many-sidedness, are beautiful things to
contemplate; but it is the narrow-edged men—the men of one single and
intense purpose—who steel the soul against all things else, that
accomplish the hard work of the world.
The great men of every age who have had the arduous task to shape human
destiny have been men of one idea impelled by resolute energy. Take
those names that are historic, and, with the exception of a few great
creative minds, you find them to be men who are identified with some one
achievement upon which their life force was spent. The great majority of
men must concentrate their energies upon the complete mastery of some
one profession, trade, or calling, or they will experience the
disappointment of those whose empire has been lost in the ambition of
universal conquest. A man may have the most dazzling talents, but if
they are scattered upon many objects he will accomplish nothing.
Strength is like gunpowder: to be effective it needs concentration and
aim. The marksman who aims at the whole target will seldom hit the
center. The literary man or philosopher may revel among the sweetest and
most beautiful flowers of thought, but unless he gathers or condenses
these in the honeycomb of some great thought or work, his finest
conceptions will be lost or useless.
The world has few universal geniuses who are capable of mastering a
dozen languages, arts, or sciences, or driving a dozen callings abreast.
Beginners in life are perpetually complaining of the disadvantages under
which they labor; but it is an indisputable fact that more persons fail
from a multiplicity of pursuits and pretensions than from a poverty of
resources. "The one prudence in life," says a shrewd American essayist,
"is concentration, the one evil is dissipation; and it makes no
difference whether our dissipations are coarse or fine, property and its
cares, friends and a social habit, politics, music, or feasting. Every
thing is good which takes away one plaything and delusion more, and
drives us home to add one stroke of faithful work." The gardener does
not suffer the sap to be driven into a thousand channels merely to
develop a myriad of profitless twigs. He prunes the branches, and leaves
the vital juices to be absorbed by a few vigorous, fruit-bearing
branches.
While the highest ability accomplishes but little if scattered on a
multiplicity of objects, on the other hand, if one has but a thimbleful
of brains, and concentrates them upon the thing he has in hand, he may
achieve miracles. Momentum in physics, if properly directed, will drive
a tallow candle through an inch board. Just so will oneness of aim and
the direction of the energies to a single pursuit, while all others are
waived, enable the veriest weakling to make his mark where he strikes.
The general who scatters his soldiers all about the country insures
defeat; so does he whose attention is diffused through innumerable
channels, so that it can not gather in force on any one point. The human
mind, in short, resembles a burning-glass, whose rays are intense only
as they are concentrated. As the glass burns only when its rays are
converged to a focal point, so the former illumes the world of science,
literature, or business only when it is directed to a solitary object.
What is more powerless than the scattered clouds of steam as they rise
to the sky? They are as impotent as the dew-drop that falls nightly upon
the earth; but concentrated and condensed in a steam boiler they are
able to cut through solid rock, to hurl mountains into the sea, and to
bring the antipodes to our doors.
It is the lack of concentration and wholeness which distinguishes the
shabby, half-hearted, and blundering—the men who make the mob of
life—from those who win victories. In slower times success might have
been won by the man who gave but a corner of his brain to the work in
hand, but in these days of keen competition it demands the intensest
application of the thinking faculty. Exclusive dealings in worldly
pursuits is a principle of hundred-headed power. By dividing his time
among too many objects, a man of genius often becomes diamond dust
instead of diamond. The time spent by many persons in profitless,
desultory reading would, if concentrated upon a single line of study,
have made them masters of an entire branch of literature or science.
Distraction of pursuits is the rock upon which most unsuccessful persons
split in early life. In law, in medicine, in trade, in the mechanical
professions the most successful persons have been those who have stuck
to one thing. Nine out of ten men lay out their plans on too vast a
scale, and they who are competent to do almost any thing do nothing,
because they never make up their minds distinctly as to what they want
or what they intend to be.
We are often compelled to a choice of acquisitions, for there are some
things the possession of which is incompatible with the possession of
others, and the sooner this truth is known and recognized the better the
chances of success and happiness. Much material good must be resigned if
we would attain the highest degree of moral excellence, and many
spiritual joys must be foregone if we resolve at all risks to win great
material advantages. To strive for a high personal position, and yet
expect to have all the delights of leisure; to labor for vast riches,
and yet to ask for freedom from anxiety and care, and all the happiness
which flows from a contented mind; to indulge in sensual gratifications,
and yet demand health, strength, and vigor; to live for self, and yet to
look for the joys that spring from a virtuous and self-denying life—is
to ask for impossibilities.
If you start for success you must expect to pay its price. It can not be
won by feeble, half-way efforts, neither is it to be acquired because
sought for in a dozen different directions. It demands that you bring to
your chosen profession or calling energy, industry, and, above all, that
singleness of purpose which is willing to devote the energies of a
life-time to its accomplishment. Mere wishing and sighing brings it not.
Many little calls of society on your time must pass unheeded. You can
not expect to live tranquilly and at your ease, but to be up and doing,
with all your energies devoted to the one point kept constantly in view.
Cultivate this habit of concentration if you would succeed in business;
make it a second nature. Have a work for every moment, and mind the
moment's work. Whatever your calling, master all its bearings and
details, all its principles, instruments, and applications. We have so
much work ahead of us that must be done if we would reach the point
desired that we must save our strength as much as possible.
Concentration affords a great safe-guard against exhaustion. He who
scatters himself on many objects soon loses his energy, and with his
energy his enthusiasm—and how is success possible without enthusiasm?
It becomes, then, of importance to be sure we have started right in the
race for distinction. Every beginner in life should strive early to
ascertain the strong faculty of his mind or body fitting him for some
special pursuit, and direct his utmost energies to bring it to
perfection. There is no adaptation or universal applicability in man;
but each has his special talent, and the mastery of successful men is in
adroitly keeping themselves where and when that turn shall need oftenest
to be practiced.
Though one must be wholly absorbed to win success, still singleness of
aim by no means implies monotony of action; but if we would be felt on
this stirring planet, if we would strike the world with lasting force,
we must be men of one thing. Having found the thing we have to do we
must throw into it all the energies of our being, seeking its
accomplishment at whatever hazard or sacrifice. But that does not
prevent us from participating in the enjoyments of life. If you are sent
on business to some foreign land, though bent on business, still you can
admire, as you hurry along, the beautiful scenery from the car windows;
you can note the strange places through which you pass; you can observe
the wondrous sublimity of the ocean without being distracted from the
main objects of your travels. So it is not to be inferred from what has
been said that concentration means isolation or self-absorption. There
may be a hundred accessories in life, provided they contribute to one
result.
In urging the importance of concentration, and of sticking to one thing,
we do not mean that any man should be a mere lawyer, a mere doctor, or a
mere merchant or mechanic, and nothing more. These are cases of
one-sidedness pushed too far. There is no more pitiable wreck than the
man whose one giant faculty has drowned the rest. Man dwarfs himself if
he pushes too far the doctrine of the subdivision of labor. Success is
purchased too dear if to attain it one has subordinated all his
faculties and tastes to one master passion, and become transformed into
a head, a hand, or an arm, instead of a man. Every man ought to be
something more than a factor in some grand formula of social or
economical science, a cog or pulley in some grand machine.
Let every one take care, first of all, to be a man, cultivating and
developing, as far as possible, all of his powers on a symmetrical plan;
and then let him expend his chief labors on the one faculty, which
nature, by making it prominent, has given a hint should be especially
cultivated. There is, indeed, no profession upon which a high degree of
knowledge will not continually bear. Things which, at first glance, seem
most remote from it will often be brought into close approximation to
it, and acquisitions which the narrow-minded might deem a hindrance will
sooner or later yield something serviceable. Nothing is more beautiful
than to see a man hold his art, trade, or calling in an easy, disengaged
way, wearing it as the soldier does his sword, which, once laid aside,
the accomplished soldier gives you no hint that he has ever worn. Too
often this is not the case, and the shop-keeper irresistibly reminds you
of the shop, and the scholar, who should remind you that he has been on
Parnassus only by the odors of the flowers he has crushed, which cling
to his feet, affronts you with a huge nosegay stuck in his bosom.
One can make all his energies bear on one important point and yet show
himself a man among men by his interest in matters of public concern. He
can endear himself to the community by kindly acts to the distressed, as
well as completely mastering, in all its bearings, the one great work
which he has taken upon himself as his life's work. Then take up your
task. Remember that you must marshall all your forces at one point, and
move in one direction, if you would accomplish what your desires have
painted; but also remember that you are a human being, and not a
machine, and that as you pass on the journey of life you should, as far
as possible, without insuring defeat, take note of the wonders which
nature has spread before you, should ponder on what history says of the
past, should muse over the solemn import of life, and thus, while
winning laurels for your brow, and achieving your heart's desire,
develop in you the faculties which go to make, in its complete meaning,
a man or woman.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: DECISION.]
[Illustration]
There is one quality of mind which of all others is most likely to make
our fortunes if combined with talents, or to ruin them without it. We
allude to that quality of the mind which under given circumstances acts
with a mathematical precision. With such minds to resolve and to act is
instantaneous. They seem to precede the march of events, to foresee
results in the chrysalis of their causes, and to seize that moment for
exertion which others use in deliberation. There are occasions when
action must be taken at once. There is no time to long and carefully
calculate the chances. The occasion calls for immediate action; and the
call must be met, or the time goes by, and our utmost exertions can not
bring it back. At such times is seen the triumph of those who have
carefully trained all their faculties to a habit of prompt decision.
They seize the occasion, and make the thought start into instant action;
they at once plan and perform, resolve and execute.
It is but a truism to say that there can be no success in life without
decision of character. Even brains are secondary in importance to will.
The intellect is but the half of a man; the will is the driving-wheel,
the spring of motive power. A vacillating man, no matter what his
abilities, is invariably pushed aside in the race of life by one of
determined will. It is he who resolves to succeed, and at every fresh
rebuff begins resolutely again, that reaches the goal. The shores of
fortune are covered with the stranded wrecks of men of brilliant
abilities, but who have wanted courage, faith, and decision, and have
therefore perished in sight of more resolute, but less capable
adventurers, who succeeded in making port. Hundreds of men go to their
graves in obscurity who have remained obscure only because they lacked
the pluck to make the first effort, and who, could they only have
resolved to begin, would have astonished the world by their achievements
and successes.
To do any thing in this world that is worth doing we must not stand
shivering on the bank, and thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump
in and scramble through as well as we can. The world was not made for
slow, squeamish, fastidious men, but for those who act promptly and with
power. Obstacles and perplexities every man must meet, and he must
either conquer them or they will conquer _him_. Hesitation is a sign of
weakness, for inasmuch as the comparative good and evil of the different
modes of action about which we hesitate are seldom equally balanced, a
strong mind should perceive the slightest inclination of the beam with
the glance of an eagle, particularly as there will be cases where the
preponderance will be very _minute_, even though there should be life in
one scale and death in the other. It is better occasionally to decide
wrong than to be forever wavering and hesitating, now veering to this
side and then to that, with all the misery and disaster that follow from
continual doubt.
It has been truly said that the great moral victories and defeats of the
world often turn on minutes. Fortune is proverbially a fickle jade, and
there is nothing like promptness of action, the timing of things at the
lucky moment, to force her to surrender her favors. Crises come, the
seizing of which is triumph, the neglect of which is ruin. It is this
lack of promptness, so characteristic of the gladiatorial intellect, of
this readiness to meet every attack of ill-fortune with counter
resources of evasion, which causes so many defeats of life.
There is a race of narrow wits that never succeed for want of courage.
Their understanding is of that halting, hesitating kind, which gives
just light enough to see difficulties and start doubts, but not enough
to surmount the one or remove the other. They do not know what force of
character means. They seem to have no backbone, but only the mockery of
a vertebral column made of india-rubber, equally pliant in all
directions. They come and go like shadows, sandwich their sentences with
apologies, are overtaken by events while still irresolute, and let the
tide ebb before they feebly push off. Always brooding over their plans,
but never executing them. It is scarcely possible to conceive of a more
unhappy man than one afflicted with this infirmity. It has been remarked
that there are persons who lack decision to such a degree that they seem
never to have made up their mind which leg to stand upon; who deliberate
in an agony of choice when not a grain's weight depends upon the
decision, or the question what road to walk upon, what bundle of hay to
munch first; to be undetermined where the case is plain and the
necessity so urgent; to be always intending to lead a new life, but
never finding time to set about it. There is nothing more pitiable in
the world than such an irresolute man thus oscillating between extremes,
who would willingly join the two, but does not perceive that nothing can
unite them.
Indecision is a slatternly housewife, by whose fault the moth and rust
are allowed to make such dull work of life. "A man without decision,"
says John Foster, "can never be said to belong to himself, since if he
dared to assert that he did the puny force of some cause about as
powerful, you would have supposed, as a spider, may make a seizure of
the unhappy boaster the very next minute, and contemptuously exhibit the
futility of the determinations by which he was to have proved the
independence of his understanding and will." He belongs to whatever can
make capture of him; and one thing after another vindicates its right to
him by arresting him while he is trying to proceed, as twigs and chips
floating near the edge of a river are intercepted by every weed, and
whirled in every little eddy. Having concluded on a design, he may
pledge himself to accomplish it, if the hundred diversities of feeling
which may come within the week will let him. His character precludes all
foresight of his conduct. He may sit and wonder what form and direction
his views and actions are destined to take to-morrow, as a farmer has
often to acknowledge that next day's proceedings are at the disposal of
its winds and clouds.
A great deal of the unhappiness and much of the vice of the world is
owing to weakness and indecision of purpose. The will, which is the
central force of character, must be trained to habits of decision;
otherwise it will neither be able to resist evil nor to follow good.
Decision gives the power of standing firmly when to yield, however
slightly, might be only the first step in a down-hill course to ruin.
Calling upon others for help in forming a decision is worse than
useless. A man must so train his habits as to rely upon his own powers,
and to depend upon his own courage in moments of emergency. Many are the
valiant purposes formed that end merely in words; deeds intended that
are never done; designs projected that are never begun; and all for the
want of a little courageous decision. Better far the silent tongue, but
the eloquent deed; and the most decisive answer of all is _doing_. There
is nothing more to be admired than a manly firmness and decision of
character. We admire a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it,
who sees at once what is to be done in given circumstances, and does it.
There never was a time in the world's history that called more earnestly
upon all persons to cultivate a firm, manly decision of character, to be
able to say No to the seductive power of temptation. There is no more
beautiful trait of character to be found than that of a determined will
guided by right motives. To talk beautifully is one thing, but to act
with promptitude when the time of action has fully come is as far
superior to the former as the brilliant sunlight surpasses the
reflection of the moon. To train the mind to act with decision is of no
less consequence than of acting promptly when the decision is reached.
Of all intellectual gifts bestowed upon man there is nothing more
intoxicating than readiness—the power of calling all the resources of
the mind into simultaneous action at a moment's notice. Nothing strikes
the unready as so miraculous as this promptitude in others; nothing
impresses him with so dull and envious a sense of contrast with himself.
This want of decision is to be laid on the shelf, to creep where others
fly, to fall into permanent discouragement. To possess decision is to
have the mind's intellectual property put out at fifty or one hundred
per cent; to be uncertain at the moment of trial is to be dimly
conscious of faculties tied up somewhere in a napkin. Decision of mind,
like vigor of body, is a gift of God. It can not be created by human
effort; it can only be cultivated. But every mind has the germ of this
quality, which can be strengthened by favorable circumstances and
motives presented to the mind, and by method and order in the
prosecution of duties or tasks.